Letton smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Daylight looked at Dowsett and murmured:--

"I guess that story of mine had some meaning, after all." He
laughed in a sickly fashion. "It was your deal all right, and
you-all dole them right, too. Well, I ain't kicking. I'm like
the player in that poker game. It was your deal, and you-all had
a right to do your best. And you done it--cleaned me out
slicker'n a whistle."

He gazed at the heap on the table with an air of stupefaction.

"And that-all ain't worth the paper it's written on. Gol dast it,
you-all can sure deal 'em 'round when you get a chance.
Oh, no, I ain't a-kicking. It was your deal, and you-all
certainly done me, and a man ain't half a man that squeals on
another man's deal. And now the hand is played out, and the
cards are on the table, and the deal's over, but..."

His hand, dipping swiftly into his inside breast pocket, appeared
with the big Colt's automatic.

"As I was saying, the old deal's finished. Now it's MY deal, and
I'm a-going to see if I can hold them four aces--

"Take your hand away, you whited sepulchre!" he cried sharply.

Nathaniel Letton's hand, creeping toward the push-button on the
desk, was abruptly arrested.