“Poggy, he's my pard, an' he's riled. I never told him a word thet'd make him sore. I only said Knell hadn't no more use fer him than fer me. Now, what you say goes in this gang. I never failed you in my life. Here's my pard. I vouch fer him. Will you stand fer me? There's goin' to be hell if you don't. An' us with a big job on hand!”
While Fletcher toiled over his slow, earnest persuasion Duane had his gaze riveted upon Poggin. There was something leonine about Poggin. He was tawny. He blazed. He seemed beautiful as fire was beautiful. But looked at closer, with glance seeing the physical man, instead of that thing which shone from him, he was of perfect build, with muscles that swelled and rippled, bulging his clothes, with the magnificent head and face of the cruel, fierce, tawny-eyed jaguar.
Looking at this strange Poggin, instinctively divining his abnormal and hideous power, Duane had for the first time in his life the inward quaking fear of a man. It was like a cold-tongued bell ringing within him and numbing his heart. The old instinctive firing of blood followed, but did not drive away that fear. He knew. He felt something here deeper than thought could go. And he hated Poggin.
That individual had been considering Fletcher's appeal.
“Jim, I ante up,” he said, “an' if Phil doesn't raise us out with a big hand—why, he'll get called, an' your pard can set in the game.”
Every eye shifted to Knell. He was dead white. He laughed, and any one hearing that laugh would have realized his intense anger equally with an assurance which made him master of the situation.
“Poggin, you're a gambler, you are—the ace-high, straight-flush hand of the Big Bend,” he said, with stinging scorn. “I'll bet you my roll to a greaser peso that I can deal you a hand you'll be afraid to play.”
“Phil, you're talkin' wild,” growled Poggin, with both advice and menace in his tone.
“If there's anythin' you hate it's a man who pretends to be somebody else when he's not. Thet so?”
Poggin nodded in slow-gathering wrath.