Without turning his head the gambler replied, “Looking at the boat; she's booming along, just chawing up and spitting out the river, ain't she? Look at that sweep of water going under her paddle-wheels,” he continued, unbolting the rail and lifting it to allow the two men to peer curiously over the guards as he pointed to the murderous incline beneath them; “a man wouldn't stand much show who got dropped into it. How these paddles would just snatch him bald-headed, pick him up and slosh him round and round, and then sling him out down there in such a shape that his own father wouldn't know him.” “Yes,” said the first speaker, with an ostentatious little laugh, “but all that ain't telling us how sister Mary is.” “No,” said the gambler slipping into the opening with a white and rigid face in which nothing seemed living but the eyes, “no, but it's telling you how two d----d fools who didn't know when to shut their mouths might get them shut once and forever. It's telling you what might happen to two men who tried to 'play' a man who didn't care to be 'played,'--a man who didn't care much what he did, when he did it, or how he did it, but would do what he'd set out to do--even if in doing it he went to hell with the men he sent there.” He had stepped out on the guards, beside the two men, closing the rail behind him. He had placed his hands on their shoulders; they had both gripped his arms; yet, viewed from the deck above, they seemed at that moment an amicable, even fraternal group, albeit the faces of the three were dead white in the moonlight. “I don't think I'm so very much interested in sister Mary,” said the first speaker quietly, after a pause. “And I don't seem to think so much of aunt Rachel as I did,” said his companion. “I thought you wouldn't,” said Jack, coolly reopening the rail and stepping back again. “It all depends upon the way you look at those things. Good-night.” “Good-night.” The three men paused, shook each other's hands silently, and separated, Jack sauntering slowly back to his stateroom. II.