Winston smiled.  “I believe he fancied he had.  There was a man in the district he came from, who some folks considered resembled me.  In reality, I was by no means like him, and he’s dead now.”

“Likenesses are curious things, and it’s stranger still how folks alter,” said Dane.  “Now, they’ve a photograph at Barrington’s of you as a boy, and while there is a resemblance in the face, nobody with any discernment would have fancied that lad would grow into a man like you.  Still, that’s of no great moment, and I want to know just how you spotted the gambler.  I had a tolerably expensive tuition in most games of chance in my callow days, and haven’t forgotten completely what I was taught then, but though I watched the game, I saw nothing that led me to suspect crooked play.”

Winston laughed.  “I watched his face, and what I saw there decided me to try a bluff, but it was not until he turned the table over I knew I was right.”

“Well,” said Dane dryly, “you don’t need your nerves toned up.  With only a suspicion to go upon, it was a tolerably risky game.  Still, of course, you had advantages.”

“I have played a more risky one, but I don’t know that I have cause to be very grateful for anything I acquired in the past,” said Winston with a curious smile.

Dane stood up and flung his cigar away.  “It’s time I was asleep,” he said.  “Still, since our talk has turned in this direction, I want to tell you that, as you have doubtless seen, there is something about you that puzzles me occasionally.  I don’t ask your confidence until you are ready to give it me—­but if ever you want anybody to stand behind you in a difficulty, you’ll find me rather more than willing.”

He went out, and Winston sat still, very grave in face, for at least another hour.

CHAPTER XIV

A FAIR ADVOCATE

Thanks to the fashion in which the hotel keeper managed the affair, the gambler left the settlement without personal injury, but very little richer than when he entered it.  The rest of those who were present at his meeting with Winston were also not desirous that their friends should know that they had been victimized, and because Dane was discreet news of what had happened might never have reached Silverdale had not one of the younger men ridden in to the railroad a few days later.  Odd scraps of conversation overheard led him to suspect that something unusual had taken place, but as nobody seemed to be willing to supply details, he returned to Silverdale with his curiosity unsatisfied.  As it happened, he was shortly afterwards present at a gathering of his neighbors at Macdonald’s farm and came across Ferris there.

“I heard fragments of a curious story at the settlement,” he said.  “There was trouble of some kind in which a professional gambler figured last Saturday night, and though nobody seemed to want to talk about it, I surmised that somebody from Silverdale was concerned in it.”