e with a sharpness that it
would take most of the night to appease.

The ball set rolling by his cunning hand quickly ran riot, and soon
the place again became the pandemonium which was its nightly habit.
Good-humor was the prevalent note, however. The men realized now, in
their half-sober senses, that the Kid was only wounded, and this
inclined them to leniency toward Curly. So it was quickly evident that
their recently-intended victim need no longer have any fear for his
life. He was forgiven as readily and as easily as he had been
condemned.

So the night proceeded. The roulette board was set going again in one
corner of the hut and a crowd hung about it, while the two operators
of it, "Diamond" Jack and his partner, strangers to the place, raked
in their harvest. The air was thick with the reek of cheap cigars,
sold at tremendous prices, and the foul atmosphere of stale drink.
The usual process of a further saturation had set in. Nor amidst the
din of voices was there a discordant note. Even the cursings of the
losers at the roulette board were drowned in the raucous din of
laughter and loud-voiced talk around the bar.

As time went on Beasley saw that his moment was rapidly approaching.
The shining, half-glazed eyes, the sudden outbursts of wild whoopings,
told him the tale he liked to hear. And he promptly changed his own
attitude of bonhomie, and began to remind those who cared to listen of
the fun they had all missed through Curly's interference. This was
done at the same time as he took to pouring out the drinks himself in
smaller quantities, and became careless in the matter of making
accurate change for the bigger bills of his customers.

Beasley's hints were not long in bearing the fruit he desired. Some
one recollected the women who had been participants in their earlier
frolic, and instantly there was a clamor for their presence.

Beasley grinned. He was feeling almost joyous.

The women readily answered the summons. They came garbed in long,
flowing, tawdry wrappers, the hallmark of the lives they lived. Nor
was it more than seconds before they were caught in the whirl of the
orgie in progress.

The sight was beyond all description in its revolting and hideous
pathos. These blind, besotted men hovered about these wrecks of
womanhood much in the manner of hungry animals. They plied them with
drink, and sought to win their favors by ribald jesting and talk as
obscene as their condition of drunkenne