“And then I seen him lose most of it back again.
Roulette.”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on Terry, and the boy
found himself desiring mightily to discover just what
was going on behind the changing green of her eyes.
He was shocked when he discovered. It came like
the break of high dawn in the mountains of the Big
Bend. Suddenly she had smiled openly, frankly.
“Hard luck, partner!”
A little shivering sense of pleasure ran through him.
He knew that he had been admitted by her—accepted.
Her father had thrown up his head.
“Someone come in the back way. Oregon,
go find out!”
Dark-eyed Oregon Charlie slipped up and through the
door. Everyone in the room waited, a little tense,
with lifted heads. Slim was studying the last
throw that Phil Marvin had made. Terry could not
but wonder what significance that “back way”
had. Presently Oregon reappeared.
“Pete’s come.”
“The hell!”
“Went upstairs.”
“Wants to be alone,” interrupted the girl.
“He’ll come down and talk when he feels
like it. That’s Pete’s way.”
“Watching us, maybe,” growled Joe Pollard,
with a shade of uneasiness still. “Damned
funny gent, Pete is. Watches a man like a cat;
watches a gopher hole all day, maybe. And maybe
the gent he watches is a friend he’s known for
ten years. Well—let Pete go. They
ain’t no explaining him.”
Through the last part of his talk, and through the
heaviness of his voice, cut another tone, lighter,
sharper, venomous: “Phil, you gummed them
dice that last time!”
Joe Pollard froze in place; the eyes of the girl widened.
Terry, looking across the room, saw Phil Marvin scoop
up the dice and start to his feet.
“You lie, Slim!”
Instinctively Terry slipped his hand onto his gun.
It was what Phil Marvin had done, as a matter of fact.
He stood swelling and glowering, staring down at Slim
Dugan. Slim had not risen. His thin, lithe
body was coiled, and he reminded Terry in ugly fashion
of a snake ready to strike. His hand was not
near his gun. It was the calm courage and self-confidence
of a man who is sure of himself and of his enemy.
Terry had heard of it before, but never seen it.
As for Phil, it was plain that he was ill at ease
in spite of his bulk and the advantage of his position.
He was ready to fight. But he was not at all pleased
with the prospect.
Terry again glanced at the witnesses. Every one
of them was alert, but there was none of that fear
which comes in the faces of ordinary men when strife
between men is at hand. And suddenly Terry knew
that every one of the five men in the room was an
old familiar of danger, every one of them a past master
of gun fighting!
The uneasy wait continued for a moment or more.
The whisper of Joe Pollard to his daughter barely
reached the ear of Terry.
