hed standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to
sit in judgment.

Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of
the sums he had won from them. "It's agin justice," said Jim Wheeler,
"to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp--an entire stranger--carry
away our money." But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts
of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst
overruled this narrower local prejudice.

Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the
less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was
too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an
uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the
dealer.

A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to
the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to
be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort
was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman
familiarly known as "The Duchess"; another, who had won the title of
"Mother Shipton"; and "Uncle Billy," a suspected sluice-robber and
confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the
spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch
which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader
spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at
the peril of their lives.

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few
hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother
Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother
Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements
of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths
that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the
easy good-humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging
his own riding-horse, "Five Spot," for the sorry mule which the Duchess
rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy.
The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble,
faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of "Five Spot" wi