"You said it," replied the other tensely. "You got it quick."
"Just how would such a game be played?" asked Dexter in a smooth, milky tone.
"Poker—Jacks—the draw to fill—and a show-down." The outlaw drew a breath of kindling excitement. "Five hundred bucks at a smash—you swearing to let me go if you lose. If you win you've got some velvet to go on. And we keep going until you break me or I break you. Simple?"
"Quite!" Dexter stood for a moment in meditative silence. He had already decided to let his prisoner go, if he ever got the chance. So whether he should win or lose in this game of strangely matched stakes, the police were out nothing. There was no point of honor involved. The main consideration was the game itself. There ought to be enough interest in such an encounter to keep him awake, and no matter what the cost, he must not sleep to-night.
"If I should agree to release you," he said after a pause, "the promise goes only that far. I would give you only a day's start, and then I go after you again."
"A day's start is enough for me to shake any cop," returned Crill with a sneer.
"Another thing," pursued the corporal quietly: "If we play, we play fair. I want you to be entirely satisfied—as I know you wish me to be—that fortune alone governs the turn. An impartial third person deals the cards."
"Eh?" The outlaw looked up with an ugly scowl. "Who, for instance?"
"Miss Rayne, I'm sure, wouldn't mind dealing for each of us in turn."
Crill shifted his lowering glance from Dexter to the girl and his scowl changed gradually to an oily smirk. "All right, lady, you do it," he said. He snapped his fingers, devil-may-care. "Let's go!" he invited.