“You know nothing about it, and won't for an hour. What's a pipe and a trail of smoke?”
He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I felt it tremble.
“Why do you suppose I came out?” he demanded solemnly.
“You were probably losing,” I said.
“I was winning.”
“Then you got tired of winning.”
But he held up a thumb within a few inches of my face, and with it a ring I had often noticed, a huge opal which he customarily wore on the inside of his hand.
“She's dead,” said Mr. Cooke, sadly.
“Dead?” I repeated, perplexed.
“Yes, she's dead as the day I lost the two thousand at Sheepshead. She's never gone back on me yet. And unless I can make some little arrangement with those fellows,” he added, tossing his head at the smoke, “you and I will put up to-night in some barn of a jail. I've never been in jail but once,” said Mr. Cooke, “and it isn't so damned pleasant, I assure you.” I saw that he believed every word of it; in fact, that it was his religion. I might as well have tried to argue the Sultan out of Mohammedanism.