t'd most break your hear to see 'er. Like a little
snowdrop you've picked, an' worn, an' slung away. So gentle--"

"Well, what's this, anyway? A wake?" broke in Faro Sam's icy voice. "Do
I hire fiddlers to play a funeral dirge? Get on with you," scattering
the girls in the direction of the card tables and the dancing platform.
"Which ones do you want, Curly?"

"I want Babe and Betsy. Where's that little pale printer's devil, the
one they call the gambler's ghost? I know Sam won't let you girls leave
here."

"He's workin' up on the paper, I guess. They ran out of coal oil and had
to fire up with pine knots."

"He's comin, now. He ain't no gambler's ghost tonight, though; he's pot
black!"

"Ghost," said Curly, "you take this around to Allie." It was a $50
octagonal slug.

"Yessir."

"And you say that there's more, all she wants, where that comes from."

"Yessir."

Then, shaking his mop of brown, curly hair as though to relieve his head
of a burden, he took the girls for what he felt was a much-needed round
of drinks.

By midnight the place was wild!

"Sam," shouted Curly, "what's the limit on your pesky old game?"

"The ceiling's the limit."

"Well, I'll put up one bet! Bein' on Easy Street I was goin' back to the
States to marry my girl, but I'm blamed if I don't put up my swag for
one turn of the cards."

He sent for his "dust," and piled the long, buckskin bags criss-cross
before Faro Sam's table.

"I'll copper the jack, gentlemen," he shouted. "All on the jack!"

Teddy Karn's face turned a pasty hue, and the tip of his tongue slid
along his puffed lips, but the lines of Faro Sam's face never changed,
and his eyes retained the blank impassivity of a snake's as he slipped
his cards. There was a sudden, tense silence. The girls pressed forward
with hurried breathing and the men waited, rigid as stones.

Somebody's mongrel paced to the middle of the platform and scratched for
fleas, with soft thumping on the floor. That was all.

Suddenly a man swore! A woman's voice shrilled hysterically! Faro Sam
rose to his feet ceremoniously. "The house is yours."

"By Jinks!" yelled Curly, "I've coppered the jack! I've broken the bank!
I've--"

One of the doors swung open quietly. Silence dropped once more, with the
speed of tropical night, upon the blare of the place.

The gambler's ghost stood there silhouetted against the light from a
log fire outside. There were pink streaks down his dirty face, washed