d
had not hazarded a cent beyond the money flung down on the table to be
played by his friends. But now at last he looked about the room
eagerly, his head up, his eyes blazing with the up-surge of the spirit
riding him. About his middle was a money belt, safely brought back
across the border; in his wild heart was the imperative desire to play.
Play high and quick and hard. It was then that for the first time he
noted Ruiz Rios. Evidently the Mexican had just now entered from the
rear. At the far end of the room where the kerosene lamp light was
none too good Rios was standing with a solitary slim-bodied companion.
The companion, to call for all due consideration later, barely caught
Jim's roving eye now; he saw Rios and he told himself that the
gamblers' goddess had whisked him in at the magic moment. For in one
essential, as in no others, was Ruiz Rios a man after Jim Kendric's own
heart: the Mexican was a man to play for any stake and do no moralizing
over the result.

"Ortega," cried Kendric, looking all the time challengingly at Rios,
"there is only one game worth the playing. King of games? The emperor
of games! Have you a man here to shake dice with me?"

Ortega understood and made no answer, Rios, small and sinister and
handsome, his air one of eternal well-bred insolence, kept his own
counsel. There came a quick tug at his sleeve; his companion whispered
in his ear. Thus it was that for the first time Kendric really looked
at this companion. And at the first keen glance, in spite of the male
attire, the loose coat and hat pulled low, the scarf worn high about
the neck, he knew that it was a woman who had entered with Ruiz Rios
and now whispered to him.

"His wife," thought Kendric. "Telling him not to play. She's got her
nerve coming in here."

The question of her relationship to the Mexican was open to
speculation; the matter of her nerve was not. That was definitely
settled by the carriage of her body which was at once defiant and
imperious; by the tilt of the chin, barely glimpsed; by the way she
stood her ground as one after another pair of eyes turned upon her
until every man in the room stared openly. It was as useless for her
to seek to disguise her sex thus as it would be for the moon to mask as
a candle. And she knew it and did not care. Kendric understood that
on the moment.

"Between us there has been at times trouble, senor," said Rios lightly.
"I do not know if you care to