The Mexican shrugged. "Beats me unless I helped." He showed three eights, then faced the two cards he had drawn. The first was a king of diamonds, the second the fourth eight.
"Hard luck, Pheelip," he said, and all his teeth flashed in a friendly smile as he opened both arms to rake in the chips.
Philip sat silent, his mind seething with suspicions. Culvera had played his hand very strangely, unless—unless he had known that a fourth eight was waiting for him in the deck. The boy looked up, in time to catch a vanishing smile on the face of Mendoza.
"Just a moment, Ramon," he called sharply, covering the chips with his hands. "That play—it don't look good to me. A man don't play threes so strong as that."
Culvera still smiled blandly, though his eyes were very watchful. "Me, I have what you call a hunch, Pheelip."
Yeager took two steps forward. "You bet he did. Cold deck, kid. The other one is in his right-hand coat pocket."
The suavity went out of Culvera's face as a light does from a blown candle. Snarling, he rose from his seat and faced the cowpuncher.
"Liar! Cabrone!" he hissed, reaching for his gun.
Already the revolver of Mendoza was flashing in the air.
Like a streak Steve's arm swept up. Twice his revolver sounded. There was a crash of breaking glass from the incandescent lights. Yeager flung himself against the table and drove it against Culvera who reeled back against the wall and dropped his weapon. The sound of more shots, of men dodging their way to safety, of a sharp cry followed by groans, had trodden so swiftly on the heels of the range-rider's action that when he turned a moment later he saw in the semi-darkness a smoke-filled room in the confusion of chaotic movement.