cture not easily
forgotten.

Still, this impression was only that of a brief instant. With the next
I was upon my knees, lifting the fallen head, and seeking eagerly to
discern some lingering evidence of life in the inert, body. There was
none, not so much as the faint flutter of a pulse, or suggestion of a
heart throb. The man was already dead before he fell, dead before he
struck the overturned table. Nothing any human effort might do would
help him now. My eyes lifting from the white, ghastly face encountered
those of McAfee, and, without the utterance of a word, I read the
miner's verdict, and arose again to my feet.

"Judge Beaucaire is dead," I announced gravely. "Nothing more can be
done for him now."

The pressing circle of men hemming us in fell back silently,
reverently, the sound of their voices sinking into a subdued murmur.
It had all occurred so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that even these
witnesses could scarcely grasp the truth. They were dazed, leaderless,
struggling to restrain themselves. As I stood there, almost
unconscious of their presence, still staring down at that upturned
face, now appearing manly and patrician in the strange dignity of its
death mask, a mad burst of anger swept me, a fierce yearning for
revenge--a feeling that this was no less a murder because Nature had
struck the blow. With hot words of reproach upon my lips I gazed
across toward where Kirby had been standing a moment before. The
gambler was no longer there--his place was vacant.

"Where is Kirby?" I asked, incredulous of his sudden disappearance.

For a moment no one answered; then a voice in the crowd croaked
hoarsely:

"He just slipped out through that after door to the deck--him and Bill
Carver."

"And the stakes?"

Another answered in a thin, piping treble.

"I reckon them two cusses took along the most ov it. Enyhow 'tain't
yere, 'cept maybe a few coins that rolled tinder the table. It wasn't
Joe Kirby who picked up the swag, fer I was a watchin' him, an' he
never onct let go ov his gun. Thet damn sneak Carver must a did it,
an' then the two ov 'em just sorter nat'rally faded away through that
door thar."

McAfee swore through his black beard, the full truth swiftly dawning
upon him.

"Hell!" he exploded. "So that's the way of it. Then them two wus in
cahoots frum the beginnin'. That's what I told the Jedge last night,
but he said he didn't give a whoop; thet he knew more poker than both