There rose a man of a build much prized in pugilistic circles.  In those same circles he would have been described as a fellow with a fighting face and a heavy-weight above the hips and a light-weight below—­a handsome fellow, except that his eyes were a little too small and his lips a trifle too thin.  He rose now in the midst of a general groan of dismay, and scooped in a considerable stack of gold as well as several bright piles of silver; he was undoubtedly taking the glory of the game with him.

“Is this square?” growled one of the men clenching his fist on the edge of the table.

The sardonic smile hardened on the lips of Nash as he answered:  “Before you’ve been here much longer, Pete, you’ll find out that about everything I do is square.  Sorry to leave you, boys, before you’re broke, but orders is orders.”

“But one more hand first,” pleaded Pete.

“You poor fool,” snarled Nash, “d’you think I’ll take a chance on keepin’ him waiting?”

The last of his winnings passed with a melodious jingling into his pockets and he went hurriedly out of the bunk-house and up to the main building.  There he found Drew in the room which the rancher used as an office, and stood at the door hat in hand.

“Come in; sit down,” said “him.”  “Been taking the money from the boys again, Steve?  I thought I talked with you about that a month ago?”

“It’s this way, Mr. Drew,” explained Nash, “with me stayin’ away from the cards is like a horse stayin’ off its feed.  Besides, I done the square thing by the lot of those short-horns.”

“How’s that?”

“I showed ’em my hand.”

“Told them you were a professional gambler?”

“Sure.  I explained they didn’t have no chance against me.”

“And of course that made them throw every cent they had against you?”

“Maybe.”

“It can’t go on, Nash.”

“Look here, Mr. Drew.  I told ’em that I wasn’t a gambler but just a gold-digger.”

The big man could not restrain his smile, though it came like a shadow of mirth rather than the sunlight.

“After all, they might as well lose it to you as to someone else.”

“Sure,” grinned Nash, “it keeps it in the family, eh?”

“But one of these days, Steve, crooked cards will be the end of you.”

“I’m still pretty fast on the draw,” said Steve sullenly.

“All right.  That’s your business.  Now I want you to listen to some of mine.”

“Real work?”

“Your own line.”

“That,” said Nash, with a smile of infinite meaning, “sounds like the dinner bell to me.  Let her go, sir!”

CHAPTER XI

THE QUEST BEGINS

“You know the old place on the other side of the range?”

“Like a book.  I got pet names for all the trees.”

“There’s a man there I want.”