ckly smile.

"Really, this is most extraordinary!" he drawled. "Is your charming
cousin about to entertain us with a bit of wild-West melodrama, Vernie?"

"No," Willa interposed. "I'm going to show you what we do with a crook
below the border.--Mr. North, will you take this pack and deal face up
for Mr. Shirley? You'll find that somebody will have a hand to go the
limit on, but our friend over there will top him, pat."

Mechanically, Winnie North complied, and, in a silence broken only by
the whispering fall of the cards, he dropped before Willa herself a
king full, and at the erstwhile dealer's place, four damning eights.

"You infernal scoundrel!" They were all on their feet, but it was
Vernon's voice which rumbled in unexpected strength. "If my cousin
weren't here, I'd thrash you within an inch of your life!"

"Don't mind me!" The revolver wavered regretfully in Willa's fingers.
"I'd have winged him at the start, but I reckon shooting don't go in
New York. I'll take a chance, though, if he don't loosen up with every
peso he's stolen."

The threat was wholly unnecessary. With shaking hands the cheat made
restitution, his sallow face gray-green and distorted with silent rage.

"Now, vamoose!" Willa commanded. "If I don't hear the front door slam
in just thirty seconds, you'll be the deadest hombre this side of
Kingdom Come!"

There were a few seconds to spare from her ultimatum when the scurry of
feet ceased in a thud which echoed through the silent house.

Willa slipped the revolver back under her belt and turned with a little
rueful smile to her cousin.

"I--I suppose it wasn't just what a lady ought to have done----" she
began, apologetically.

"It was wonderful!" Winthrop North's eyes shone. "You saw him stack up
the cards on Pete Follinsbee, and then dug up that revolver and came in
here to expose him! It's the gamest thing I ever heard of a girl
doing! Congratulations, Miss Murdaugh!"

Vernon pulled himself together, and held out his hand. "I'm proud of
my cousin! Only--what in thunder will the mater say if this gets out?"

"I know what Dad would have said." Willa flushed. "But I suppose I've
made a regular hash of--of my debut!"

CHAPTER IX

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

"What in the world are you doing, Vernie?" Angie paused in the library
door, stifling a yawn daintily as she slipped her evening cloak from
her shoulders.

Vernon looked up from his book with raised eyebrows.