Dewing dealt himself two. Reversing his exposed cards, he shoved between them the two cards he had drawn and laid these five before him, backs up, without looking at them.
"It's your stab, Mr. Johnson," said Dewing sweetly.
Johnson skinned his hand slowly and cautiously, covering his cards with his hands, clipping one edge lightly so that the opposite edges were slightly separated, and peering between them. He had drawn the joker and the ace of diamonds. He closed the hand tightly and shoved in a stack.
"Here's where you see aces and eights beaten," he said, addressing
Dewing. "You can't have four eights, 'cause Mr. Scotty done showed one."
The lumberman raised.
"What are you horning in for?" demanded Pete. "I've got you beat. It's
Dewing's hide I'm after."
Dewing looked at his cards and stayed. Pete saw the raise and re-raised.
The lumberman sized up to Pete's raise tentatively, but kept his hand on his stack of chips; he questioned Pete with his eyes, muttered, hesitated, and finally withdrew the stack of chips in his hands and threw up his cards with a curse, exposing a jack-high spade flush.
Dewing's eyes were cold and hard. He saw Pete's raise and raised again, pushing in two stacks of reds.
"That's more than I've got, but I'll see you as far as my chips hold out. Wish to Heaven I had a bushel!" Pete sized up his few chips beside Dewing's tall red stacks. "It's a shame to show this hand for such a pitiful little bit of money," he said in an aggrieved voice. "What you got?"