The band had fallen on “Manzanilla,” and was rending it with variations when Collins circled round to the wheel and began playing the red. He took a place beside the bow-legged vaquero with the yellow bandanna knotted loosely round his throat. For five minutes the cow-puncher attended strictly to his bets. Then he cursed softly, and asked Collins to exchange places with him.
“This place is my hoodoo. I can’t win—” The sentence died in the man’s throat, became an inarticulate gurgle of dismay.
He had looked up and met the steady eyes of the sheriff, and the surprise of it had driven the blood from his heart. A revolver thrust into his face could not have shaken him more than that serene smile.
Collins took him by the arm with a jovial laugh meant to cover their retreat, and led him into one of the curtained alcove rooms. As they entered he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Leroy and Neil were still intent on their game. Not for a moment, not even while the barkeeper was answering their call for liquor, did the sheriff release Scotty from the rigor of his eyes, and when the attendant drew the curtain behind him the officer let his smile take on a new meaning.
“What did I tell you, Scotty?”
“Prove it,” defied Scotty. “Prove it—you can’t prove it.”
“What can’t I prove?”
“Why, that I was in that—” Scotty stopped abruptly, and watched the smile broaden on the strong face opposite him. His dull brain had come to his rescue none too soon.
“Now, ain’t it funny how people’s thoughts get to running on the same thing? Last time I met up with you there you was collecting a hundred dollars and keep-the-change cents from me, and now here you are spending it. It’s ce’tinly curious how both of us are remembering that little seance in the Pullman car.”
Scotty took refuge in a dogged silence. He was sweating fear.