At length, with a loser's privilege, Bunning-Ford, after glancing at his watch, rose from the table. His lean face was in no way disturbed. He seemed quite indifferent to his losses.
"I'll quit you, Pedro," he said, smiling lazily down at the Mexican. "You're a bit too hot for me to-day."
The dark-skinned man smiled a vague, non-committing smile and displayed a double row of immaculate teeth.
"Good. You shall have your revenge. Doubtless you would like some of these papers back," he said, as he swept them leisurely into his pocket-book, and then sugar-bagging a cigarette paper he poured a few grains of granulated tobacco into it.
"Yes, I daresay I shall relieve you of some later on," replied Bill, quietly. Then he turned to the other table and stood watching the play.
He glanced anxiously at the bare table in front of the old rancher. Even Dr. Abbot was well stocked with slips of paper. Then his gaze fell upon the money-lender, behind whose huge back he was standing.
He moved slightly to one side. It is an unwritten law amongst poker players, in a public place in the west of the American continent, that no onlooker should stand immediately behind any player. He moved to Lablache's right. The money-lender was dealing. "Lord" Bill lit a cigarette.
The cards were dealt round. Then the draw. Then Lablache laid the pack down. Bunning-Ford had noted these things mechanically. Then something caught his attention. It was his very indifference which caused his sudden attention. Had he been following the game with his usual keenness he would only have been thinking of the betting.
Lablache was writing upon his memo, pad, which was a gorgeous effort in silver mounting. One of those oblong blocks with a broad band of burnished silver at the binding of the perforated leaves. He knew that this was the pad the money-lender always used; anyway, it was similar in all respects to his usual memorandum pads.
How it was his attention had become fixed upon that pad he could not have told, but now an inspiration came to him. His face remained unchanged in its expression, but those lazy eyes of his gleamed wickedly as he leisurely puffed at his cigarette.