The other man laughed a little.  “Ferris has struck a streak of luck, but I wouldn’t be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne.  He has had as much as he can carry already, and I don’t want anybody broke up in my house.  The boys can look out for themselves, but the Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn’t know when to stop.”

Winston glanced at his companion, who nodded.  “The young fool!” he said.

They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his winnings again, and Winston laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.

“Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show,” he said.  “You seem to have done tolerably well, and it’s usually wise to stop while the chances are going with you.”

The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence in his half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance.  His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men, who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one who in the strenuous early days would have worn the woolly crown.

“Were you addressing me?” he asked.

“I was,” said Winston quietly.  “I was in fact inviting you to share our refreshment.  You see we have just come in.”

“Then,” said the lad, “it was condemnable impertinence.  Since you have taken this fellow up, couldn’t you teach him that it’s bad taste to thrust his company upon people who don’t want it, Dane?”

Winston said nothing, but drew Dane, who flushed a trifle, aside, and when they sat down the latter smiled dryly.

“You have taken on a big contract, Courthorne.  How are you going to get the young ass out?” he said.

“Well,” said Winston, “it would gratify me to take him by the neck, but as I don’t know that it would please the Colonel if I made a public spectacle of one of his retainers, I fancy I’ll have to tackle the gambler.  I don’t know him, but as he comes from across the frontier it’s more than likely he has heard of me.  There are advantages in having a record like mine, you see.”

“It would, of course, be a kindness to the lad’s people—­but the young fool is scarcely worth it, and it’s not your affair,” said Dane reflectively.

Winston guessed the drift of the speech, but he could respect a confidence, and laughed a little.  “It’s not often I have done any one a good turn, and the novelty has its attractions.”

Dane did not appear contented with this explanation, but he asked nothing further, and the two sat watching the men about the table, who were evidently growing eager.

“That’s two hundred the kid has let go,” said somebody.

There was a murmur of excited voices, and one rose hoarse and a trifle shaky in the consonants above the rest.