ody moved. His expression of surprise
slowly dissolved into a grin that mutely invited the others, as he had
found out for himself, to find out for themselves.

Lefever finished his deal, threw down the pack, and picked up his
hand. His suspicious eyes never rose above the level of the faces at
the table; but when he had thumbed his cards and looked from one to
the other of the remaining players to read the weather-signals, he
perceived on Scott's face an unwonted expression, and looked to where
the scout's gaze was turned for an explanation of it. Lefever's own
eyes at the sight of the thinned, familiar face behind Elpaso's chair,
starting, opened like full moons. The big fellow spread one hand out,
his cards hidden within it, and with the other hand prudently drew
down his pile of chips. "Gentlemen," he said lightly, "this game is
interned." He rose and put a silent hand across the table over
Elpaso's shoulder. "Henry," he exclaimed impassively, "one question,
if you please--and only one: How in thunder did you do it?"

CHAPTER XVII

STRATEGY

One week went to repairs. To a man of action such a week is longer
than ten years of service. But chained to a bed in the Sleepy Cat
hospital, de Spain had no escape from one week of thinking, and for
that week he thought about Nan Morgan.

He rebelled at the situation that had placed him at enmity with her
kinsfolk, yet he realized there was no help for this. The Morgans were
a law unto themselves. Hardened men with a hardened code, they lived
in their fastness like Ishmaelites. Counselled by their leader, old
Duke Morgan, brains of the clan and influential enough to keep outside
the penalties of the law themselves, their understanding with the
outlaws of the Sinks was apparently complete, and the hospitality of
one or another of their following within the Gap afforded a refuge for
practically any mountain criminal.

But none of these reflections lightened de Spain's burden of
discontent. One thought alone possessed him--Nan; her comely body,
which he worshipped to the tips of her graceful fingers; her alert
mind, which he saw reflected in the simplest thought she expressed;
her mobile lips, which he followed to the least sound they gave forth!
The longer he pictured her, figured as she had appeared to him like a
phantom on Music Mountain, the more he longed to be back at the foot
of it, wounded again and famished. And the impulse that moved him the
first moment