“It seems rather hopeless, doesn’t it?” said Helen, stifling a violent inclination to laugh outright.
Dirty O’Brien was less scrupulous. He laughed with a vicious snort.
“Hopeless?—well, say, hopeless ain’t a circumstance. Guess you’ve never seen a ‘Jonah-man’ buckin’ a faro bank run by a Chinaman sharp?”
Helen shook her head while the saloonkeeper spat out his chew of tobacco with all the violence of his outraged feelings.
“He surely is a gilt-edged winner beside it,” he finally admitted impressively, before clipping off a fresh chew from his plug with his strong teeth.
Helen turned away, partly to hide the laugh that would no longer be denied, and partly to watch the approach of a team of horses hauling a load of logs. In a moment swift anger shone in her pretty eyes.
“Why!” she cried, pointing at them. “Look, Dirty! That’s our team; and Pete Clancy is driving it.”
The man followed the direction in which she was pointing.
“Sure,” he agreed indifferently.