the _deal_--he breathed with hope--he dealt and turned up the _right bower_--his antagonist _passed_, and the stranger raising the _bower_, bid him play. The hand was soon finished and the stranger counted two! His visage lighted up, and he wiped his brow with a feeling of confidence in his luck The next hand the stranger ordered the card up and was _euchered_--they now stood _even_, and he again looked anxious. In the next two hands they successively won, each a single count, and it was the stranger's deal again--he turned up a _king_, and held in his hand the queen and _ten of trumps_, together with the _eight of diamonds and the king and ten of clubs_. His antagonist ordered the _king_ up, and as the stranger discarded his _diamond_, a gleam of certain success overspread his visage--the rigid face of his antagonist betrayed no sign of exultation, but his brow, on the contrary, became closer knit into a scowl, which, by his party, was looked upon as a presage of defeat. Dick's friend led the _jack of clubs_--the stranger followed suit with his _ten of clubs_--then came the _ace of trumps_--the stranger paused a moment, and played his _ten spot_--out came the _right bower_, and he yielded his _queen_--the _left_ fell before his eyes, and his last _trump_, the king, was swept away! At each play his countenance grew more and more ashy in its expression of despair and dread; his lips had lost their color, and his eyes had gained an intenseness of expression that seemed as if they could look into the very soul of the frowning figure before him, and read there his impending doom. For the first time a slight smile played upon the features of Dick's friend as slowly he spread before him the _ace of clubs!_ The stranger crushed his _King_ within his trembling hands and threw it from him, as he sunk into a state of stupor, the very counterpart of death. “Your game's up, stranger,” coolly remarked the winner; “yes, it's up--played very neat--but it's up! And you've jest won a small patch of Kelsy's claim--about six foot by two, or thereabouts.” The sun had begun to tip the tops of the forest trees, when this exciting contest was ended, and all the party adjourned to the outside, with the doomed stranger in their midst. They moved with silence, for a deed of blood was to be enacted. The law of the wilderness was about to offer up a victim for common safety--the midnight assassin to expiate his guilt upon the spot, and by the hand of him whom he had there endeavored to consign to death.--The music of the morning songsters met no harmonious accord in the hearts of those who now strode amid their melodies--the sweet morning air kissed brows fevered with passion, and the light breeze that played amid the forest grove and skipped innocently across the far spread prairie, was about to bear upon its pinions the shriek of agony. Having arrived at a suitable spot, they bound the culprit to a sapling, and he hung in his bonds already, apparently, bereft of life.