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The case-keeper passed a shaking hand over her face, and when it came away she saw blood on her fingers where she had sunk her teeth into her lower lip. Glenister did not rise. He sat, heavy-browed and sullen, his jaw thrust forward, his hair low upon his forehead, his eyes bloodshot and dead. "I'll sit the hand out if you'll let me bet the 'finger," said he. "Certainly," replied the dealer.
Cherry Malotte's fingers were like ice and shook till the buttons of her case-keeper rattled, her heart raced till she could not breathe, while something rose up and choked her. If Glenister won this bet he would quit; she felt it.
It was the middle of the night, as Bray's days were divided, and even yet he was hardly awake; but he shuffled the cards until Rimrock was satisfied and then locked them into the box. The case-keeper sat opposite, to keep track of the cards, and a look-out on the stand at one end, and while a mob of surging onlookers fought at their backs they watched the slow turning of the cards.
The on-lookers ceased talking and prepared to watch, for now came the crucial test of the evening. Faro is to other games as war is to jackstraws. For a time Glenister won steadily till there came a moment when many stacks of chips lay on the deuce. Cherry saw the Kid "flash" to the case-keeper, and the next moment he had "pulled two." The deuce lost.
He detailed the story of the gambling episode at the Northern saloon, and concluded: "I'd like to have seen that 'turn, for they say the excitement was terrific. She was keeping cases, and at the finish slammed her case-keeper shut and declared the bet off because she had made a mistake. Of course they couldn't dispute her, and she stuck to it. One of the by-standers told me she lied, though."
In this frontier village at a late hour one night young Wells overheard this conversation: "Hello, Bill," said the case-keeper in a faro game, as he turned his head halfway round to see who was the owner of the monster hand which had just reached over his shoulder and placed a stack of silver dollars on a card, marking it to win, "I've missed you the last few days. Where have you been so long?"
It is, of course, vital that the confederate case-keeper be able to interpret the dealer's signs perfectly in order to move the sliding ebony disks to correspond, else trouble will accrue at the completion of the hand when the cases come out wrong. Having completed his instructions, the proprietor went forward, and Cherry wormed her way towards the roulette-wheel.
In faro it is customary for the case-keeper to sit on the opposite side of the table from the dealer, with a device before him resembling an abacus, or Chinese adding-machine.
In the mind of the new case-keeper there was but one thought Roy must be broken. Humiliation, disgrace, ruin, ridicule were to be his. If he should be downed, discredited, and discouraged, then, perhaps, he would turn to her as he had in the by-gone days. He was slipping away from her this was her last chance.
This last individual was as fat and unctuous looking as his confederate, the Look-out, was thin and sneaky; moreover, he bore the sobriquet of The Sidney Duck and, obviously, was from Australia. "Say, what did the last eight do?" Sonora now asked, turning to the case-keeper. "Lose." "Well, let the tail go with the hide," returned Sonora, resignedly.
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