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taunting about the leader's words. He did not care for the gold. It
was the fight to win. It was his egotism.
"Make this game faster an' bigger, will you?" retorted Blicky, who
seemed inflamed.
"Boss, a little luck makes you lofty," interposed Jesse Smith in
dark disdain. "Pretty soon you'll show yellow clear to your
gizzard!"
The gold lay there on the table. It was only a means to an end. It
signified nothing. The evil, the terrible greed, the brutal lust,
were in the hearts of the men. And hate, liberated, rampant, stalked
out unconcealed, ready for blood.
"Gulden, change the game to suit these gents," taunted Kells.
"Double stakes. Cut the cards!" boomed the giant, instantly.
Blicky lasted only a few more deals of the cards, then he rose,
loser of all his share, a passionate and venomous bandit, ready for
murder. But he kept his mouth shut and looked wary.
"Boss, can't we set in now?" demanded Beady Jones.
"Say, Beady, you're in a hurry to lose your gold," replied Kells.
"Wait till I beat Gulden and Smith."
Luck turned against Jesse Smith. He lost first to Gulden, then to
Kells, and presently he rose, a beaten, but game man. He reached for
the whisky.
"Fellers, I reckon I can enjoy Kells's yellow streak more when I
ain't playin'," he said.
The bandit leader eyed Smith with awakening rancor, as if a
persistent hint of inevitable weakness had its effect. He frowned,
and the radiance left his face for the forbidding cast.
"Stand around, you men, and see some real gambling," he said.
At this moment in the contest Kells had twice as much gold as
Gulden, there being a huge mound of little buckskin sacks in front
of him.
They began staking a bag at a time and cutting the cards, the higher
card winning. Kells won the first four cuts. How strangely that
radiance returned to his face! Then he lost and won, and won and
lost. The other bandits grouped around, only Jones and Braverman now
manifesting any eagerness. All were silent. There were suspense,
strain, mystery in the air. Gulden began to win consistently and
Kells began to change. It was a sad and strange sight to see this
strong man's nerve and force gradually deteriorate under a fickle
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fortune. The time came when half the amount he had collected was in
front of Gulden. The giant was imperturbable. He might have been a
huge animal, or destiny, or something inhuman that knew the run of
luck would be his. As he had taken losses so he greeted gains--with
absolute indifference. While Kells's hands shook the giant's were
steady and slow and sure. It must have been hateful to Kells--this
faculty of Gulden's to meet victory identically as he met defeat.
The test of a great gambler's nerve was not in sustaining loss, but
in remaining cool with victory. The fact grew manifest that Gulden
was a great gambler and Kells was not. The giant had no emotion, no
imagination. And Kells seemed all fire and whirling hope and despair
and rage. His vanity began to bleed to death. This game was the
deciding contest. The scornful and exultant looks of his men proved
how that game was going. Again and again Kells's unsteady hand
reached for one of the whisky bottles. Once with a low curse he
threw an empty bottle through the door.
"Hey, boss, ain't it about time--" began Jesse Smith. But whatever
he had intended to say, he thought better of, withholding it.
Kells's sudden look and movement were unmistakable.
The goddess of chance, as false as the bandit's vanity, played with
him. He brightened under a streak of winning. But just as his face
began to lose its haggard shade, to glow, the tide again turned
against him. He lost and lost, and with each bag of gold-dust went
something of his spirit. And when he was reduced to his original
share he indeed showed that yellow streak which Jesse Smith had
attributed to him. The bandit's effort to pull himself together, to
be a man before that scornful gang, was pitiful and futile. He might
have been magnificent, confronted by other issues, of peril or
circumstance, but there he was craven. He was a man who should never
have gambled.
One after the other, in quick succession, he lost the two bags of
gold, his original share. He had lost utterly. Gulden had the great
heap of dirty little buckskin sacks, so significant of the hidden
power within.
Joan was amazed and sick at sight of Kells then, and if it had been
possible she would have withdrawn her gaze. But she was chained
there. The catastrophe was imminent.
Kells stared down at the gold. His jaw worked convulsively. He had
the eyes of a trapped wolf. Yet he seemed not wholly to comprehend
what had happened to him.
Gulden rose, slow, heavy, ponderous, to tower over his heap of gold.
Then this giant, who had never shown an emotion, suddenly, terribly
blazed.
"One more bet--a cut of the cards--my whole stake of gold!" he
boomed.
The bandits took a stride forward as one man, then stood breathless.
"One bet!" echoed Kells, aghast. "Against what?"
"AGAINST THE GIRL!"
Joan sank against the wall, a piercing torture in her breast. She
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clutched the logs to keep from falling. So that was the impending
horror. She could not unrivet her eyes from the paralyzed Kells, yet
she seemed to see Jim Cleve leap straight up, and then stand,
equally motionless, with Kells.
"One cut of the cards--my gold against the girl!" boomed the giant.
Kells made a movement as if to go for his gun. But it failed. His
hand was a shaking leaf.
"You always bragged on your nerve!" went on Gulden, mercilessly.
"You're the gambler of the border! ... Come on."
Kells stood there, his doom upon him. Plain to all was his torture,
his weakness, his defeat. It seemed that with all his soul he
combated something, only to fail.
"ONE CUT--MY GOLD AGAINST YOUR GIRL!"
The gang burst into one concerted taunt. Like snarling, bristling
wolves they craned their necks at Kells.
"No, damn--you! No!" cried Kells, in hoarse, broken fury. With both
hands before him he seemed to push back the sight of that gold, of
Gulden, of the malignant men, of a horrible temptation.
"Reckon, boss, thet yellow streak is operatin'!" sang out Jesse
Smith.
But neither gold, nor Gulden, nor men, nor taunts ruined Kells at
this perhaps most critical crisis of his life. It was the mad,
clutching, terrible opportunity presented. It was the strange and
terrible nature of the wager. What vision might have flitted through
the gambler's mind! But neither vision of loss nor gain moved him.
There, licking like a flame at his soul, consuming the good in him
at a blast, overpowering his love, was the strange and magnificent
gamble. He could not resist it.
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