Presently Beady Jones and Braverman bustled in, carrying the packs.
Then Budd jumped up and ran to them. He returned to the table,
carrying a demijohn, which he banged upon the table.
"Whisky!" exclaimed Kells. "Take that away. We can't drink and
gamble."
"Watch me!" replied Blicky.
"Let them drink, Kells," declared Gulden. "We'll get their dust
quicker. Then we can have our game."
Kells made no more comment. The game went on and the aspect of it
changed. When Kells himself began to drink, seemingly unconscious of
the fact, Joan's dread increased greatly, and, leaving the peep-
hole, she lay back upon the bed. Always a sword had hung over her
head. Time after time by some fortunate circumstance or by courage
or wit or by an act of Providence she had escaped what strangely
menaced. Would she escape it again? For she felt the catastrophe
coming. Did Jim recognize that fact? Remembering the look on his
face, she was assured that he did. Then he would be quick to seize
upon any possible chance to get her away; and always he would be
between her and those bandits. At most, then, she had only death to
fear--death that he would mercifully deal to her if the worst came.
And as she lay there listening to the slow-rising murmur of the
gamblers, with her thought growing clearer, she realized it was love
of Jim and fear for him--fear that he would lose her--that caused
her cold dread and the laboring breath and the weighted heart. She
had cost Jim this terrible experience and she wanted to make up to
him for it, to give him herself and all her life.
Joan lay there a long time, thinking and suffering, while the
strange, morbid desire to watch Kells and Gulden grew stronger and
stronger, until it was irresistible. Her fate, her life, lay in the
balance between these two men. She divined that.
She returned to her vantage-point, and as she glanced through she
vibrated to a shock. The change that had begun subtly, intangibly,
was now a terrible and glaring difference. That great quantity of
gold, the equal chance of every gambler, the marvelous possibilities
presented to evil minds, and the hell that hid in that black bottle
--these had made playthings of every bandit except Gulden. He was
exactly the same as ever. But to see the others sent a chill of ice
along Joan's veins. Kells was white and rapt. Plain to see--he had
won! Blicky was wild with rage. Jesse Smith sat darker, grimmer, but
no longer cool. There was hate in the glance he fastened upon Kells
as he bet. Beady Jones and Braverman showed an inflamed and impotent
eagerness to take their turn. Budd sat in the game now, and his face
wore a terrible look. Joan could not tell what passion drove him,
but she knew he was a loser. Pike and Bossert likewise were losers,
and stood apart, sullen, watching with sick, jealous rage. Jim Cleve
had reacted to the strain, and he was white, with nervous, clutching
hands and piercing glances. And the game went on with violent slap
of card or pound of fist upon the table, with the slide of a bag of
gold or the little, sodden thump of its weight, with savage curses
at loss and strange, raw exultation at gain, with hurry and
violence--more than all, with the wildness of the hour and the
wildness of these men, drawing closer and closer to the dread climax
that from the beginning had been foreshadowed.