Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it said, “Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one.”
In an instant the gambler’s hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard, brown fingers closed upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw Witham leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted over beneath him, and the cards were on the gambler’s knees, while, as the two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of one of them.
It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he had not the opportunity, for in another moment Witham’s right hand closed upon his wrist, and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to extricate it. He was a muscular man, with doubtless a sufficiency of nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for eight long years. Before another few seconds had passed he was wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle of bills Witham handed him.
“Now,” said the latter, “I want to do the square thing. If you’ll let us strip you and turn out your pockets, we’ll see you get any winnings you’re entitled to when we’ve straightened up the cards.”
The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of detection among the Canadian farmers. He probably knew they would not wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to Witham.
“And who the —— are you?” he asked.
Witham smiled grimly. “I guess you have heard of me. Anyway, there are a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne. Quite sure I know a straight game when I see it!”
The man’s resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he laughed as he swept his glance round at the angry faces turned upon him.
“If you don’t there’s nobody does,” he said. “Still, as you’ve got my pistol and ‘most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a partner out of this.”
There was an ominous murmur, and the lad’s face showed livid with fury and humiliation, but Witham turned quietly to the hotel-keeper.