if drawing lots against fate, the bandits bent
over and drew cards. Budd, Braverman, and Beady Jones were the ones
excluded from the game.

"Beady, you fellows unpack those horses and turn them loose. And bring
the stuff inside," said Kells.

Budd showed a surly disregard, but the other two bandits got up
willingly and went out.

Then the game began, with only Cleve standing, looking on. The bandits
were mostly silent; they moved their hands, and occasionally bent
forward. It was every man against his neighbor. Gulden seemed implacably
indifferent and played like a machine. Blicky sat eager and excited,
under a spell. Jesse Smith was a slow, cool, shrewed gambler. Bossert
and Pike, two ruffians almost unknown to Joan, appeared carried away
by their opportunity. And Kells began to wear that strange, rapt, weak
expression that gambling gave him.

Presently Beady Jones and Braverman bustled in, carrying the packs. Then
Budd jumped up and ran to them. He returned to the table, carrying a
demijohn, which he banged upon the table.

"Whisky!" exclaimed Kells. "Take that away. We can't drink and gamble."

"Watch me!" replied Blicky.

"Let them drink, Kells," declared Gulden. "We'll get their dust quicker.
Then we can have our game."

Kells made no more comment. The game went on and the aspect of it
changed. When Kells himself began to drink, seemingly unconscious of the
fact, Joan's dread increased greatly, and, leaving the peep-hole, she
lay back upon the bed. Always a sword had hung over her head. Time after
time by some fortunate circumstance or by courage or wit or by an act of
Providence she had escaped what strangely menaced. Would she escape it
again? For she felt the catastrophe coming. Did Jim recognize that fact?
Remembering the look on his face, she was assured that he did. Then he
would be quick to seize upon any possible chance to get her away; and
always he would be between her and those bandits. At most, then, she had
only death to fear--death that he would mercifully deal to her if the
worst came. And as she lay there listening to the slow-rising murmur of
the gamblers, with her thought growing clearer, she realized it was love
of Jim and fear for him--fear that he would lose her--that caused her
cold dread and the laboring breath and the weighted heart. She had cost
Jim this terrible experience and she wanted to make up to him for it, to
give him herself and all her life.

Joan lay there a long time