out and the hard, premature lines were gone, mirrored Pale Face Harry's
perturbed expression, his eyes fixed anxiously on Madison opposite him;
and Helena, sitting beside Madison, was very quiet, her forehead
wrinkled and pursed up into little furrows, the brown eyes with a hint
of dismay and consternation lurking in their depths, one hand stretched
out to lay quite unconsciously on Madison's sleeve--and from the sleeve
to steal occasionally into Madison's hand.

Madison, his lips tight, pushed back his chair suddenly--they had been
sitting there an hour.

"You were right, Helena," he said, with a nervous laugh. "The more you
try to figure it out the worse it gets."

"Aw, say, Doc," pleaded the Flopper desperately, "don't youse give it
up--youse have got de head--youse ain't never left us in a hole yet."

Madison looked at him, and smiled mirthlessly.

"My head!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I got you into this, all of you--but
it will take more than my head to get you out. If I could stand for it
myself, I'd do it--but I can't without dragging you in too--we're too
intimately mixed up. If I said it was a deal of mine--they'd ask where
Helena came from--they'd ask where you came from, Flopper. We're
beaten--beaten every way we turn. The game has got us--we haven't a
move. We played it to the limit, the slickest swindle that was ever
worked, and it worked till there's more money than I've tried to count.
And then it changed us from thieves, from--from anything you like--and
now that we want to quit, now that we want a chance to make good, it's
got us in its grip and we can't get away." He flirted a bead of moisture