ght run on into days
if luck varied tantalizingly. All of the zest of those battling hours
Jim Kendric meant to crowd into one moment. There was much of love in
the heart of Headlong Jim Kendric, but it was a love which had never
poured itself through the common channels, never identified itself with
those two passions which sway most men: he had never known love for a
woman and in him there was no money-greed. For him women did not come
even upon the rim of his most distant horizon; as for money, when he
had none of it he sallied forth joyously in its quest holding that
there was plenty of it in this good old world and that it was as rare
fun running it down as hunting any other big game. When he had plenty
of it he had no thought of other matters until he had spent it or given
it away or watched it go its merry way across a table with a green top
like a fleet of golden argosies on a fair emerald sea voyaging in
search of a port of adventure. His love was reserved for his friends
and for his adventurings, for clear dawns in solitary mountains, for
spring-times in thick woods, for sweeps of desert, for what he would
have called "Life."

"Ready?" Ruiz Rios was asking coldly. Ortega had returned with a
drawer from his safe clasped in his fat hands; the money was counted
and piled.

"Let her roll," cried Kendric heartily.

Never had there been a game like this at Ortega's. Men packed closer
and closer, pushing and crowding. The Mexican slowly rattled the
single die in the cup. Then, with a quick jerk of the wrist, he turned
it out on the table. It rolled, poised, settled. The result amply
satisfied Rios and to the line of the lips under his small black
mustache came the hint of a smile; he had turned up a six.

"The ace is high!" cried Jim. He caught up die and box, lifting the
cupped cube high above his head. His eyes were bright with excitement,
his cheeks were flushed, his voice rang out eagerly.

"Out of six numbers there is only one ace," smiled Ruiz Rios.

"One's all I want, senor," laughed Jim. And made his throw.

When large ventures are made, in money or otherwise, it would seem that
the goddess of chance is no myth but a potent spirit and that she takes
a firm deciding hand. At a time like this, when two men seek to put at
naught her many methods of prolonging suspense, she in turn seeks
stubbornly to put at naught their endeavors to defeat her aims. Had
Jim Kendric thrown the ace then he