lass between his hands. Whispering Smith pushed past the
on-lookers to get to the end of the table where Du Sang was shooting.
He made no effort to attract Du Sang's attention, and when the latter
looked up he could have pulled the gray hat from the head of the man
whose brown eyes were mildly fixed on Du Sang's dice; they were lying
just in front of Smith. Looking indifferently at the intruder, Du Sang
reached for the dice: just ahead of his right hand, Whispering Smith's
right hand, the finger-tips extended on the table, rested in front of
them; it might have been through accident or it might have been
through design. In his left hand Smith held the broken cigar, and
without looking at Du Sang he passed the wrapper again over the tip of
his tongue and slowly across his lips.

Du Sang now looked sharply at him, and Smith looked at his cigar.
Others were playing around the semicircular table--it might mean
nothing. Du Sang waited. Smith lifted his right hand from the table
and felt in his waistcoat for a match. Du Sang, however, made no
effort to take up the dice. He watched Whispering Smith scratch a
match on the table, and, either because it failed to light or through
design, it was scratched the second time on the table, marking a cross
between the two dice.

The meanest negro in the joint would not have stood that, yet Du Sang
hesitated. Whispering Smith, mildly surprised, looked up. "Hello,
Pearline! You shooting here?" He pushed the dice back toward the
outlaw. "Shoot again!"

Du Sang, scowling, snapped the dice and threw badly.

"Up jump the devil, is it? Shoot again!" And, pushing back the dice,
Smith moved closer to Du Sang. The two men touched arms. Du Sang,
threatened in a way wholly new to him, waited like a snake braved by a
mysterious enemy. His eyes blinked like a badger's. He caught up the
dice and threw. "Is that the best you can do?" asked Smith. "See
here!" He took up the dice. "Shoot with me!" Smith threw the dice up
the table toward Du Sang. Once he threw craps, but, reaching directly
in front of Du Sang, he picked the dice up and threw eleven. "Shoot
with me, Du Sang."

"What's your game?" snapped Du Sang, with an oath.

"What do you care, if I've got the coin? I'll throw you for
twenty-dollar gold pieces."

Du Sang's eyes glittered. Unable to understand the reason for the
affront, he stood like a cat waiting to spring. "This is my game!" he
snarled.

"Then play it."

"Look here, what