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.
So Glenister was gambling, the girl learned, and with such luck as to
break the Black Jack game and excite the greed of every gambler in camp.
News of his winnings had gone out into the street, and the sporting men
were coming to share his fortune, to fatten like vultures on the
adversity of their fellows. Those who had no money to stake were
borrowing, like the man next door.
She left her retreat, and, descending the stairs, was greeted by a
strange sight. The dance-hall was empty of all but the musicians, who
blew and fiddled lustily in vain endeavor to draw from the rapidly
swelling crowd that thronged the gambling-room and stretched to the
door. The press was thickest about a table midway down the hall. Cherry
could see nothing of what went on there, for men and women stood ten
deep about it and others perched on chairs and tables along the walls. A
roar arose suddenly, followed by utter silence; then came the clink and
rattle of silver. A moment, and the crowd resumed its laughter and talk.
“All down, boys,” sounded the level voice of the dealer. “The field or
the favorite. He’s made eighteen straight passes. Get your money on the
line.” There ensued another breathless instant wherein she heard the
thud of dice, then followed the shout of triumph that told what the
spots revealed. The dealer payed off. Glenister reared himself head and
shoulders above the others and pushed out through the ring to the
roulette-wheel. The rest followed. Behind the circular table they had
quitted, the dealer was putting away his dice, and there was not a coin
in his rack. Mexico Mullins approached Cherry, and she questioned him.
“He just broke the crap game,” Mullins told her; “nineteen passes
without losing the bones.”
“How much did he win?”
“Oh, he didn’t win much himself, but it’s the people betting with him
that does the damage! They’re gamblers, most of them, and they play the
limit. He took out the Black Jack bank-roll first, $4,000, then cleaned
the ‘Tub.’ By that time the tin horns began to come in. It’s the
greatest run I ever see.”
“Did you get in?”
“Now, don’t you know that I never play anything but ‘bank’? If he lasts
long enough to reach the faro lay-out, I’ll get mine.”
The excitement of the crowd began to infect the girl, even though she
looked on from the outside. The exultant voices, the sudden hush, the
tensity of nerve it all betokened, set her a-thrill. A stranger left the
throng and rushed to the spot where Cherry and Mexico stood talking. He
was small and sandy, with shifting glance and chinless jaw. His eyes
glittered, his teeth shone ratlike through his dry lips, and his voice
was shrill. He darted towards them like some furtive, frightened little
animal, unnaturally excited.
“I guess that isn’t so bad for three bets!” He shook a sheaf of
bank-notes at them.
“Why don’t you stick?” inquired Mullins.
“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?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said you could kill Glenister.”
“I could.”
“Don’t you love--”
“I _hate_ him,” she interrupted, hoarsely. He gave her a mirthless
smile, and spying the crap-dealer leaving his bankrupt table, called him
over and said:
“Toby, I want you to ‘drive the hearse’ when Glenister begins to play
faro. I’ll deal. Understand?”
“Sure! Going to give him a little ‘work,’ eh?”
“I never dealt a crooked card in this camp,” exclaimed the Kid, “but
I’ll ‘lay’ that man to-night or I’ll kill him! I’ll use a ‘sand-tell,’
see! And I want to explain my signals to you. If you miss the signs
you’ll queer us both and put the house on the blink.”
He rapidly rehearsed his signals in a jargon which to a layman would
have been unintelligible, illustrating them by certain almost
imperceptible shiftings of the fingers or changes in the position of his
hand, so slight as to thwart discovery. Through it all the girl stood by
and followed his every word and motion with eager attention. She needed
no explanation of the terms they used. She knew them all, knew that the
“hearse-driver” was the man who kept the cases, knew all the code of the
“inside life.” To her it was all as an open page, and she memorized more
quickly than did Toby the signs by which the Bronco Kid proposed to
signal what card he had smuggled from the box or held back.
In faro it is customary for the case-keeper to sit on the opposite side
of the table from the dealer, with a device before him resembling an
abacus, or Chinese adding-machine. When a card is removed from the
faro-box by the dealer, the “hearse-driver” moves a button opposite a
corresponding card on his little machine, in order that the players, at
a glance, may tell what spots have been played or are still in the box.
His duties, though simple, are important, for should he make an error,
and should the position of his counters not tally with the cards in the
box on the “last turn,” all bets on the table are declared void. When
honestly dealt, faro is the fairest of all gambling games, but it is
intricate, and may hide much knavery. When the game is crooked, it is
fatal, for out of the ingenuity of generations of card sharks there have
been evolved a multitude of devices with which to fleece the
unsuspecting. These are so carefully masked that none but the initiated
may know them, while the freemasonry of the craft is strong and
discovery unusual.
Instead of using a familiar arrangement like the “needle-tell,” wherein
an invisible needle pricks the dealer’s thumb, thus signalling the
presence of certain cards, the Bronco Kid had determined to use the
“sand-tell.” In other words, he would employ a “straight box,” but a
deck of cards, certain ones of which had been roughened or sand-papered
slightly, so that, by pressing more heavily on the top or exposed card,
the one beneath would stick to its neighbor above, and thus enable him
to deal two with one motion if the occasion demanded. This roughness
would likewise enable him to detect the hidden presence of a marked card
by the faintest scratching sound when he dealt. In this manipulation it
would be necessary, also, to shave the edges of some of the pasteboards
a trifle, so that, when the deck was forced firmly against one side of
the box, there would be exposed a fraction of the small figure in the
left-hand corner of the concealed cards. Long practice in the art of
jugglery lends such proficiency as to baffle discovery and rob the game
of its uncertainty as surely as the player is robbed of his money. It
is, of course, vital that the confederate case-keeper be able to
interpret the dealer’s signs perfectly in order to move the sliding
ebony disks to correspond, else trouble will accrue at the completion of
the hand when the cases come out wrong.
Having completed his instructions, the proprietor went forward, and
Cherry wormed her way towards the roulette-wheel. She wished to watch
Glenister, but could not get near him because of the crowd. The men
would not make room for her. Every eye was glued upon the table as
though salvation lurked in its rows of red and black. They were packed
behind it until the croupier had barely room to spin the ball, and
although he forced them back, they pressed forward again inch by inch,
drawn by the song of the ivory, drunk with its worship, maddened by the
breath of Chance.
Cherry gathered that Glenister was still winning, for a glimpse of the
wheel-rack between the shoulders of those ahead showed that the checks
were nearly out of it.
Plainly it was but a question of minutes, so she backed out and took her
station beside the faro-table where the Bronco Kid was dealing. His face
wore its colorless mask of indifference; his long white hands moved
slowly with the certainty that betokened absolute mastery of his art. He
was waiting. The ex-crap dealer was keeping cases.
The group left the roulette-table in a few moments and surrounded her,
Glenister among the others. He was not the man she knew. In place of the
dreary hopelessness with which he had left her, his face was flushed and
reckless, his collar was open, showing the base of his great, corded
neck, while the lust of the game had coarsened him till he was again the
violent, untamed, primitive man of the frontier. His self-restraint and
dignity were gone. He had tried the new ways, and they were not for him.
He slipped back, and the past swallowed him.
After leaving Cherry he had sought some mental relief by idly risking
the silver in his pocket. He had let the coins lie and double, then
double again and again. He had been indifferent whether he won or lost,
so assumed a reckless disregard for the laws of probability, thinking
that he would shortly lose the money he had won and then go home. He did
not want it. When his luck remained the same, he raised the stakes, but
it did not change--he could not lose. Before he realized it, other men
were betting with him, animated purely by greed and craze of the sport.
First one, then another joined till game after game was closed, and each
moment the crowd had grown in size and enthusiasm so that its fever
crept into him, imperceptibly at first, but ever increasing, till the
mania mastered him.
He paid no attention to Cherry as he took his seat. He had eyes for
nothing but the “lay-out.” She clenched her hands and prayed for his
ruin.
“What’s your limit, Kid?” he inquired.
“One hundred, and two,” the Kid answered, which in the vernacular means
that any sum up to $200 may be laid on one card save only on the last
turn, when the amount is lessened by half.
Without more ado they commenced. The Kid handled his cards smoothly,
surely, paying and taking bets with machine-like calm. The on-lookers
ceased talking and prepared to watch, for now came the crucial test of
the evening. Faro is to other games as war is to jackstraws.
For a time Glenister won steadily till there came a moment when many
stacks of chips lay on the deuce. Cherry saw the Kid “flash” to the
case-keeper, and the next moment he had “pulled two.” The deuce lost. It
was his first substantial gain, and the players paid no attention. At
the end of half an hour the winnings were slightly in favor of the
“house.” Then Glenister said, “This is too slow. I want action.”
“All right,” smiled the proprietor. “We’ll double the limit.”
Thus it became possible to wager $400 on a card, and the Kid began
really to play. Glenister now lost steadily, not in large amounts, but
with tantalizing regularity. Cherry had never seen cards played like
this. The gambler was a revelation to her--his work was wonderful. Ill
luck seemed to fan the crowd’s eagerness, while, to add to its
impatience, the cases came wrong twice in succession, so that those who
would have bet heavily upon the last turn had their money given back.
Cherry saw the confusion of the “hearse-driver” even quicker than did
Bronco. Toby was growing rattled. The dealer’s work was too fast for
him, and yet he could offer no signal of distress for fear of
annihilation at the hands of those crowded close to his shoulder. In the
same way the owner of the game could make no objection to his helper’s
incompetence for fear that some by-stander would volunteer to fill the
man’s part--there were many present capable of the trick. He could only
glare balefully across the table at his unfortunate confederate.
They had not gone far on the next game before Cherry’s quick eye
detected a sign which the man misinterpreted. She addressed him,
quietly, “You’d better brush up your plumes.”
In spite of his anger the Bronco Kid smiled. Humor in him was strangely
withered and distorted, yet here was a thrust he would always remember
and recount with glee in years to come. He feared there were other
faro-dealers present who might understand the hint, but there was none
save Mexico Mullins, whose face was a study--mirth seemed to be
strangling him. A moment later the girl spoke to the case-keeper again.
“Let me take your place; your reins are unbuckled.”
Toby glanced inquiringly at the Kid, who caught Cherry’s reassuring look
and nodded, so he arose and the girl slid into the vacant chair. This
woman would make no errors--the dealer knew that; her keen wits were
sharpened by hate--it showed in her face. If Glenister escaped
destruction to-night it would be because human means could not
accomplish his downfall.
In the mind of the new case-keeper there was but one thought--Roy must
be broken. Humiliation, disgrace, ruin, ridicule were to be his. If he
should be downed, discredited, and discouraged, then, perhaps, he would
turn to her as he had in the by-gone days. He was slipping away from
her--this was her last chance. She began her duties easily, and her
alertness stimulated Bronco till his senses, too, grew sharper, his
observation more acute and lightning-like. Glenister swore beneath his
breath that the cards were bewitched. He was like a drunken man, now as
truly intoxicated as though the fumes of wine had befogged his brain. He
swayed in his seat, the veins of his neck thickened and throbbed, his
features were congested. After a while he spoke.
“I want a bigger limit. Is this some boy’s game? Throw her open.”
The gambler shot a triumphant glance at the girl and acquiesced. “All
right, the limit is the blue sky. Pile your checks to the roof-pole.” He
began to shuffle.
Within the crowded circle the air was hot and fetid with the breath of
men. The sweat trickled down Glenister’s brown skin, dripping from his
jaw unnoticed. He arose and ripped off his coat, while those standing
behind shifted and scuffed their feet impatiently. Besides Roy, there
were but three men playing. They were the ones who had won heaviest at
first. Now that luck was against them they were loath to quit.
Cherry was annoyed by stertorous breathing at her shoulder, and glanced
back to find the little man who had been so excited earlier in the
evening. His mouth was agape, his eyes wide, the muscles about his lips
twitching. He had lost back, long since, the hundreds he had won and
more besides. She searched the figures walling her about and saw no
women. They had been crowded out long since. It seemed as though the
table formed the bottom of a sloping pit of human faces--eager, tense,
staring. It was well she was here, she thought, else this task might
fail. She would help to blast Glenister, desolate him, humiliate him.
Ah, but wouldn’t she!
Roy bet $100 on the “popular” card. On the third turn he lost. He bet
$200 next and lost. He set out a stack of $400 and lost for the third
time. Fortune had turned her face. He ground his teeth and doubled until
the stakes grew enormous, while the dealer dealt monotonously. The spots
flashed and disappeared, taking with them wager after wager. Glenister
became conscious of a raging, red fury which he had hard shift to
master. It was not his money--what if he did lose? He would stay until
he won. He _would_ win. This luck would not, could not, last--and yet
with diabolic persistence he continued to choose the losing cards. The
other men fared better till he yielded to their judgment, when the
dealer took their money also.
Strange to say, the fickle goddess had really shifted her banner at
last, and the Bronco Kid was dealing straight faro now. He was too good
a player to force a winning hand, and Glenister’s ill-fortune became as
phenomenal as his winning had been. The girl who figured in this drama
was keyed to the highest tension, her eyes now on her counters, now
searching the profile of her victim. Glenister continued to lose and
lose and lose, while the girl gloated over his swift-coming ruin. When
at long intervals he won a bet she shrank and shivered for fear he might
escape. If only he would risk it all--everything he had. He would have
to come to her then!
The end was closer than she realized. The throng hung breathless upon
each move of the players, while there was no sound but the noise of
shifting chips and the distant jangle of the orchestra. The lookout sat
far forward upon his perch, his hands upon his knees, his eyes frozen to
the board, a dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Crowded upon his
platform were miners tense and motionless as statues. When a man spoke
or coughed, a score of eyes stared at him accusingly, then dropped to
the table again.
Glenister took from his clothes a bundle of bank-notes, so thick that it
required his two hands to compass it. On-lookers saw that the bills were
mainly yellow. No one spoke while he counted them rapidly, glanced at
the dealer, who nodded, then slid them forward till they rested on the
king. He placed a “copper” on the pile. A great sigh of indrawn breaths
swept through the crowd. The North had never known a bet like this--it
meant a fortune. Here was a tale for one’s grandchildren--that a man
should win opulence in an evening, then lose it in one deal. This final
bet represented more than many of them had ever seen at one time before.
Its fate lay on a single card.
Cherry Malotte’s fingers were like ice and shook till the buttons of her
case-keeper rattled, her heart raced till she could not breathe, while
something rose up and choked her. If Glenister won this bet he would
quit; she felt it. If he lost, ah! what could the Kid there feel, the
man who was playing for a paltry vengeance, compared to her whose hope
of happiness, of love, of life hinged on this wager?
Evidently the Bronco Kid knew what card lay next below, for he offered
her no sign, and as Glenister leaned back he slowly and firmly pushed
the top card out of the box. Although this was the biggest turn of his
life, he betrayed no tremor. His gesture displayed the nine of
diamonds, and the crowd breathed heavily. The king had not won. Would it
lose? Every gaze was welded to the tiny nickelled box. If the face-card
lay next beneath the nine-spot, the heaviest wager in Alaska would have
been lost; if it still remained hidden, on the next turn, the money
would be safe for a moment.
Slowly the white hand of the dealer moved back; his middle finger
touched the nine of diamonds; it slid smoothly out of the box, and there
in its place frowned the king of clubs. At last the silence was broken.
Men spoke, some laughed, but in their laughter was no mirth. It was more
like the sound of choking. They stamped their feet to relieve the grip
of strained muscles. The dealer reached forth and slid the stack of
bills into the drawer at his waist without counting. The case-keeper
passed a shaking hand over her face, and when it came away she saw blood
on her fingers where she had sunk her teeth into her lower lip.
Glenister did not rise. He sat, heavy-browed and sullen, his jaw thrust
forward, his hair low upon his forehead, his eyes bloodshot and dead.
“I’ll sit the hand out if you’ll let me bet the ‘finger,’” said he.
“Certainly,” replied the dealer.
When a man requests this privilege it means that he will call the amount
of his wager without producing the visible stakes, and the dealer may
accept or refuse according to his judgment of the bettor’s
responsibility. It is safe, for no man shirks a gambling debt in the
North, and thousands may go with a nod of the head though never a cent
be on the board.
There were still a few cards in the box, and the dealer turned them,
paying the three men who played. Glenister took no part, but sat bulked
over his end of the table glowering from beneath his shock of hair.
Cherry was deathly tired. The strain of the last hour had been so
intense that she could barely sit in her seat, yet she was determined to
finish the hand. As Bronco paused before the last turn, many of the
by-standers made bets. They were the “case-players” who risked money
only on the final pair, thus avoiding the chance of two cards of like
denomination coming together, in which event (“splits” it is called) the
dealer takes half the money. The stakes were laid at last and the deal
about to start when Glenister spoke. “Wait! What’s this place worth,
Bronco?”
“What do you mean?”
“You own this outfit?” He waved his hand about the room. “Well, what
does it stand you?”
The gambler hesitated an instant while the crowd pricked up its ears,
and the girl turned wondering, troubled eyes upon the miner. What would
he do now?
“Counting bank rolls, fixtures, and all, about a hundred and twenty
thousand dollars. Why?”
“I’ll pick the ace to lose, my one-half interest in the Midas against
your whole damned lay-out!”
There was an absolute hush while the realization of this offer smote the
on-lookers. It took time to realize it. This man was insane. There were
three cards to choose from--one would win, one would lose, and one would
have no action.
Of all those present only Cherry Malotte divined even vaguely the real
reason which prompted the man to do this. It was not “gameness,” nor
altogether a brutish stubbornness which would not let him quit. It was
something deeper. He was desolate and his heart was gone. Helen was lost
to him--worse yet, was unworthy, and she was all he cared for. What did
he want of the Midas with its lawsuits, its intrigues, and--its
trickery? He was sick of it all--of the whole game--and wanted to get
away. If he won, very well. If he lost, the land of the Aurora would
know him no more.
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:
“I think I understand; but the money was yours, anyhow, so I don’t
mind.” His meaning was plain. The Kid suddenly jerked open the drawer
before him, but Glenister clenched his right hand and leaned forward.
The miner could have killed him with a blow, for the gambler was seated
and at his mercy. The Kid checked himself, while his face began to
twitch as though the nerves underlying it had broken bondage and were
dancing in a wild, ungovernable orgy.
“You have taught me a lesson,” was all that Glenister said, and with
that he pushed through the crowd and out into the cool night air.
Overhead the arctic stars winked at him, and the sea smells struck him,
clean and fresh. As he went homeward he heard the distant, full-throated
plaint of a wolf-dog. It held the mystery and sadness of the North. He
paused, and, baring his thick, matted head, stood for a long time
gathering himself together. Standing so, he made certain covenants with
himself, and vowed solemnly never to touch another card.
At the same moment Cherry Malotte came hurrying to her cottage door,
fleeing as though from pursuit or from some hateful, haunted spot. She
paused before entering and flung her arms outward into the dark in a
wide gesture of despair.
“Why did I do it? Oh! _why_ did I do it? I can’t understand myself.”