f the
plunder. He had an easy way of doing things--so easy that he often took
people by surprise and got by with it. But this time he was in wrong;
I'd been dumped by him so often that I was cagy. I'd looked over the
game he'd handed me--give it a good, careful look, mind you, and I found
there was about twenty per cent. profit and eighty per cent danger. He
was to cut the twenty with me, but I was to take all of the eighty."

"Just like them kind of people," said Hutchinson. "They're always
looking for somebody to take their chances and feed them pap."

"So I called off on the thing," said Fenton; "and when he came around
on the night he said he would, I laid him out--strong--for trying to get
me into such a thing. When he found I'd side-stepped him and there was
no easy money for him, he pulled back and hit me, and then walked out,
expecting to get away with it. I dipped for my gun, I was so sore, but
Hutchinson, here, stopped me. Then I knew that to gun him would be a
boob play; but I meant to get back at him, so I followed him for a
chance to lay him out."

The man paused for a moment or two; the balls clicked about the tables;
the clouds of tobacco smoke drifted among the bright white lights
overhead; the players talked monotonously among themselves.

"He went to an old-fashioned part of the town," said Fenton, "and before
I had a chance had gone into a swell-looking house. He was inside for
about half an hour and I waited for him. When he came out he'd no sooner
hit the sidewalk than I knew something had happened to him. And it was
something good. Before he'd gone in he pulled along pretty slow with his
head down; but now he was chipper and feeling good. As he passed where I
was hid I heard him laugh. I wondered what it was that was doing it, and
in a couple of minutes I found out. He stopped under a light and took
something out of his overcoat pocket. I was near enough to get a slant
at it, and saw he had a whole handful of diamonds."

Hutchinson drew in a long breath; Ashton-Kirk looked at Scanlon, and
that gentleman nodded his satisfaction with the apparent
straightforwardness of the story.

"So, after he had flashed a thing like that," said Fenton, "I altered my
mind a little; I wouldn't do any strong-arm stuff; I'd try and stand it
on the sparks. At first Burton didn't seem to know what to do; he
stopped a couple of times as if he was thinking; then he seemed to grab
at an idea and started off for the r