“I am too wise.  Ha!  I know when to quit.  He can’t win steady—­he don’t play any system.”

“Then he has a good chance,” said the girl.

“There he goes now,” the little man cried as the uproar arose.  “I told you he’d lose.”  At the voice of the multitude he wavered as though affected by some powerful magnet.

“But he won again,” said Mexico.

“No!  Did he?  Lord!  I quit too soon!”

He scampered back into the other room, only to return, hesitating, his money tightly clutched.

“Do you s’pose it’s safe?  I never saw a man bet so reckless.  I guess I’d better quit, eh?” He noted the sneer on the woman’s face, and without waiting a reply dashed off again.  They saw him clamorously fight his way in towards a post at the roulette-table.  “Let me through!  I’ve got money and I want to play it!”

“Pah!” said Mullins, disgustedly.  “He’s one of them Vermont desperadoes that never laid a bet till he was thirty.  If Glenister loses he’ll hate him for life.”

“There are plenty of his sort here,” the girl remarked; “his soul would fit in a flea-track.”  She spied the Bronco Kid sauntering back towards her and joined him.  He leaned against the wall, watching the gossamer thread of smoke twist upward from his cigarette, seemingly oblivious to the surroundings, and showing no hint of the emotion he had displayed two hours before.

“This is a big killing, isn’t it?” said the girl.  The gambler nodded, murmuring indifferently.

“Why aren’t you dealing bank?  Isn’t this your shift?”

“I quit last night.”

“Just in time to miss this affair.  Lucky for you.”

“Yes; I own the place now.  Bought it yesterday.”

“Good Heavens!  Then it’s your money he’s winning.”

“Sure, at the rate of a thousand a minute.”

She glanced at the long trail of devastated tables behind Glenister and his followers.  At that instant the sound told that the miner had won again, and it dawned upon Cherry that the gambler beside her stood too quietly, that his hand and voice were too steady, his glance too cold to be natural.  The next moment approved her instinct.

The musicians, grown tired of their endeavors to lure back the dancers, determined to join the excitement, and ceased playing.  The leader laid down his violin, the pianist trailed up the key-board with a departing twitter and quit his stool.  They all crossed the hall, headed for the crowd, some of them making ready to bet.  As they approached the Bronco Kid, his lips thinned and slid apart slightly, while out of his heavy-lidded eyes there flared unreasoning rage.  Stepping forward, he seized the foremost man and spun him about violently.

“Where are you going?”

“Why, nobody wants to dance, so we thought we’d go out front for a bit.”

“Get back, damn you!” It was his first chance to vent the passion within him.  A glance at his maddened features was sufficient for the musicians, and they did not delay.  By the time they had resumed their duties, however, the curtains of composure had closed upon the Kid, masking his emotion again; but from her brief glimpse Cherry Malotte knew that this man was not of ice, as some supposed.  He turned to her and said, “Do you mean what you said up-stairs?”