“Well?” Angel did not deny it.
“Everybody knows it,” said Rance softly. “It ruined yore business. I brought the business back for yuh, and now yuh ain’t got enough money to keep it rollin’. Here!”
He drew out his roll of bills, stripped off the eighteen hundred he had won at the black-jack game, and gave it to the wondering Angel.
“Now,” said Rance coldly, “give me yore I.O.U. for the full seventy-eight hundred.”
Angel’s eyes brightened quickly.
“You mean you’ll take my I.O.U. for that——”
“I always was a fool,” said the old man bitterly. “Go ahead and write it out.”
Angel sat down at his table and quickly wrote out the I.O.U., which the old man accepted.
“Go back to yore games,” said old Rance. “And see if yuh can’t deal fair.”
They went back into the saloon and Angel opened the poker game again. Old Rance went to the bar with Chuckwalla, and had a drink. The old man had had several drinks before the game, and now he piled in several more. Chuckwalla held the smudging cigar in his gnarled fingers and tossed down drink after drink.