n trap by a sharper man than himself, a being that
up to that minute he had believed the world could not produce.

Dr. Slavens quickly gathered the money. The others around the table,
blazing now in their desire to get a division of fortune's favors, put
down their bets and called loudly for the gamekeeper to cover them.

"Game's closed," Shanklin announced, shutting up his valise, into which
he had tossed both dice and box.

He made a move as if to part the tent-wall behind him.

"Hold on!" said the doctor, snatching off his goggles and pushing up the
brim of his hat. "I've got another score to settle with you, Shanklin.
Do you know me now?"

Shanklin didn't wait to reply. He dropped to his knees just as Slavens
reached for him, catching the collar of his coat. In an instant the
gambler was gone, but his coat was in Dr. Slavens' hand, a circumstance
from which the assembled men drew a great deal of merriment.

The chief of police, remiss in his high duty, should have been there to
sustain Shanklin's hand, according to their gentlemanly agreement when
the partnership was formed. He arrived too late. Shanklin was gone, and
from the turmoil in the tent the chief concluded that he had trimmed
somebody in his old-fashioned, comfortable way. So his duty, as he saw
it in that moment, lay in clearing them out and dispersing them, and
turning deaf ears to all squeals from the shorn and skinned.

Dr. Slavens and his friend had nothing to linger for. They were the
first to leave, the doctor carrying Shanklin's coat under his arm, the
pockets of his own greasy makeshift bulging with more money than he ever
had felt the touch of before. As they hurried along the dark street away
from the scene of their triumph, the little man with fiery whiskers did
the talking.

"Mackenzie is my name," said he, all of the suspicion gone out of him,
deep, feeling admiration in its place, "and if you was to happen up to
southern Montana you'd find me pretty well known. I've got fifty
thousand sheep on the range up there, average four dollars a head, and
I'd hand half of 'em over to you right now if you'd show me how you
turned that trick. That was the slickest thing I ever saw!"

"It wouldn't do you any good at all to know how it was done," said
Slavens, "for it was a trick for the occasion and the man we worked it
on. The thing for us to do is to go to some decent, quiet place and
divide this money."

"Give me my two hundred and the stak