“And the hussy masquerades as a lady,” she sneered.

“She is a lady,” said the Kid.  He sat bolt upright and rigid, and the knuckles of his clinched hands were very white.  In the shadow they did not note that his dark face was ghastly, nor did he say more except to bid Champian good-bye when he left, later on.  After the door had closed, however, the Kid arose and stretched his muscles, not languidly, but as though to take out the cramp of long tension.  He wet his lips, and his mouth was so dry that the sound caused the girl to look up.

“What are you grinning at?” Then, as the light struck his face, she started.  “My!  How you look!  What ails you?  Are you sick?” No one, from Dawson down, had seen the Bronco Kid as he looked to-night.

“No.  I’m not sick,” he answered, in a cracked voice.

Then the girl laughed harshly.

“Do you love that girl, too?  Why, she’s got every man in town crazy.”

She wrung her hands, which is a bad sign in a capable person, and as Glenister crossed the floor below in her sight she said, “Ah-h--I could kill him for that!”

“So could I,” said the Kid, and left her without adieu.

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH A MAN IS POSSESSED OF A DEVIL

For a long time Cherry Malotte sat quietly thinking, removed by her mental stress to such an infinite distance from the music and turmoil beneath that she was conscious of it only as a formless clamor.  She had tipped a chair back against the door, wedging it beneath the knob so that she might be saved from interruption, then flung herself into another seat and stared unseeingly.  As she sat thus, and thought, and schemed, harsh and hateful lines seemed to eat into her face.  Now and then she moaned impatiently, as though fearing lest the strategy she was plotting might prove futile; then she would rise and pace her narrow quarters.  She was unconscious of time, and had spent perhaps two hours thus, when amid the buzz of talk in the next compartment she heard a name which caused her to start, listen, then drop her preoccupation like a mantle.  A man was speaking of Glenister.  Excitement thrilled his voice.

“I never saw anything like it since McMaster’s Night in Virginia City, thirteen years ago.  He’s right.”

“Well, perhaps so,” the other replied, doubtfully, “but I don’t care to back you.  I never ‘staked’ a man in my life.”

“Then lend me the money.  I’ll pay it back in an hour, but for Heaven’s sake be quick.  I tell you he’s as right as a golden guinea.  It’s the lucky night of his life.  Why, he turned over the Black Jack game in four bets.  In fifteen minutes more we can’t get close enough to a table to send in our money with a messenger-boy--every sport in camp will be here.”

“I’ll stake you to fifty,” the second man replied, in a tone that showed a trace of his companion’s excitement.