“Why did I bet on the deuces? Oh, the damned, dirty deuces! Don’t I know the game? By God, I know every card like a kid knows his mother’s face! Didn’t I know it was the last ditch for me and no hope? I tell you, gentlemen, I didn’t play ’em. The Devil played ’em for me—the black Devil of the dirty deuces with the fiery feet that have been kicking me hellward for three aching years!
“Look at the cards! Look at ’em! There’s blood on every one of ’em, and they stink with the writhing flesh of a friend in the flames!”
Frenchy took another drink and his manner changed. The violence of his delirious outburst gave way to quietness. He spoke in a low, penetrating voice, and the black flame of his eyes held his hearers.
“The Kid and I had been riding across a big stretch of brown grass for two days, and our tongues were thick with thirst. I remember how he gave me the last drops of water we had with us, cussing and damning a man who got thirsty. ‘I can go without water with the biggest camel that ever stuck a hoof into the sand,’ said he. And I took the water; I always took and the Kid was always giving.
“And along in the evening we struck a little water hole and camped. How the Kid did drink when he thought I wasn’t looking! Oh, he wasn’t such a camel for carrying water with him! It was his big heart that carried the water—the sweet, pure, sparkling waters of friendship.
“Along about sundown a dull grey cloud grew up in the west—smoke! But the wind was against it, blowing soft and dry from the east where the river lay thirty miles away. ‘Think we’d better ride on?’ says the Kid. But I was tired and wanted sleep, and the Kid gave in. Says he, ‘Horses need a rest, I guess’; didn’t lay it onto me, you know. Giving again, and I taking.
“So we lariated the horses and rolled in. Do you know how a man sleeps after he’s been burning dry for days and fills up at last? I plunged into ten thousand fathoms of soft, soft sleep—deep, deep down, where the cool sweet dreams bloom in worlds of crystal. And everywhere in my sleep there were bubbling springs and I drank and drank and drank, and every gulp was sweeter than the last.
“Then the dreams changed and the many bubbling water holes of sleep went dry, and fine hot dust sprayed up out of the chinks where the water had flowed. Then the wind of sleep grew hot and hotter. It scorched my face and sent thin needles of fire into my brain. And then I was standing up coughing and rubbing my eyes and the Kid was beside me. What did we see?
“The wind had veered about while we slept. All hell was climbing up the west and a booming wind swept howling devils through the smoky twilight. Above the unnatural dawn, long black ragged arms reached out into the zenith and cloaked the stars. I heard a horse snorting and tugging at his lariat.
“‘Good God, Kid!’ I wheezed; ‘let’s be off!’