gambled everything I had away--more than two thousand dollars, more than
two thousand dollars." He laughed a raw, mirthless laugh. "Well, you're
the greatest gambler in the West. So was I-in the East. It pulverised
me at last, when I'd nothing left--and drink, drink, drink. I gave up
both one night and came out West.

"I started doctoring here. I've got money, plenty of money--medicine,
mines, land got it for me. I've been lucky. Now you come to bluff me--
me! You don't know old Busby." He spat on the floor. "I'm not to be
bluffed. I know too much. Before they could lynch me I'd talk. But to
play you, the greatest gambler in the West, for two thousand dollars--
yes, I'd like the sting of it again. Twos, fours, double-sixes--the
gentleman's game!" He rattled the dice and threw them with a flourish
out on the table, his evil face lighting up. "Come! You can't have
something for nothing," he growled.

As he spoke, a change came over Rawley's face. It lost its cool
imperturbability, it grew paler, the veins on the fine forehead stood
out, a new, flaring light came into the eyes. The old gambler's spirit
was alive. But even as it rose, sweeping him into that area of fiery
abstraction where every nerve is strung to a fine tension, and the
surrounding world disappears, he saw the face of Diana Welldon, he
remembered her words to him not an hour before, and the issue of the
conflict, other considerations apart, was without doubt. But there was
her brother and his certain fate, if the two thousand dollars were not
paid in by midnight. He was desperate. It was in reality for Diana's
sake. He approached the table, and his old calm returned.

"I have no money to play with," he said quietly. With a gasp of
satisfaction, the old man fumbled in the inside of his coat and drew out