All these things were done casually, but Terry, his attention finally off
the game, caught a meaning in them. Every exit was blocked for him. He
was trapped at the will of Joe Pollard!



CHAPTER 25


Looking back, he could understand everything easily. The horse was the
main objective of Pollard. He had won the money so as to tempt Terry to
gamble with the value of the blood-bay. But by fair means or foul he
intended to have El Sangre. And now, the moment his men were in place, a
change came over Pollard. He straightened in the chair. A slight
outthrust of his lower jaw made his face strangely brutal,
conscienceless. And his cloudy agate eyes were unreadable.

"Look here, Terry," he argued calmly, but Terry could see that the voice
was raised so that it would undubitably reach the ears of the farthest of
the four men. "I don't mind letting a gambling debt ride when a gent
ain't got anything more to put up for covering his money. But when a gent
has got more, I figure he'd ought to cover with it."

Unreasoning anger swelled in the throat of Terry Hollis; the same blind
passion which had surged in him before he started up at the Cornish table
and revealed himself to the sheriff. And the similarity was what sobered
him. It was the hunger to battle, to kill. And it seemed to him that
Black Jack had stepped out of the old picture and now stood behind him,
tempting him to strike.