and," he said.

As no one demurred, he slid into the vacant chair, bought a hundred
dollars worth of chips and the game proceeded.

For a time Fortune seemed to divide her favors impartially, and the chips
before each player remained about the same. Then the luck changed and the
stranger began to win heavily. He raked in one pot after another, losing
only occasionally, and then, generally, when the stakes were small. The
atmosphere about the table became tense and feverish, and gradually most
of the others in the room gathered about the players and watched the
progress of the game.

It was the newcomer's deal. The pack had been cut, and he was dealing out
the cards, when suddenly one of the players leaped to his feet.

"Foul play," he shouted. "You dealt that last card from the bottom of the
pack." And at the same instant he threw over the table and reached for
his gun.

But quick as he was, the stranger was quicker. Like a flash his revolver
spoke, and his opponent fell to the floor. But the others now had started
shooting and there was a fusillade. The spectators dropped behind
anything that promised shelter and the bartender went out of sight under
the counter. Only after the revolvers had been emptied did the firing
cease.

When the smoke lifted, three were lying on the littered floor, one dead
and two desperately wounded. The stranger was not to be seen, but the
pounding of hoofs outside told of his escape. He had gone, but not till
Bert had seen one thing that registered itself indelibly on his mind.

The stranger had drawn and shot _with his left hand_.

CHAPTER XIII

Trailing the Outlaws

For a few minutes the wildest confusion prevailed in the saloon. The
noise of the shooting had emptied the other bar-rooms, as well as the
houses of the little settlement, and from all quarters people came
flocking to the scene of the tragedy. The dead man was removed to a
room in the rear, and the wounds of the others were bound up with rude
surgery, pending the arrival of a doctor, for whom one of the cowboys had
ridden off post haste.

Bert's quick mind was busy piecing together the events of the past
crowded hour. That the stranger was left-handed, although unusual in that
region, proved nothing by itself. But the dead steer had borne the mark
of a left-handed man--and Pedro was in charge of a part of Melton's
stock--and he had sneaked away from his work to talk with this ruffian,
apparently by appoint