It was there that Pete acquired what he looked on as a competency. It was two hundred and fifty dollars, a very magnificent sum. Whether Tucson really ran a straight game, or thought it was about time to give himself a great advertisement, cannot be said, but this time Tucson or the straight cards let Pete in for a mighty good thing, which turned out a bad thing, of course. The only point about it was that Tucson didn't get the cash back again, as he might very reasonably have expected, seeing that gamblers are gamblers, and that a Sitcum Siwash doesn't usually hang on to dollars till the eagles on them squeal in anguish. And the reason of this was that someone from Kamloops, a storekeeper on the look out for business at the Landing, was in the gambling shanty when Pete raked in his pile. He slapped Pete on the back first of anyone and took him on one side. "Say, Pete, old son, hev you heard about your sister?" he asked. "Heard what?" asked Pete. "She's outer the hawspital." "Have you seen her?" The storekeeper nodded. "She's dreadful hurt, Pete," he said with horrid unction. "I saw her the day she kem out. She's wropped up all one side of her face, like a corp, all in white. They say Ned Quin cut half her face off." Pete's face was as dreadful as his sister's. "Where is she?" "She's gone back to Ned," replied the storekeeper. "She would go back: it warn't no good arguin' with her. Mrs. Alexander offered her a job in her kitchen, bein' a good old soul, but Mary would go back to him, she would." Pete stood him a drink and then took one himself and then another. He flatly refused to play any more. But he spent ten dollars on the crowd. The more he drank the soberer he seemed to grow. The liquor hid the tension in him, and the excitement of the game. Mary was cut to bits and was back with Ned! He chewed on that as he drank. The storekeeper got hold of him again. "Some enemy o' Ned's got home on him, Pete, and no fatal error," said he, with his eyes fixed on the young fellow; "some enemy got home on him and no fatal error." "What?" said Pete. "They ran his cattle, some fine fat steers and a few good cows, into the cañon back of his place, and killed most of them." Pete grunted and looked on the floor. "He allows you done it, Pete. But there ain't no evidence you done it, boy. The men araound Kamloops allows it sarves him right, Pete. Ned Quin ain't a single friend araound Kamloops. The poor girl! She used to be so pretty. I reklec' her as a little girl: there warn't a tenas klootchman araound ez' could hold a candle to Mary, bar your wife Jenny. I heerd George Quin hez give her dresses and rides her araound in a carriage, Pete."