Together, they had less than fifty dollars in front of them on the poker table, and they were playing so cautiously that Windy knew he would have to waste the entire evening getting even that small amount from them.

  He negligently dealt each of them an ace in the hole and gave himself a deuce, then paired up one ace and gave the other the king of the same suit as his hole card. He dealt himself a four-spot up, and yawned as the pair of aces daringly plunged with a three-dollar bet.

  He was suddenly conscious of someone standing beside his chair, and glanced up hopefully, thinking it might be fresh money coming into the game.

  But it was only Timothy O’Connor.

  Windy nodded and dealt three more cards around, giving himself a five so he could make a straight out of his hand if it seemed advisable.

  Timothy asked, “Are you pretty busy tonight, Windy?”

  Windy grunted and jerked his head toward the table in an invitation for Timothy to see for himself. The ace-king-queen royal flush was hesitating over calling the five-dollar bet made by a pair of aces.

  “Jedge Prink is back in town,” Timothy confided to the gambler.

  Windy said, “So?”

  “Jest came in today. You know he’s been gone two-three months.”

  Windy shook his head to indicate he didn’t know. His face remained placidly expressionless though he inwardly groaned when the young cowpoke reluctantly turned his cards down. The fool should have waited for the joker which would have been his next card and given him a betting hand.

  “Yep,” Timothy said. “An’ he’s got a deal in the makin’, I shouldn’t wonder. Wants to see you about midnight in his soot at the Cambridge.”

  Windy said, “Does he?” He doubled the five-dollar bet of the prospector.

  “That’s right. It’s mighty important, I guess. I know he’s ordered a set-up of champagne an’ everything in his soot from the bar.”

  Windy Rivers nodded. He said, “Midnight,” and dealt the old prospector a second, the joker, giving him three aces, and dropping a trey onto his hand from the bottom of the deck.

  Knowing Windy’s peculiar aversion to using two words when one would do the job, Timothy accepted the two syllables as agreement and waited only to see the prospector put the rest of his money on his three aces and lose it all to Windy’s six-high straight before going out.

  2

  At midnight there was gathered in suite 1-A of the Cambridge Hotel as fine a collection of rogues as could be brought together in the teeming city of Denver.

  A fat man dominated the assemblage. He was bulbously fat. He had a shining pink scalp utterly devoid of hair, and his puffy cheeks had a pink, scrubbed look that gave him a disarmingly childlike expression. His lips were full and soft and moist, and in repose they settled themselves into a happy sort of pout. He had no discernible chin. There were merely successive billows of fat bulging out above a celluloid collar and black string tie. His belly was huge and rounded, like a heaped-up bowl of gelatin, and his hands were small and fat and dimpled.

  He looked completely genial and almost pathetically helpless as he sat there with his huge body overflowing from an overstuffed armchair—until one caught a glimpse of his eyes. They looked tiny and appeared to be set far back in his head, almost hidden behind the puffy mound of flesh bulging out at the top of each cheekbone—and they were black and cold and utterly ruthless. His voice was a soft, throaty purr.

  He sat in the center of the large living room, with a wheeled service table conveniently close to his right hand. There were two silver buckets containing bottles of iced champagne on the table, a quart bottle of whiskey, a pitcher of cracked ice and a silver soda siphon.

  Seated around the room in varying attitudes of tenseness and expectancy were Windy Rivers, the gambler; Daniel Deever, from the Park Hill Baptist Church; Gut-Luck Lasher, late of the city jail; Miss Connie Dawson, the Larimer Street songstress; and a fifth man whose name was Gilbert Crane.

  Crane was a well-preserved forty, a broad-shouldered athletic type, with a bluff, open countenance. His face was sun-browned and seamed a little, with laugh crinkles at the corners of his blue eyes, and he had a hearty way of throwing back his head and laughing which exposed a mouthful of strong white teeth. He had a way of gaining the instant friendship and respect of other men, and of causing heart tremors in any unattached female whom he honored with his attention. Gilbert Crane was one of the most unscrupulous horse traders in the West and had never done an honest day’s work in his life.

  When all his guests were gathered, and all had drinks to their liking, Judge J. Worthington Prink cleared his throat and began to explain the reason for the conclave in a benign, almost fatherly voice.

  “All of you know me. And all of you know each other. All except you, Mr. Lasher. I’ll take the liberty of explaining you to the others if I may, sir.

  “Mr. Gut-Luck Lasher is the gentleman who disposed of Lefty Breen a short time ago,” Judge Prink confided to the others. “He derives his nickname, I understand, from his unorthodox and exceedingly effective method of handling the weapon now belted about his waist. Knowing the reputation of Lefty Breen as we all do, I think none of us will question Mr. Gut-Luck’s proficiency.”

  “A man of violence.” Daniel Deever took a swig of straight whiskey and shuddered. “With the blood of innocent victims staining his hands. Such a man is abhorrent in the sight of God. For vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I—”

  “You,” said Judge Prink silkily, “will keep your scriptural quotations to yourself, Daniel.” He paused and took an appreciative sip of champagne from a thin, slender-columned glass beside him.

  “What’s this all about?” Connie Dawson demanded impatiently. “You’re not feeding us champagne and bonded whiskey just for the pleasure of our company. You’ve helped us all out of messes in the past—we’ll grant that. But I’m clean right now. I’m working perfectly legal.”

  “And I,” said Daniel Deever heavily, “have lately risen to a position of high respect and responsibility of Christian fellowship in the congregation of the Park Hill Baptist Church. I assure you I have turned over a new leaf and through prayer and abnegation have found the pathway to eternal salvation.”

  “I don’t know what you want of me either,” Gilbert Crane put in. “I haven’t pulled a crooked deal for months—any sort of a deal for that matter,” he ended with a self-conscious chuckle.

  “Same here,” said Windy Rivers tersely.

  “Exactly. But I need your help this time.” Judge Prink took another sip of champagne. “You all know I’ve been away from the city for several months.”

  “Sure. While the grand jury was investigating that bribed jury stink,” Crane put in. “We all know you ducked out on account of that.”

  Judge Prink nodded benignly. “It seemed advisable,” he purred. “And I’ve been sojourning in Powder Valley.” His moist lips caressed the two words. “In the little village of Dutch Springs, far from the bustle of the city. A small community of ignorant ranchers—and of unparalleled wealth.

  “Wait,” he went on strongly, holding up a fat, dimpled hand. “The residents of Powder Valley are not only ignorant, they are as trusting as children. In the innocence of their hearts they received a stranger with open arms, and were pleased and delighted when I settled in the county seat at Dutch Springs and opened the first attorney’s office in that vicinity. I took this step after discovering that a district judge was to be appointed from that district, and last week I was honored and repaid by receiving that appointment.”

  They were all listening with rapt attention now, and the newly appointed judge from Powder Valley went on softly:

  “I immediately thought of my friends here in the city: You, Connie, singing your heart out every night in the Black Angel for a few paltry dollars each week. And you, Daniel, sacrilegiously dipping your sticky fingers into the Baptist collection plates each Sunday night for a take that certainly cannot satisfy a man of your expensive tastes.”

  “It was a little over a hundred tonight,” Deever told him in a nettled tone. “In the Good Book is the clear promise—the Lord will provide.”

  “Pin money,” said Judge Prink contemptuously. “And you, Gilbert Crane, without the capital to finance another trading expedition, you’re rotting away here in Denver. And Windy—we all know that Windy has dealt himself such a towering reputation here that none but the most incautious will risk their money at his table. And as for Mr. Gut-Luck, it is clearly evident that he has not learned to make his gun skill pay dividends. Now I propose to change all that. I have a proposition for each and every one of you. A tremendous proposition.” His voice was warm with satisfied contentment. He glanced around at the empty glasses and made a motion toward the table beside him. “I suggest that refills are in order.”

  Deever and Crane were quick to act on his suggestion. Windy Rivers pursed his lips and shook his head. Young Lasher got to his feet lithely and hesitated, then went toward Connie and asked awkwardly, “Could I get you some more of that there bubble-juice, Ma’am?”

  Connie said “Please,” with a smile of approval on her rouged lips. She was older than he, but her flesh was firm and in the soft light she looked young and almost beautiful. Her eyes followed him with a careful, calculating look as he went across to refill her glass, and she made room for him on the small settee beside her when he returned, throwing her head back to tighten the sagging flesh of her neck and veiling her eyes with long lashes.

  “Powder Valley,” Judge J. Worthington Prink told them happily, “is waiting to be taken. It lies there, secluded and rich, smugly self-satisfied. A small domain set apart from the rest of our glorious state. As district judge I have my finger on the pulse of the community. I am not without influence there, and I have not been idle since I realized the tremendous potentialities which I stumbled on quite by accident. There is a place for each of you in my plan; a definite need for the peculiar abilities of each one of you—with commensurate rewards.

  “Listen to this, Daniel.” He leveled a fat forefinger at the bald, sideburned man. “There is a widow in Powder Valley. Her name is Mrs. Myra Jenkins and she holds clear title to a forty-section ranch now stocked with close to five hundred head of cattle. She is not uncomely and has endured widowhood for a matter of two years. She is deeply religious and very active in Dutch Springs’ only church. Yet she is not satisfied with orthodox religious activities and has lately taken up with dabbling in spiritualism by way of mail-order books. With a little encouragement, a few messages from the Beyond—” He paused significantly.

  Daniel Deever flicked out his tongue to wet his tight lips. He murmured, “Forty sections and five hundred head of cattle.”

  “Exactly,” purred the judge. “Like a ripe plum waiting to fall into the proper hands. And listen to this, Windy. In Dutch Springs there is only one hotel. The Jewel. And it is a jewel indeed. Complete with bar and gaming room, it is coining money for its proprietor—a man by the name of Thomas Dasher who considers himself an adept in the art of playing stud poker. His sole complaint is that the Valley is devoid of men with sporting instincts and sufficient cash to give him any real competition—and he does not hesitate to boast that no stakes are too high for him in a game of stud poker. Consider that situation, Windy, while I tell Miss Connie Dawson about the cashier in the local bank.

  “He is in his mid-thirties, Connie. A bachelor from the East. He owns a large portion of the bank stock and is in sole control of the institution. He is out of place in Dutch Springs, just as you will be out of place among those ignorant and uncultured ranchers. He, too, is ripe for the plucking, and he could be squeezed for fifty thousand or I miss my estimate.”

  The judge paused and pursed his lips with a little sigh. He emptied his champagne glass and touched his mouth lightly with a silk handkerchief.

  “In all of Powder Valley,” he confided, “there is one man who stands head and shoulders above the rest and he, unfortunately, is the sheriff. His name is Pat Stevens and he is no man’s fool.” The judge’s purring voice became brittle and his beady eyes gleamed with malevolence.

  “Mr. Stevens knows too much for his own health. Unlike his neighbors, he was not born and reared in the Valley. He has a suspicious nature and is without personal fear. His guns have a reputation of their own and he has a fanatical love for Powder Valley. This sheriff had the effrontery to oppose my appointment as district judge on the grounds that my reputation and background should be investigated more fully, and he is the type to look with suspicion upon any newcomers who drift into the Valley.

  “That’s where you come in, sir,” he went on swiftly to Gut-Luck. “You and Mr. Crane. Sheriff Pat Stevens must be eliminated—leaving his attractive wife as sole owner of one of the finest and richest ranches in the Valley.

  “Mrs. Sally Stevens will be your job, Gilbert, after her husband is out of the way. You’ll find her to your liking, I think, and you’re the type she will easily turn to in sorrow. I’ve already made arrangements for you to take possession of a small horse ranch bordering on the Lazy Mare spread. You’ll move in immediately and make friends with the Stevens family. There’s a young son whose confidence you should immediately gain. Through him, you should find a way to the mother’s heart after her bereavement. And it strikes me you would make a wonderful sheriff, Gilbert. I feel there would be little difficulty obtaining Pat Stevens’ star if you were lucky enough to kill his murderer after Stevens is shot down—in the guts, shall we say?” he added with a sidelong glance at Gut-Luck. “And I think that can be arranged.”

  “Wait a minute.” Gut-Luck straightened up on the settee. “What’s that yo’re plannin’? You want I should go up agin’ this here fast-shootin’ sheriff an’ then fix it for him to get me after I’ve done the job?”—with an outraged nod toward Gilbert Crane.

  Judge J. Worthington Prink chuckled happily and his big belly jiggled up and down and sideways. “Not at all, my dear sir. I believe we can arrange things in a more satisfactory manner. We’ll use a decoy, don’t you see? An innocent bystander who can be charged with your crime and who won’t be able to deny it after Mr. Crane has exacted vengeance upon him for your act. Please trust me to handle these details.

  “I’ve thought of old Timothy O’Connor as the man,” he went on to Crane thoughtfully. “Promise him a skinful of whiskey and Timothy will jump at the chance to accompany you to the horse ranch. Arrange a public argument between Timothy and Pat Stevens, with threats on Timothy’s part. The rest should be easy. The whole affair can take place on your horse ranch with only you and Mr. Lasher as witnesses. Then Gut-Luck fades into the background while you emerge as the intrepid defender of law and order. Mrs. Stevens should be properly impressed and thankful—and even if you shouldn’t succeed in taking her husband’s place in her affections you will have done your part by eliminating a sheriff who might otherwise cause trouble to our plans.”

  The judge paused to wet his mouth with a sip of champagne again. An incredulous and horrified silence held the little group in the room as they individually assimilated the judge’s astounding and cold-blooded proposals toward the various inhabitants of Powder Valley whom he had named.

  Daniel Deever broke the silence with a loud snort of mingled doubt and fear. “You’ve worked out a pretty plan,” he burst out. “But it will take months or years to accomplish it.”

  “A year,” said the judge, “is not too long a time for the sort of money involved. And I have prepared all my plans on that basis. It is something that cannot be rushed. We must do our work quietly and circumspectly so that no breath of suspicion attaches to any single one of us.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Connie petulantly. “This bank cashier from the East—what makes you think he’ll fall for a dance-hall girl like me? And how’ll Daniel work into the confidence of that widow lady?”

  “I’ve thought everything out, made all arrangements,” the judge assured her. “You, for instance, will not be a dance-hall warbler in Dutch Springs. No, indeed. You, my dear Connie, will acquire a new wardrobe and all the outer appearances of respectability. For I think Mr. Rudd Fleming may look with interest on the new schoolteacher. And after he first looks with interest, you’ll be expected to do the rest, Connie.”

  “Schoolteacher?” Connie Dawson laughed shrilly. “Good Lord, Judge. Do you expect me to teach the ranchers’ brats how to mix a Mickey Finn?”

  “Not at all.” The judge’s gravity was undisturbed. “I happen to know your background, my dear. Your education is sufficient to teach the three r’s. And Dutch Springs needs a teacher. Indeed, when it became known I was leaving for Denver on a business trip I was requested to look for a teacher here and offer her the position.”

  “And I think it will be well for you to accompany Miss Dawson as her uncle, Daniel,” he went on to Deever. “Let us say you are a retired minister whose ill health has sent you West. That will provide a perfectly plausible reason for your presence in Dutch Springs, and your interest in church activities will put you in immediate contact with the Widow Jenkins.

  “As for you, Windy, no circumlocution will be required. You’ll drift into the village merely as a professional gambler and will settle at the Jewel Hotel to give Mr. Dasher his chance to play stud poker for any stakes he wishes.”

  Windy shrugged and muttered, “My bankroll doesn’t stack up to a big game.”

  “You don’t understand. None of you seem to understand.” The judge looked pained. “I’ve planned this as a cooperative effort. I’ve planned the lay and I’ve laid the groundwork for each of you. I am prepared to finance each of you in your efforts for one year. I lift you out of the gutter in Denver and set you down in Powder Valley with a ready-made proposition. One or two of you may fail. No matter. If one or two are successful we’ll all be repaid for our year’s work. It’ll all go in the central pot, don’t you see? Whatever each of you can take out of the Valley. And a fair division at the end. Half to me and the other half split five ways.” He lifted his champagne glass and beamed around on them all. “How does it strike you?”