"If anybody else wins, they'll have to take a mortgage on the Tivoli." The two other players nodded. "So I call, too." MacDonald added his slip for five thousand. Not one of them claimed the pot, and not one of them called the size of his hand. Simultaneously and in silence they faced their cards on the table, while a general tiptoeing and craning of necks took place among the onlookers. Daylight showed four queens and an ace; MacDonald four jacks and an ace; and Kearns four kings and a trey. Kearns reached forward with an encircling movement of his arm and drew the pot in to him, his arm shaking as he did so. Daylight picked the ace from his hand and tossed it over alongside MacDonald's ace, saying:-- "That's what cheered me along, Mac. I knowed it was only kings that could beat me, and he had them. "What did you-all have?" he asked, all interest, turning to Campbell. "Straight flush of four, open at both ends--a good drawing hand." "You bet! You could a' made a straight, a straight flush, or a flush out of it." "That's what I thought," Campbell said sadly. "It cost me six thousand before I quit." "I wisht you-all'd drawn," Daylight laughed. "Then I wouldn't a' caught that fourth queen. Now I've got to take Billy Rawlins' mail contract and mush for Dyea. What's the size of the killing, Jack?" Kearns attempted to count the pot, but was too excited. Daylight drew it across to him, with firm fingers separating and stacking the markers and I.O.U.'s and with clear brain adding the sum. "One hundred and twenty-seven thousand," he announced. "You-all can sell out now, Jack, and head for home." The winner smiled and nodded, but seemed incapable of speech. "I'd shout the drinks," MacDonald said, "only the house don't belong to me any more." "Yes, it does," Kearns replied, first wetting his lips with his tongue. "Your note's good for any length of time. But the drinks are on me." "Name your snake-juice, you-all--the winner pays!" Daylight called out loudly to all about him, at the same time rising from his chair and catching the Virgin by the arm. "Come on for a reel, you-all dancers. The night's young yet, and it's Helen Breakfast and the mail contract for me in the morning. Here, you-all Rawlins, you--I hereby do take over that same contract, and I start for salt water at nine A.M.--savvee? Come on, you-all! Where's that fiddler?" CHAPTER III