Connie said, “Please don’t, Rudd.” Her voice and face remained sober. It was the first time she had called him Rudd. He liked the sound of his name on her lips. He asked, “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “I’d rather you wouldn’t.”

  He said, “You’re beautiful, Constance.”

  She wasn’t coquettish about it. She told him frankly, “That’s because you’ve been here in Powder Valley so long. Any girl from the city would look beautiful to you.”

  “Perhaps,” he agreed calmly. “But I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to want to marry just any girl from the city.”

  “Don’t say that,” Connie pleaded. “Not yet, Rudd. You hardly know me.”

  “I feel as though I’d known you always.”

  “But you haven’t. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know everything that matters. I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with you, Constance.”

  “You couldn’t. Not so soon.” Connie tried to pull her hand away from him. His fingers tightened their grip.

  “I have,” Rudd Felming insisted, and his voice was buoyant and strong. “And I’m asking you to marry me.”

  “It’s crazy.” Connie tried to laugh. She averted her eyes from his.

  “Insane,” he exulted. “As though we were a couple of youngsters. That’s the way love should be. It isn’t a matter of cold reason. It just happens. It has happened,” he ended resolutely.

  “No,” Connie said sharply. She twisted her gloved hand out of his. “You mustn’t say such things.”

  “I’m going to keep on saying them. Every time I see you. And I’m going to see you often, Constance.”

  She had no reply for this. The team trotted on and they were near her boarding house. Rudd Fleming said gently, “I’m sorry if I frightened you. But I thought you knew. I thought my eyes must have been telling you all afternoon that I was falling in love.”

  She cried out, “Please don’t,” and her voice trembled despite the effort she made to hold it steady.

  “All right,” the banker said quietly. “I won’t say any more about it—today. But you can’t change things. You’re going to marry me.”

  He stopped the buggy outside the Leroy house and jumped down. He went around and held out his hand and Connie put hers in it and he assisted her to the ground. He walked up the path with her, holding her arm tightly. He stopped on the porch and released her arm and said, “It’s been a wonderful afternoon.”

  “It has been nice,” she said politely. “Thank you.”

  Rudd Fleming lifted his white Stetson and bowed slightly and went back to the buggy. Connie leaned against the door frame and shivered as she watched him go. Her heart was a dull weight inside her. She had never known another man like Rudd Fleming. It had been years since she had been treated like a lady. She hated herself with a fierce and unreasoning hatred.

  The Jenkins surrey pulled up in front as Rudd drove away. Daniel Deever got out and the surrey drove away. Connie opened the door and went in. She slowly climbed the stairs to her room.

  Deever’s heavy tread sounded on the stairs behind her as she went into her room. He came down the hall and entered without knocking. He was beaming with satisfaction and good humor. “Things are certainly going along.” He smacked his lips as though the words tasted good. “Another seance or two will have the widow eating out of my hand. And I guess you’ve got your young man hooked, eh?”

  Connie was stripping off her gloves with her back turned to him. She said matter-of-factly, “He asked me to marry him.”

  “Eh? So soon? Wonderful. The judge will be mighty pleased.” Deever chuckled evilly.

  Connie kept her back turned. She said, “I refused.”

  “You—what? Great Jupiter, Connie—”

  “I’m not going to marry him. I’m going back to Denver where I belong.”

  “You’re going to do nothing of the kind, young lady.” Deever strode forward and put his hands on her shoulders and shook her angrily.

  She whirled away from him and slapped his face. Tears streaked her cheeks. “You can’t keep me here.”

  He caught her wrist and twisted it cruelly. “The judge will take care of you. You can’t run out on the rest of us.”

  “I’m going to,” she told him defiantly. “And if you or the judge try to interfere with me I’ll tell everybody everything.”

  “You’re stark raving crazy,” he ejaculated.

  “I’ve just come to my senses,” she retorted. “This whole thing is crazy. It has been from the first. A bunch of crooks coming in like this to destroy a whole community of happy contented people. It won’t work. It’s got to fail.”

  He laughed, showing his strong white teeth. “It won’t work, eh? Just when everything’s going smooth.”

  “It isn’t going to work,” she told him flatly. “I’ll see that it doesn’t. I’ll tell the truth about all of you.”

  “You’d better tell that to the judge,” Deever said ominously.

  “I will.”

  “You bet you will, young lady. Right now. Before you do any talking where people can hear you.” Deever pulled her toward the door.

  Connie wrenched her arm loose and stalked ahead of him with her chin held high.

  They found Judge Prink in his room at the hotel. He had just finished supper and was relaxed with his fat body overflowing from a hotel chair.

  He laced his fingers together in front of his belly and listened patiently while Deever exploded with Connie’s threats, shooting side glances at her through the puffy slits that almost obscured his eyes.

  The judge smiled blandly when Deever finished. “Is that right, Connie?”

  She stood straight and taut before him with her hands pressed down tightly against her sides. “I’m going back to Denver. I’m through pretending to be a schoolteacher.”

  “I invested money in your trip,” the judge reminded her. “We all have a stake in your success.”

  Connie said, “I’ll pay back the money you spent on me. Just count me out.”

  Judge J. Worthington Prink sighed heavily. He told Deever, “It looks as though we misplaced our confidence. Do you think we should let her pull out?”

  “We can’t. It would spoil everything. Why, she even threatens to tell the truth about all of us.”

  “That’s an ugly threat,” the judge told her. “I think you’re overwrought, Connie. I suggest you take a few days to think it over.”

  “I’m not going to keep on seeing Rudd Fleming,” she told him between tight teeth.

  The judge waved one dimpled hand. “We’re in this together. All for one and one for all. You can do as you like about Fleming. But we can’t allow you to upset all our plans.” His voice was still a soft purr, but it was heavy with menace.

  “That’s right. With things coming to a showdown,” Deever put in. “All Crane needs is a few more days.”

  “And Windy is set for the kill tonight,” Prink said quietly. “Dasher has challenged him to a no-limit game. No, Connie. I’m afraid we can’t allow you to upset things just now.”

  “I don’t see how you’re going to keep me from it.”

  “I’m appealing to your sense of justice,” the judge told her softly. “What do you care about these people? They’re not your kind. You don’t belong here.”

  “That’s why I’m going back to Denver. Back to the Black Angel Saloon on Larimer Street. That’s where I belong.”

  “All right. You can go a little later. All I want is your promise that you’ll say nothing to anyone until our work is finished here.”

  “I won’t promise that. I won’t let you victimize all these people. I’ll keep quiet if you give up the whole plan. Not otherwise.”

  The judge sighed again. “You’re being very unreasonable. You’ll cause us to take steps if you persist.”

  Connie hesitated. Then she asked, “Do you know who I saw this afternoon?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Kitty Lane.”

  The judge blinked his lids down over his eyes. Daniel Deever looked angrily shocked and then incredulous. “Kitty Lane? You mean Fred Ralston’s wife? That’s crazy. I heard they both got killed nearly a year ago pulling one of their badger games.”

  “Fred may have been killed,” Connie told him calmly. “Kitty is still plenty alive. She’s living right here in Powder Valley and she’s married to one of Sheriff Stevens’ old partners. That little runt of a Pony Express rider named Sam Sloan.”

  Judge Prink opened his eyes. “If that’s true you needn’t fear that Kitty will expose you or us. She’d have to expose her own past at the same time.”

  “Her husband knows all about her past. I don’t know any of the story behind it but I talked to her today and Kitty isn’t afraid of the truth.”

  “Then this change on your part isn’t just an attack of conscience,” Judge Prink sneered. “You’re afraid Kitty will tell Rudd Fleming the truth.”

  “I don’t know,” Connie faltered. “I’m just trying to prove to you that you can’t get away with it. Kitty’s going to start putting two and two together when she finds out all the others are here too. She’ll tell her husband and that will be the end of things.”

  “She hasn’t told him yet, eh?”

  “No. I begged her not to. She promised me she wouldn’t say anything—for a while anyhow. But she doesn’t know about the rest of it. As soon as she finds out—”

  “I think,” Judge Prink told Deever, “that we must arrange to keep Kitty quiet. After Gut-Luck is through at the K Bar he can visit Sloan’s wife on his way out.”

  “No.” Connie backed up toward the door. “I won’t let you. If anything happens to Kitty it’ll be my fault. I’ll tell everyone first.” She turned and reached for the doorknob.

  Judge Prink nodded to Deever.

  Deever stepped forward and clamped a big hand over Connie’s mouth, twisting her head back savagely and dragging her away from the door. She writhed and twisted and tried to kick him, and little gurgles of anger came from behind his big hand.

  The judge got up reluctantly. He waddled back toward the bed, and Deever dragged the struggling girl to him. He heaved her on top of the blankets and the judge rolled her up securely like a cocoon. Deever sat down on top of her, still holding his hand over her mouth.

  He muttered angrily. “She’s trying to bite me. If I turn loose now she’ll wake up the whole hotel.”

  “You’d better not turn loose,” the judge advised him dryly. He went across to the dresser and got a pair of clean socks from a drawer, came back and tore off the wide hem of the sheet.

  Together they bent over the girl and forced the socks into her mouth, then wound the wide strip of cloth around her face securely. With more strips torn from the sheet, Deever tied her legs tightly inside the rolled blanket, and bound up her arms and torso until she was unable to move.

  The judge had resumed his seat and was placidly smoking a cigar when Deever stepped back from the bed to survey his handiwork.

  The judge purred, “It is regrettable but it shows what happens when you trust a woman. We’ll leave her here until later tonight and then dispose of her quietly.”

  He got up and went to the door. “Suppose we go down and see what sort of success Windy is having.”

  17

  Thomas Dasher picked up the deck and dealt off the fifth card face up. He gave Windy Rivers a jack, and dealt himself the ten of spades. That made Windy a pair of queens, the jack, and a deuce face up, with one card in the hole. Dasher had the seven, eight, and ten of spades, and the joker. The joker was playing as an ace, or wild in a straight or flush. If Dasher had a spade in the hole, his hand was a spade flush. If he had a six, nine or a jack of any suite, his hand was a straight.

  Either a flush or a straight would beat anything Windy could possibly have. If Dasher had an ace in the hole, his hand consisted of a pair of aces—beating the jacks Windy had showing, but not good enough to beat Windy if he had another queen, or a jack or a deuce in the hole.

  Thomas Dasher’s hole card was actually the trey of diamonds, making his hand utterly worthless. But it was a tough hand for the man opposite him to bet into. There were ten spades unaccounted for, four sixes, four nines, and three jacks. A total of eighteen different cards in the deck, any one of which would give Dasher the winning hand if he had it in the hole.

  It was the biggest stud poker game Dutch Springs had ever seen. Men were packed two deep around the table behind the two players, and there was utter silence as Dasher dealt the final cards of the hand and laid the deck aside.

  Everybody watched Windy Rivers. His pair of queens made him high in sight. It was his bet, if he chose to be foolhardy enough to bet into the possibilities facing him.

  Windy glanced at his cards and at Dasher’s possible straight flush. He said, “Check,” which was the only plausible thing to do under the circumstances. Actually, Windy knew Dasher’s hole card was the trey of diamonds. They had been playing with that deck for half an hour, and Windy’s thumbnail had been busy. He had every card marked with a minute indentation on the back that his practiced eye could read as it was slipped off the deck.

  He knew Dasher was sitting there with a busted straight-flush—that his pair of queens was the winning hand. But if he made a bet now it would arouse suspicion of the truth—it would be almost obvious that he knew Dasher’s hand wasn’t any good.

  So Windy checked the bet.

  The judge and Daniel Deever came into the room from the lobby and moved up behind the ring of interested spectators. Men politely moved aside to let the judge into the inner ring. His fat face was impassive as he viewed the hands and the piles of chips in front of each player. There was nothing in his expression to indicate that Windy was playing with his money, that he had backed the gambler with ten thousand dollars before the game started.

  The blue chips were worth a hundred dollars apiece. The reds were fifty and the whites ten.

  Thomas Dasher still had a dozen blues, twice that many reds, and a lot of whites. They represented an original investment of five thousand dollars, dwindled to almost half in thirty minutes of playing.

  His blunt fingers played with his blue chips, picking them up and letting them dribble back to the table. Beads of sweat stood on his good-natured, florid face. He had a perfect hand to bluff with. There was less than five hundred dollars in the pot in the middle of the table. He could either admit defeat and turn his hole card up, give Windy the pot—or he could make a very heavy bet, so heavy that no sane gambler would cover it in view of the chances that he was beaten.

  Dasher stopped playing with his chips and reached down with both hands to tip up one corner of his hole card and peer at it, giving the impression that he was reassuring himself that it actually was one of the cards he needed to give him the winning hand.

  No one moved or spoke while he went through this by-play. No one could tell from Dasher’s face whether he was bluffing or reassuring himself.

  He went back to dribbling his chips onto the table. Windy Rivers rolled a cigarette and waited patiently. He was in no hurry whatsoever. Stud poker was his business and he couldn’t lose. Winning was an absurdly easy matter when he had the cards marked and always knew what his opponent had in the hole. The trick was to play his cards as though he didn’t know.

  Thomas Dasher glanced up and around at the circle of tense faces watching him. He smiled slowly. He, too, was putting on an act. He was trying to make it appear that he was hesitating, trying to decide whether to bluff or not—for a smart player like Windy would believe just the opposite if he made his hesitation obvious enough.

  He now began carefully counting his chips. He had thirteen blues. He pushed them to one side. He added twenty-four reds to the pile and said aloud, “That’s twenty-five hundred.”

  No one said anything. Windy Rivers watched him impassively. Dasher counted out his white chips. Forty-one of them. He mixed them all together and announced in a musing tone, “Twenty-nine hundred and ten dollars. That’s a heap of money.”

  He looked at Windy and then around the circle again. “A heap of money,” he emphasized.

  He reached out with a sudden gesture as though to push them all into the center, but caught himself and withheld his hand.

  He narrowed his eyes at Windy’s cards and said, “Queens?” in a surprised tone, as though he was just now noticing what Windy had.

  Then he made a sudden decision and finished pushing the chips in, announcing loudly, “All right. I bet twenty-nine hundred and ten I’ve got the high hand.”

  It was good poker. It fooled everyone who didn’t know what he had in the hole—everyone except Windy Rivers who knew.

  It convinced everyone that he really did have the best hand and that he was trying to suck his opponent into a bet by making him believe he was bluffing.

  Windy didn’t say anything. He began counting out his chips while the Powder Valley men about the table looked at each other elatedly, convinced that the hotel keeper was going to make a killing.

  Windy put twenty-nine blues and one white chip in the center of the table and said, “Call.” He didn’t make the mistake of overplaying his hand and raising. That would have made it apparent that he wasn’t afraid of Dasher’s hand, would have caused suspicion that the cards were marked. By merely calling, he marked himself only as a man who couldn’t be bluffed.

  Dasher began cursing in a low monotone and turned his trey of diamonds over. He ripped the five cards savagely across while Windy drew in the six-thousand-dollar pot.

  “I’m buying a new stack and we’re getting a new deck,” Dasher announced angrily. “Damned if I see how you had the guts to call that bluff, Rivers.”

  Windy shrugged and went on stacking his chips. All around the table men began talking excitedly about the drama they had just witnessed, trying to analyze wherein Thomas Dasher had failed to act convincingly enough to scare Windy out of betting.

  A new deck of cards was brought, and Dasher bought a new stack of chips and play was resumed. It seesawed back and forth for a time with each man winning small pots while Windy was busy getting the new deck marked so he could settle down to serious business again.