Gallito sat down to his cards in the evening as regularly as he went to bed exactly at twelve o’clock; and not cards alone.  When he came “inside” there were brought forth from various nooks of obscurity in his dwelling other gambling devices, among them a faro layout, a keno goose, and a roulette wheel.

Undoubtedly, the play ran high in the Gallito cabin, but although Hanson sometimes sat in at this or that game, more often he sat talking to Pearl in the soft shadow of the porch.  To her he made no secret of his infatuation, but it seemed to him that when with her they were ever more constantly and more irritatingly interrupted.  Either Mrs. Gallito, or Hughie, or some of the visitors would join them and Hanson realized that his opportunities for speech with Pearl were becoming increasingly rare.

The only times when he could really see her alone were on the occasions of some morning rides together, which they had begun to take.

As for her, she was still repelling, still alluring, still drawing him on, but how much of it was a game which she played both by nature and practice with consummate skill, or how much he might have caught her fancy or touched her heart, he had no way of determining, and this tormented him and yet daily, hourly, heightened his infatuation.

And he was still further goaded by the knowledge that he was, in a measure, under surveillance, which he was sure was instituted by Gallito and Flick and connived at by Hughie; a watchfulness so subtle that it convinced him even while he doubted.  He felt often as if he were stalked by some stealthy and implacable animal.  This situation, imaginary or real, began to affect his nerves and he would undoubtedly have left had it not been for his mounting passion for Pearl, a passion fanned always to a more ardent flame by her tantalizing coquetries.

Then, too, he felt that, although Bob Flick and Gallito had probably acquired some information about himself which he would gladly have withheld, still they did not hold all the winning cards.  The ace of trumps, as he exultantly told himself, is bound to take any trick, and the ace of trumps he felt that he possessed in the information which Mrs. Gallito had so obligingly furnished him.  In other words, his ace was Crop-eared Jose, and his ace was not destined to be unsupported by other trump cards.

Only the evening before, he and Mrs. Gallito had sat alone for a few moments on the porch gazing out over the wonder and glory of the desert flooded in moonlight, and the patient, flattering interest with which he invariably received her confidences had gained its reward, for she had leaned toward him and whispered with many cautious backward glances: 

“He’s up there in the mountains yet.”

“Who?” asked Hanson, attempting to conceal his eagerness under an air of mystification.

“Crop-eared Jose,” she answered, “and Gallito’s going to keep him there for several months yet.”