“I saw a great cloud sweeping up from under the horizon, and it was terrible with lightning and loud thunder. Then it passed over me and rumbled down the sky and disappeared. And when I awoke and told my people of my dream, they rejoiced and said: ‘Great things are in store for this youth. We shall call him the Passing Cloud, and he shall be a thunder man, keen and quick of thought, with the keenness and quickness of the lightning; and his name shall be as thunder in the ears of men.’ And I grew and believed in these sayings and I was strong. But now I can see the meaning of the dream—a great light and a great noise and a passing.” The old man sighed, and the light passed out of his eyes. Then he looked searchingly into the face of the minister and said, speaking in English: “You white medicine-man. You pray?” The minister nodded. Mahowari turned his gaze to the ground and said wearily: “White God dead too, guess.” XX THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES FRENCHY called for two cards and reached for a glass and the bottle. His head swam dizzily. The clinking of glasses at the bar smote upon his ears like gongs. He was about to risk upon one “show-down” the realisation of a five-years’ dream. He felt certain of losing; that was the strange thing about it. Yet somewhere in the buzzing back of his head a compelling little devil whispered and he obeyed. He drank three big ones straight, and for a moment things stood still and the buzzing ceased; but in the sudden silence the hissing of the little devil increased to a roaring like the river’s in the June rise. “_All on the deuces! All on the deuces! Every damned cent!_” That is what the little devil in the back of his head was howling now. “But if I lose it all—and wanting to go back home in the spring?” That was the question his pounding heart hurled at the insistent little devil. “You won _once_—didn’t you—_didn’t you_?—DIDN’T YOU?” howled back the little devil jeeringly. “Five hundred,” said Frenchy quietly. His bronze face had grown livid; his black eyes narrowed and glittered with a steady stare. With a hand that betrayed the least perceptible tremor, he pushed the chips to the centre. The next man tossed his hand into the discards. The next hesitated, carefully studying the face of Frenchy with a furtive lifting of the eyes under his hat brim; he too laid down his hand. “Raise you two hundred,” said the next with quiet cheerfulness. “Two hundred more,” said the next nonchalantly, drumming a devil’s tattoo with his fingers on the table. The fifth drew a long breath, grinned nervously, showing his teeth like a hungry wolf—and tossed his hand into the discards. It was now up to Frenchy. “Pardon me,” said he, “but did you call me?” His face had turned a dull, ghastly green, but his voice was quiet and clear. “Raised it.”