"Heads or tails, Standing?" he demanded, holding the coin ready to toss ceilingward.
"Throw it," said Timber-Wolf, with his characteristic grin, "and I name it while it's in the air. For I don't know what sleight-of-hand you may have acquired these later years, and I don't trust you, my sweet kinsman! And shoot fast, as some one's coming."
For both had heard the rattle of hoofs in the road outside, as some horseman came racing up to the door.
"Name it, then," cried Deveril, and shot the coin, spinning, upward.
"Heads!" Timber-Wolf named it. "Always heads. My motto there, Kid!"
The silver dollar, with such zest had it been pitched upward, struck the ceiling and dropped to the floor, rolling. It rolled half across the room, both men springing after it, stooping to watch and know how fate decided matters between them. And in the end there was no decision at all. For the coin rolled half-way into a crack between the boards and stood thus, on edge, neither heads nor tails.
"Flip her again," growled Bruce Standing, deep in his throat. "And step lively!"
Already the horse's hoofs, as its rider plucked at the reins, were sliding outside. Deveril caught up the coin and tossed it again. And this time, true to his word, and not trusting the other, Bruce Standing called before the silver dollar struck the floor:
"Tails!"
And as the silver dollar struck and rolled and stopped, and at last lay flat, and the two stooped over it so close that almost the black hair of one and the reddish hair of the other brushed, they saw that it was heads. And that Timber-Wolf, repudiating his motto, "Always heads!" had lost three thousand dollars. And at the instant their intruder burst in upon them from the road.