e rungs of the
ladder, then slip and stumble as the weight of the following body came
upon them while the weak fingers strained desperately for a hold. The
whole heart and soul and mind of the Girl seemed to be reaching out
impotently to give her lover strength, to hurry him down fast enough to
forestall a shot from the Sheriff. It seemed hours until the road agent
reached the bottom of the ladder, then lurched with unseeing eyes to a
chair and, finally, fell forward limply, with his arms and head resting
on the table. Still dumb with dread, the Girl watched Rance slowly
circle round the wounded man; it was not until the Sheriff returned his
pistol to its holster that she breathed freely again.

"So, you dropped into The Polka to-night to play a little game of poker?
Funny how things change about in an hour or two!" Rance chuckled
mirthlessly; it seemed to suit his sardonic humour to taunt his helpless
rival. "You think you can play poker,--that's your conviction, is it?
Well, you can play freeze-out as to your chances, Mr. Johnson of
Sacramento. Come, speak up,--it's shooting or the tree,--which shall it
be?"

Goaded beyond endurance by Rance's taunting of the unconscious man, the
Girl, fumbling in her bosom for her pistol, turned upon him in a sudden,
cold fury:

"You better stop that laughin', Jack Rance, or I'll send you to finish
it in some place where things ain't so funny."

Something in the Girl's altered tone so struck the Sheriff that he
obeyed her. He said nothing, but on his lips were the words, "By Heaven,
the Girl means it!" and his eyes showed a smouldering admiration.

"He doesn't hear you,--he's out of it. But me--me--I hear you--I ain't
out of it," the Girl went on in compelling tones. "You're a gambler; he
was, too; well, so am I." She crossed deliberately to the bureau, and
laid her pistol away in the drawer, Rance meanwhile eyeing her with
puzzled interest. Returning, she went on, incisively as a whip lash:
"I live on chance money, drink money, card money, saloon money. We're
gamblers,--we're all gamblers!" She paused, an odd expression coming
over her face,--an expression that baffled Rance's power to read.
Presently she resumed: "Now, you asked me to-night if my answer was
final,--well, here's your chance. I'll play you the game,--straight
poker. It's two out o' three for me. Hatin' the sight o' you, it's the
nearest chance you'll ever get for me."

"Do you mean--" began Rance, his hands re