Gol dast it,
you-all can sure deal 'em 'round when you get a chance. Oh, no, I ain't
a-kicking. It was your deal, and you-all certainly done me, and a man
ain't half a man that squeals on another man's deal. And now the hand
is played out, and the cards are on the table, and the deal's over,
but..."

His hand, dipping swiftly into his inside breast pocket, appeared with
the big Colt's automatic.

"As I was saying, the old deal's finished. Now it's MY deal, and I'm
a-going to see if I can hold them four aces--

"Take your hand away, you whited sepulchre!" he cried sharply.

Nathaniel Letton's hand, creeping toward the push-button on the desk,
was abruptly arrested.

"Change chairs," Daylight commanded. "Take that chair over there, you
gangrene-livered skunk. Jump! By God! or I'll make you leak till
folks'll think your father was a water hydrant and your mother a
sprinkling-cart. You-all move your chair alongside, Guggenhammer; and
you-all Dowsett, sit right there, while I just irrelevantly explain the
virtues of this here automatic. She's loaded for big game and she goes
off eight times. She's a sure hummer when she gets started.

"Preliminary remarks being over, I now proceed to deal. Remember, I
ain't making no remarks about your deal. You done your darndest, and
it was all right. But this is my deal, and it's up to me to do my
darndest. In the first place, you-all know me. I'm Burning
Daylight--savvee? Ain't afraid of God, devil, death, nor destruction.
Them's my four aces, and they sure copper your bets. Look at that
there living skeleton. Letton, you're sure afraid to die. Your bones
is all rattling together you're that scared. And look at that fat Jew
there. This little weapon's sure put the fear of God in his heart.
He's yellow as a sick persimmon. Dowsett, you're a cool one. You-all
ain't batted an eye nor turned a hair. That's because you're great on
arithmetic. And that makes you-all dead easy in this deal of mine.
You're sitting there and adding two and two together, and you-all know
I sure got you skinned. You know me, and that I ain't afraid of
nothing. And you-all adds up all your money and knows you ain't
a-going to die if you can help it."

"I'll see you hanged," was Dowsett's retort.

"Not by a damned sight. When the fun starts, you're the first I plug.
I'll hang all right, but you-all won't live to see it. You-all die here
and now while I'll die subject to the law's del