It was a full twelve inches in length, that blade, and it came to a point drawn out thinner than the eye could follow.  The end was merely a long glint of light.  As for Ronicky Doone, he cried out in surprise and then sat down, balancing the weapon in his hand and looking down at it, with the silent happiness of a child with a satisfying toy.

Frederic Fernand was observing him.  There was something remarkably likable in young Doone, he decided.  No matter what John Mark had said—­no matter if John Mark was a genius in reading the characters of men—­every genius could make mistakes.  This, no doubt, was one of John Mark’s mistakes.  There was the free and careless thoughtlessness of a boy about this young fellow.  And, though he glanced down the glimmering blade of the weapon, with a sort of sinister joy, Frederic Fernand did not greatly care.  There was more to admire in the workmanship of the hilt than in a thousand such blades, but a Westerner would have his eye on the useful part of a thing.

“How much d’you think that’s worth?” asked McKeever.

“Dunno,” said Ronicky.  “That’s good steel.”

He tried the point, then he snapped it under his thumb nail and a little shiver of a ringing sound reached as far as Frederic Fernand.

Then he saw Ronicky Doone suddenly lean a little across the table, pointing toward the hand in which McKeever held the pack, ready for the deal.

McKeever shook his head and gripped the pack more closely.

“Do you suspect me of crooked work?” asked McKeever.  He pushed back his chair.  Fernand, studying his lieutenant in this crisis, approved of him thoroughly.  He himself was in a quandary.  Westerners fight, and a fight would be most embarrassing.  “Do you think—­” began McKeever.

“I think you’ll keep that hand and that same pack of cards on the table till I’ve had it looked over,” said Ronicky Doone.  “I’ve dropped a cold thousand to you, and you’re winning it with stacked decks, McKeever.”

There was a stifled oath from McKeever, as he jerked his hand back.  Frederic Fernand was beginning to draw one breath of joy at the thought that McKeever would escape without having that pack, of all packs, examined, when the long dagger flashed in the hand of Ronicky Doone.

He struck as a cat strikes when it hooks the fish out of the stream—­he struck as the snapper on the end of a whiplash doubles back.  And well and truly did that steel uphold its fame.

The dull, chopping sound of the blow stood by itself for an instant.  Then McKeever, looking down in horror at his hand, screamed and fell back in his chair.

That was the instant when Frederic Fernand judged his lieutenant and found him wanting.  A man who fainted in such a crisis as this was beyond the pale.

Other people crowded past him.  Frightened, desperate, he pushed on.  At length his weight enabled him to squeeze through the rapidly gathering crowd of gamblers.