“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 opposite the Sheriff and so close to the unconscious form of the man she loved that from time to time her left arm brushed his shoulder.
Rance, without protest other than a shrug, took up his own deck of cards, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and stowed them away in his pocket. It was the Girl who spoke first:
“Are you ready?”
“Ready? Yes. I’m ready. Cut for deal.”
With unfaltering fingers, the Girl cut. Of the man beside her, dead or dying, she must not, dared not think. For the moment she had become one incarnate purpose: to win, to win at any cost,—nothing else mattered.
Rance won the deal; and taking up the pack he asked, as he shuffled:
“A case of show-down?”
“Show-down.”
“Cut!” once more peremptorily from Rance; and then, when she had cut, one question more: “Best two out of three?”