The gamblers crowded closer, exchanging expectant glances; Ben Miller and Morris Best helped themselves to chips and began to play. These were queer doings; the case-hardened onlookers prepared to enjoy a mildly entertaining treat. Soon grins began to appear; the men murmured, they nudged one another, they slapped one another on the back, for what they saw astonished and delighted them. The girl dealt swiftly, surely; she handled the paraphernalia of the faro-table with the careless familiarity of long practice; but stranger still, she maintained a poise, a certain reserve and feminine dignity which were totally incongruous. When, during a pause, she absent-mindedly shuffled a stack of chips, the Mocha Kid permitted his feelings to get the better of him. "Hang me for a horse-thief!" he snickered. "Will you look at that?" Now the Mocha Kid was a ribald character, profanity was a part of him, and blasphemy embellished his casual speech. The mildness of his exclamation showed that he was deeply moved. He continued in the same admiring undertone: "I seen a dame once that could deal a bank, but she couldn't pay and take. This gal can size up a stack with her eyes shut!" Nothing could have more deeply intrigued the attention of these men than the sight of a modest, quiet, well-behaved young woman exhibiting all the technic of a finished faro-dealer. It was contrary to their experience, to their ideas of fitness. Mastery of the gaming-table requires years of practice to acquire, and not one of these professionals but was as proud of his own dexterity as a fine pianist; to behold a mere girl possessed of all the knacks and tricks and mannerisms of the craft excited their keenest risibilities. In order the more thoroughly to test her skill several of them bought stacks of chips and began to play in earnest; they played their bets open, they coppered, they split, they strung them, and at the finish they called the turn. Rouletta paid and took; she measured stacks of counters with unerring facility, she overlooked no bets. She ran out the cards, upset the box, and began to reshuffle the cards. "Well, I'm a son of a gun!" declared the lookout. He doubled up in breathless merriment, he rocked back and forth in his chair, he stamped his feet. A shout of laughter issued from the others. Ben Miller closed the cases with a crash. "You'll do," he announced. "If there's anything you don't know I can't teach it to you." Then to the bystanders he said: "This is Sam Kirby's girl. She wants work, and if I thought you coyotes knew how to treat a lady I'd put her on." "Say!" The Mocha Kid scowled darkly at his employer. "What kinda guys do you take us for? What makes you think we don't know--"