Each was having his hair cut.

At the same moment a fly had lighted on each of the mirrors before the
two customers.

The man who had offered the bet was a well known local character--Jim
Duff by name, by occupation one of the meanest and most dishonorable
gamblers who had ever disgraced Arizona by his presence.

There is an old tradition about "honest gamblers" and "players of square
games." The man who has been much about the world soon learns to
understand that the really honest and "square" gambler is a creature of
the imagination. The gambler makes his living by his wits, and he who
lives by anything so intangible speedily finds the road to cheating and
trickery.

Jim Duff had been no exception. His reputation was such that he could
find few men among the residents of this part of Arizona who would meet
him at the gaming table. He plied his trade mostly among simple-minded
tourists from the east--the class of men who are known in Arizona as
"tenderfeet."

Rumor had it that Jim Duff, in addition to his many years of unblushing
cheating for a living, had also shot and killed three men in the past on
as many different occasions.

Yet he was a sleek, well-groomed fellow, tall and slim, and, in the
matter of years, somewhere in his forties. Duff always dressed well--
with a foundation of the late styles of the east, with something of the
swagger of the plains added to his raiment.