Unreasoning anger swelled in the throat of Terry Hollis; the same blind passion which had surged in him before he started up at the Cornish table and revealed himself to the sheriff. And the similarity was what sobered him. It was the hunger to battle, to kill. And it seemed to him that Black Jack had stepped out of the old picture and now stood behind him, tempting him to strike. Another covert signal from Pollard. Every one of the four turned toward him. The chances of Terry were diminished, nine out of ten, for each of those four, he shrewdly guessed, was a practiced gunman. Cold reason came to Terry's assistance. "I told you when I was broke," he said gently. "I told you that I was through. You told me to go on." "I figured you was kidding me," said Pollard harshly. "I knew you still had El Sangre back. Son, I'm a kind sort of a man, I am. I got a name for it." In spite of himself a faint and cruel smile flickered at the corners of his mouth as he spoke. He became grave again. "But they's some things I can't stand. They's some things that I hate worse'n I hate poison. I won't say what one of 'em is. I leave it to you. And I ask you to keep in the game. A thousand bucks ag'in' a boss. Ain't that more'n fair?" He no longer took pains to disguise his voice. It was hard and heavy and rang into the ear of Terry. And the latter, feeling that his hour had come, looked deliberately around the room and took note of every guarded exit, the four men now openly on watch for any action on his part. Pollard himself sat erect, on the edge of his chair, and his right hand had disappeared beneath the table. "Suppose I throw the coin this time?" he suggested. "By God!" thundered Pollard, springing to his feet and throwing off the mask completely. "You damned skunk, are you accusin' me of crooking the throw of the coin?" Terry waited for the least moment--waited in a dull wonder to find himself unafraid. But there was no fear in him. There was only a cold, methodical calculation of chances. He told himself, deliberately, that no matter how fast Pollard might be, he would prove the faster. He would kill Pollard. And he would undoubtedly kill one of the others. And they, beyond a shadow of a doubt, would kill him. He saw all this as in a picture. "Pollard," he said, more gently than before, "you'll have to eat that talk!" A flash of bewilderment crossed the face of Pollard--then rage--then that slight contraction of the features which in some men precedes a violent effort. But the effort did not come. While Terry literally wavered on tiptoe, his nerves straining for the pull of his gun and the leap to one side as he sent his bullet home, a deep, unmusical voice cut in on them: "Just hold yourself up a minute, will you, Joe?"