change it, why don't you? Let's have a new deck." And Loomis rose.

"Joole, you always are for something new," said Cutler. "Now I'm doing
pretty well with these pink cards. But I'm no hog. Fetch on your fresh
ones."

The eyes of the half-breed swerved to the yellow curtain. He was by
a French trapper from Canada out of a Sioux squaw, one of Red Cloud's
sisters, and his heart beat hot with the evil of two races, and none of
their good. He was at this moment irrationally angry with the men who
had won from him through his own devices, and malice undisguised shone
in his lean flat face. At sight of the blue cards falling in the first
deal, silence came over the company, and from the distant parade-ground
the bugle sounded the melancholy strain of taps. Faint, far, solemn,
melodious, the music travelled unhindered across the empty night.

"Them men are being checked off in their bunks now," said Cutler.

"What you bet this game?" demanded Toussaint.

"I've heard 'em play that same music over a soldier's grave," said
Kelley.

"You goin' to bet?" Toussaint repeated.

Cutler pushed forward the two necessary white chips. No one's hand was
high, and Loomis made a slight winning. The deal went its round several
times, and once, when it was Toussaint's, Cutler suspected that special
cards had been thrown to him by the half-breed as an experiment. He
therefore played the gull to a nicety, betting gently upon his three
kings; but when he stepped out boldly and bet the limit, it was not
Toussaint but Kelley who held the higher hand, winning with three aces.
Why the coup should be held off longer puzzled the scout, unless it was
that Toussaint was carefully testing the edges of his marked cards to
see if he controlled them to a certainty. So Cutler played on calmly.
Presently two aces came to him in Toussaint's deal, and he wondered how
many more would be in his three-card draw. Very pretty! One only, and he
lost to Loomis, who had drawn three, and held four kings. The hands
were getting higher, they said. The game had "something to it now." But
Toussaint grumbled, for his luck was bad all this year, he said. Cutler
had now made sure that the aces and kings went where the half-breed
wished, and could be slid undetected from the top or the middle or the
bottom of the pack; but he had no test yet how far down the scale the
marking went. At Toussaint's next deal Cutler judged the time had come,
and at the second round of betting