sting on the table, his
hawk-like glance burning into her very thoughts.

"Yes, with a wife in Noo Orleans all right," she interrupted him
feverishly. "If you're lucky,--you'll git 'im an' me. But if you
lose,--this man settin' between us is mine--mine to do with as I please,
an' you shut up an' lose like a gentleman."

"You must be crazy about him!" The words seemed wrung from the Sheriff
against his will.

"That's my business!" came like a knife-cut from the Girl.

"Do you know you're talkin' to the Sheriff?"

"I'm talkin' to Jack Rance, the gambler," she amended evenly.

"You're right,--and he's just fool enough to take you up," returned
Rance with sudden decision. He looked around him for a chair; there was
one near the table, and the Girl handed it to him. With one hand he
swung it into place before the table, while with the other he jerked off
the table-cover, and flung it across the room. Johnson neither moved nor
groaned, as the edge slid from beneath his nerveless arms.

"You and the cyards have got into my blood. I'll take you up," he said,
seating himself.

"Your word," demanded the Girl, leaning over the table, but still
standing.

"I can lose like a gentleman," returned Rance curtly; then, with a swift
seizure of her hand, he continued tensely, in tones that made the Girl
shrink and whiten, "I'm hungry for you, Min, and if I win, I'll take it
out on you as long as I have breath."

A moment later, the Girl had freed her hand from his clasp, and was
saying evenly, "Fix the lamp." And while the Sheriff was adjusting the
wick that had begun to flare up smokily, she swiftly left the room,
saying casually over her shoulder that she was going to fetch something
from the closet.

"What you goin' to get?" he called after her suspiciously. The Girl made
no reply. Rance made no movement to follow her, but instead drew a pack
of cards from his pocket and began to shuffle them with practiced
carelessness. But when a minute had passed and the girl had not
returned, he called once more, with growing impatience, to know what was
keeping her.

"I'm jest gettin' the cards an' kind o' steadyin' my nerves," she
answered somewhat queerly through the doorway. The next moment she had
returned, quickly closing the closet door behind her, blew out her
candle, and laying a pack of cards upon the table, said significantly:

"We'll use a fresh deck. There's a good deal depends on this, Jack." She
seated herself opposi