“Now,” said the latter, “I want to do the square thing.  If you’ll let us strip you and turn out your pockets, we’ll see you get any winnings you’re entitled to when we’ve straightened up the cards.”

The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of detection among the Canadian farmers.  He probably knew they would not wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to Winston.

“And who the ——­ are you?” he asked.

Winston smiled grimly.  “I guess you have heard of me.  Any way, there are a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne.  Quite sure I know a straight game when I see it!”

The man’s resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he laughed as he swept his glance around at the angry faces turned upon him.

“If you don’t there’s nobody does,” he said.  “Still, as you’ve got my pistol and ’most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a partner out of this.”

There was an ominous murmur, and the lad’s face showed livid with fury and humiliation, but Winston turned quietly to the hotel keeper.

“You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him there,” he said.  “Dane, give him the bills.  The rest of you had better sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you’ll get whatever the fellow has upon him divided amongst you.  Then, because I ask you, and you’d have had nothing but for me, you’ll put him in his wagon and turn him out quietly upon the prairie.”

“That’s sense, and we don’t want no circus here,” said somebody.

A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more Draconic measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to.  Then Winston reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who made the last attempt to rouse his companions.

“Let them alone, Ferris, and come along.  You’ll get most of what you lost back to-morrow, and we’re going to take you home,” he said.

Ferris turned upon him hoarse with passion, flushed in face, and swaying a trifle on his feet, while Winston noticed that he drew one arm back.

“Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?” he asked.  “Keep your distance.  I’m going to stay here, and, if I’d had my way, we’d have kicked you out of Silverdale.”

Winston dropped his hand, but the next moment the ornament of a distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at Dane.