"I thought so till today. Then I seen Terry, here, trim Pedro for a flat twenty thousand!"
"Oh," nodded the girl. Again her gaze reverted leisurely to the stranger and with a not unflattering interest.
"And then I seen him lose most of it back again. Roulette."
She nodded, keeping her eyes on Terry, and the boy found himself desiring mightily to discover just what was going on behind the changing green of her eyes. He was shocked when he discovered. It came like the break of high dawn in the mountains of the Big Bend. Suddenly she had smiled openly, frankly. "Hard luck, partner!"
A little shivering sense of pleasure ran through him. He knew that he had been admitted by her—accepted.
Her father had thrown up his head.
"Someone come in the back way. Oregon, go find out!"
Dark-eyed Oregon Charlie slipped up and through the door. Everyone in the room waited, a little tense, with lifted heads. Slim was studying the last throw that Phil Marvin had made. Terry could not but wonder what significance that "back way" had. Presently Oregon reappeared.
"Pete's come."
"The hell!"