n natural that the desperado should ask himself
whether he was right in blaming fortune for the cards which he drew.
There came a new deal and time to draw again.

"Two," John Ringo muttered.

Kettle-Belly Johnson held up a single finger; and when he had got his
card, performed one of those prestidigital feats by which he made his
living. And when this was accomplished--with the aid of a device known
as a "hold-out"--his moist, plump fingers clutched a full house--jacks
on kings. The betting went briskly to the bitter end.

John Ringo scowled down on the hand which beat his; pushed back his
chair, fumbled briefly at his vest, and laid his gold watch on the
table.

"Lend me a hundred," he growled. "She's worth a hundred and fifty."
But Kettle-Belly Johnson shook his head.

"Easy come," said he, "easy go. Get out and rustle some more cows or
hold up the stage again. We ain't a-runnin' no pawn-shop."

John Ringo left the room without more words, and the three tin horns
fell to cutting for low spade to while away the time. They had been at
it just as long as it would take a man to go down to the corral,
saddle his pony, and bring the animal up in front of the building,
when the outlaw reentered. His single-action Colt's forty-five
revolver was in his right hand; its muzzle regarded the trio at the
table like a dark, baleful eye.

The bearer of the weapon uttered a single word, a word which is not
found in any dictionary although it has come down from the time when
the first Englishman took to the highway to seek his daily meat.

"Hanzup!"

They obeyed and the ensuing silence was broken by the pleasant chink
of money as John Ringo's left hand raked the winnings into his pocket.
There was no pursuit as he rode away down Galeyville's main street;
but he spurred his pony hard, for self-righteousness was boiling
within him and he had to find relief some way.

"Damn bunch of robbers!" he told the horse.

Ordinarily the incident would have closed then and there; but fate so
willed it that Kettle-Belly Johnson came to Tombstone a few days later
and voiced his plaint in Bob Hatch's saloon, where he found himself
suddenly surrounded by sympathizers. He did not know--and if he had he
would not have cared one way or the other--that the new law-and-order
party had grown to a point where it wanted to get action in the
courts; that its members were looking for an opportunity to swear out
a warrant against some of the bigger