" Maurice glanced at
his hand and threw it down.
"What did you have?"
"Nothing. I was trying to fill a straight."
"So was I," said the Colonel, sweeping the board. "It's your
deal." He unbottoned his coat.
Maurice felt a shiver of delight. Sticking out of the Colonel's
belt was the ebony handle of a cavalry revolver, and he made up
his mind to get it. There were no troopers around--the Colonel
had admitted as much. He began talking rapidly, sometimes
incoherently. In a corner of the room he saw the cords which had
been around his wrists and ankles the night before.
"Poker," said the Colonel, "depends mostly on what you Americans
call bluff. A bluff, as I understand it, is making the others
think you have them when you haven't, or you haven't got them
when you have. In one case you scare them, in the other you fish.
You're getting flushed, my son; you'll have a headache to-night;
and in an hour you start."
An hour! There was fever in Maurice's veins, but it was not
caused wholly by the heat of the wine. How should he manage it?
He must have that revolver.
"Call? What have you got?" asked the Colonel.
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