til Wallingford raised, in which case Wallingford was
allowed to take down the money. By this means Wallingford steadily
won, but in such small amounts that Mr. Phelps could have kept playing
for hours on his five thousand dollars in spite of the annoyance of
maudlin quarreling from the next room. It was not necessary to enter
such a long test of endurance to gain mere time, however, for in less
than a half-hour the door suddenly burst open, its latch-bar losing
its screws with suspicious ease, and a gaunt but muscular-looking
individual with a down-drooping mustache strode in upon them,
displaying a large shining badge pinned on his vest underneath his
coat.

"Every man keep his seat!" commanded this apparition. "The place is
pinched as a gambling joint."

Mr. Phelps made a grab for the money on the table.

"Drop that!" said the new-comer, making a motion toward his hip
pocket, and Mr. Phelps subsided in his chair.

The others had posed themselves most dramatically, and now they sat in
motionless but trembling obedience to the law, while the man with the
tin badge produced from his pocket a little black bag into which he
stuffed the cards and all the money on the table.

"It's a frame-up!" shouted Mr. Phelps.

Loud voices and the overturning of chairs from the room just ahead
interrupted them at this moment, and not only Mr. Badger and Mr.
Teller and Mr. Phelps looked annoyed, but the man with the shining
badge glanced apprehensively in that direction, especially as, added
to the sudden uproar, there was the unmistakable clang of a
patrol-wagon in the street.

Simultaneously with this there bounded into the room a large gentleman
with a red face and a husky voice, who whipped a revolver from his
pocket the minute he passed the threshold and leveled it at the man
with the badge, while all the others sprang from their chairs.

"Hands up!" said he, in a hurried but businesslike manner, himself
apparently annoyed with and apprehensive of the adjoining disturbance
and the clanging in the street. "This is a sure-enough pinch, but it
ain't for gambling, you can bet your sweet life! You're all pulled for
a bunch of cheap sure-thing experts, but this guy has got the
lock-step comin' to him for impersonating an officer. You've played
that gag too long, Dan Blazer. Give me that evidence!" and he snatched
the black bag from the hand of the man with the badge.

Short-Card Larry, standing near what was apparently a closet