When he put his proposition, the Bronco Kid dropped his eyes as though debating.  The girl saw that he studied the cards in his box intently and that his fingers caressed the top one ever so softly during the instant the eyes of the rest were on Glenister.  The dealer looked up at last, and Cherry saw the gleam of triumph in his eye; he could not mask it from her, though his answering words were hesitating.  She knew by the look that Glenister was a pauper.

“Come on,” insisted Roy, hoarsely.  “Turn the cards.”

“You’re on!”

The girl felt that she was fainting.  She wanted to scream.  The triumph of this moment stifled her—­or was it triumph, after all?  She heard the breath of the little man behind her rattle as though he were being throttled, and saw the lookout pass a shaking hand to his chin, then wet his parched lips.  She saw the man she had helped to ruin bend forward, his lean face strained and hard, an odd look of pain and weariness in his eyes.  She never forgot that look.  The crowd was frozen in various attitudes of eagerness, although it had not yet recovered from the suspense of the last great wager.  It knew the Midas and what it meant.  Here lay half of it, hidden beneath a tawdry square of pasteboard.  With maddening deliberation the Kid dealt the top card.  Beneath it was the trey of spades.  Glenister said no word nor made a move.  Some one coughed, and it sounded like a gunshot.  Slowly the dealer’s fingers retraced their way.  He hesitated purposely and leered at the girl, then the three-spot disappeared and beneath it lay the ace as the king had lain on that other wager.  It spelled utter ruin to Glenister.  He raised his eyes blindly, and then the deathlike silence of the room was shattered by a sudden crash.  Cherry Malotte had closed her check-rack violently, at the same instant crying shrill and clear:  “That bet is off!  The cases are wrong!”

Glenister half rose, overturning his chair; the Kid lunged forward across the table, and his wonderful hands, tense and talon-like, thrust themselves forward as though reaching for the riches she had snatched away.  They worked and writhed and trembled as though in dumb fury, the nails sinking into the oil-cloth table-cover.  His face grew livid and cruel, while his eyes blazed at her till she shrank from him affrightedly, bracing herself away from the table with rigid arms.

Reason came slowly back to Glenister, and understanding with it.  He seemed to awake from a nightmare.  He could read all too plainly the gambler’s look of baffled hate as the man sprawled on the table, his arms spread wide, his eyes glaring at the cowering woman, who shrank before him like a rabbit before a snake.  She tried to speak, but choked.  Then the dealer came to himself, and cried harshly through his teeth one word: 

“Christ!”

He raised his fist and struck the table so violently that chips and coppers leaped and rolled, and Cherry closed her eyes to lose sight of his awful grimace.  Glenister looked down on him and said: