Willett half rose from his chair. "I thought I'd seen your face before," said he.
"What I want to know," said the bookkeeper instantly, all deference to rank or station vanished from tone and manner, "is, do you see my raise now?"
There was a moment's silence, during which no man present seemed to breathe. Then slowly Willett spoke:
"No, a straight isn't worth it." Whereupon there was a moment of embarrassed silence as the stakes were swept across the blanket-covered table, then a guffaw of rejoiceful mirth from the prospector. Case, as though carelessly, threw down his cards, face upwards, and there was not so much as a single pair.
"The drinks are on me, oh, yes," said he, "but the joke's on the lieutenant."
Yet when Bonner left, five minutes later and the game again was going on, there was no mirth in it. Nor was there mirth when the sun came peeping over the eastward range this cloudless Sabbath morning, shaming the bleary night lights at the store—the bleary eyes at the table. Bonner found them at it still an hour after reveille, and ventured to lay a hand on Willett's shoulder. "Can I speak with you a moment?" he said.
Willett rose unsteadily, but with dignity unshaken by change of fortune. He had lost as heavily, by this time, as earlier he had won.
"May I be pardoned for suggesting that you would be wise to get out of this and—a few hours' sleep? The general is up and worried. 'Tonio is gone!"
CHAPTER XI.
The fact that the post was cut off from the rest of the world, that neither runner from the field columns, courier from Prescott, nor mail rider from McDowell had succeeded in getting in, while 'Tonio, head trailer, had easily succeeded in getting out, was a combination calculated to promote serious reflection on part of the garrison this ideal Sunday morning. Perhaps it did, but so far as talk was concerned a very different fact ruled as first favorite. It was known all over the barracks by breakfast time that Case, the bookkeeper, had bluffed out the young swell from the Columbia who had come down to teach them how to play poker and fight Apaches. "Willett stock" among the rank and file had not been too high at the start, had been sinking fast since the affair at Bennett's Ranch, and was a drug in the market when the command, as was then the custom of the little army, turned out for inspection under arms, while Willett was turning in for a needed nap. Strong, his official host, knew instinctively where Willett must be, when he tumbled up to receive the reports at morning roll call and found the spare bed untouched. He said nothing, of course, even at guard mounting, when, together, he and Captain Bonner walked over to the office, where sat the post commander anxiously awaiting them. It seems that even after Bonner's friendly hint the game had not ceased at once. Willett had played on another hour in hopes that luck would change, but by seven Craney called a halt, said that he and Watts must quit, and intimated that Willett ought to. Case, though well along in liquor, still kept his head and lead, and would have played, but by this time Willett was writing I.O.U.'s. The prospector's cash was gone. The hitherto modest, retiring, silent man of the desk and ledgers had won heavily from the officer, yet only a trifle from his employers, and Craney suggested a recess until night. "Then we'll meet again—and settle," said Willett, half extending his hand.