ot one leetle
beet hunch," he regretfully tossed his hand into the discards.

The next moment the hundred and odd pairs of eyes shifted to Campbell.

"I won't hump you, Jack," he said, contenting himself with calling the
requisite two thousand.

The eyes shifted to Harnish, who scribbled on a piece of paper and
shoved it forward.

"I'll just let you-all know this ain't no Sunday-school society of
philanthropy," he said. "I see you, Jack, and I raise you a thousand.
Here's where you-all get action on your pat, Mac."

"Action's what I fatten on, and I lift another thousand," was
MacDonald's rejoinder. "Still got that hunch, Jack?"

"I still got the hunch." Kearns fingered his cards a long time. "And
I'll play it, but you've got to know how I stand. There's my steamer,
the Bella--worth twenty thousand if she's worth an ounce. There's
Sixty Mile with five thousand in stock on the shelves. And you know I
got a sawmill coming in. It's at Linderman now, and the scow is
building. Am I good?"

"Dig in; you're sure good," was Daylight's answer. "And while we're
about it, I may mention casual that I got twenty thousand in Mac's
safe, there, and there's twenty thousand more in the ground on
Moosehide. You know the ground, Campbell. Is they that-all in the
dirt?"

"There sure is, Daylight."

"How much does it cost now?" Kearns asked.

"Two thousand to see."

"We'll sure hump you if you-all come in," Daylight warned him.

"It's an almighty good hunch," Kearns said, adding his slip for two
thousand to the growing heap. "I can feel her crawlin' up and down my
back."

"I ain't got a hunch, but I got a tolerable likeable hand," Campbell
announced, as he slid in his slip; "but it's not a raising hand."

"Mine is," Daylight paused and wrote. "I see that thousand and raise
her the same old thousand."

The Virgin, standing behind him, then did what a man's best friend was
not privileged to do. Reaching over Daylight's shoulder, she picked up
his hand and read it, at the same time shielding the faces of the five
cards close to his chest. What she saw were three queens and a pair of
eights, but nobody guessed what she saw. Every player's eyes were on
her face as she scanned the cards, but no sign did she give. Her
features might have been carved from ice, for her expression was
precisely the same before, during, and after. Not a muscle quivered;
nor was there the slightest dilation of a nostril, nor the sl