many louis he had won--won by his last throw and with his last available
coin.

As the scene passed before him now he got to his feet and, with that look
of the visionary in his eyes, which those only know who have watched the
born gamester, said, "I'll back my hand till the last throw." Then it
was, as his eyes gazed in front of him dreamily, he saw the card on his
mirror bearing the words, "Courage, soldier!"

With a deepening flame in his eyes he went over and gazed at it. At
length he reached out and touched the writing with a caressing finger.

"Kitty--Kitty, how great you are!" he said. Then as he turned to the
outer door a softness came into his face, stole up into his brilliant
eyes and dimmed them with a tear. "What a hand to hold in the dark--the
dark of life !" he said aloud. "Courage, soldier!" he added, as he
opened the door by which he had entered, through which Burlingame had
gone, and strode away towards the town of Askatoon, feeling somehow in
his heart that before midnight his luck would turn.

From the dining-room Kitty had watched him go. "Courage, soldier!" she
whispered after him, and she laughed; but almost immediately she threw
her head up with a gasping sigh, and when it was lowered again two tears
were stealing down her cheeks.

With an effort she conquered herself, wiped away the tears, and said
aloud, with a whimsical but none the less pitiful self-reproach, "Kitty-
Kitty Tynan, what a fool you are!"

Entering the room Crozier had left, she went to the desk with the green-