Again the Kid pondered.

“I’m playin’ poker,” he said presently, very quietly.  “An’ I ain’t playin’ for fun.  There’s one hell of a lot of money changin’ han’s this deal, an’,” with the first flash of defiance, and much significance to words and look alike, “my luck’s runnin’ high today!”

“I’ll wait until you play your hand,” returned Thornton without hesitation.  “I’ll step right over here.”

As he spoke he moved, walking slowly with cautious feet feeling for an obstacle over which he might stumble and so for just the one vital fraction of a second give the Kid the chance to draw first, his eyes upon the eyes which followed him.  He stepped, so, about the table, to the other side, so that Bedloe, once more sitting straight in his chair, faced him over the jack pot.

The big blue eyed man didn’t speak.  It was his move and he knew it, knew that all men there were looking at him.  He studied Thornton’s eyes as he had never studied a man before, taking his time, cool, clear headed.  He could get his gun in a flash; he could throw himself to one side as he jammed it across the table, shooting; he could do it before most men there could even guess that he was going to do it.  He knew that very well.  And he knew too, that although he was quick and sure on the draw, here was a man who was just that wee, deadly fraction of a second quicker.

As though he would find a flicker in the steady eyes of the other man to tell him what he wanted to know, he moved his hand, his left, a very, very little, so little that save at a time like this no man would have seen.  There came no change in Thornton’s eyes.  The Kid lifted the hand, laying it with still fingers upon the table before him.  Still nothing in Thornton’s eyes to tell that he had seen or had not seen.  One second more the Kid sat motionless, pondered.  Then he had decided.  The right hand came up and lay beside the left on the table.

A man at the bar set down his glass and the faint noise against the hard wood sounded unnaturally loud.  Another man ordered a drink, and the low voice breaking the silence sounded like a shout.  Men who had stood in tense, cramped positions moved, games that had stopped went on.  The strain of a few moments was gone, though still no one lost sight for more than an instant of Thornton and the Kid.

Bedloe dropped his eyes to his cards, merely turning the corners as they lay flat on the table.  The man who had gotten hastily out of his chair came back.  The game went on as the others were going, silently and swiftly.  The jack pot was opened, “boosted,” and grew fat.  Bedloe played a cool hand, and the impression until near the show-down was that he was not to be reckoned with.  Then, a little impudently, as was his way, he shoved his pile to the centre of the table.

“See that or drop out,” he said curtly.

The nervous man dropped out.  Two men saw it.  They both lost to the Kid’s full hand.