“Best two out of three?” suggested Royce. “Nope,” said Fenno. “One throw. When a tooth’s got to come out, a single yank is best. You throw first.” Royce took the dice-cup and shook it with relish. Nothing could beat him. He knew that. In his present streak of luck, when a glorious bride and a legacy were falling to his lot, a bout of chance with his Jonah-like old partner could not fail to bring him success--and Treve. Expertly he chucked the dice out on the table, in the flickering candle-flare. Over and over the white cubes tumbled and hopped and rolled; coming to a halt, at last, barely an inch from the table edge and almost side by side. Both men leaned forward to read the pips on the exposed top surfaces of the dice. A six and a five! Eleven! Unbeatable except by a next-to-impossible Twelve. Joel’s face set itself like wrinkled granite. He made no other outward sign of distress. Treve, at sound of the noisily rattling dice, had gotten interestedly to his feet, and stood with his head on a level with the deal table, watching. Royce swept up the dice and tossed them into the cup; passing it across to Fenno. With hand as steady as a boy’s, the old man accepted the cup and sulkily he threw the two dice upon the board. The jar of a heavy tread on the porch made both men turn their heads. Visitors at such an hour were unheard-of. Toni, the chief herdsman, stamped in to report the straying of a bunch of sheep that had nosed a hole in the rotting wattles of the home fold. Instinctively the partners glanced back to the dice. There lay the little cubes, just under the candle’s nearest rays. Two sixes! Twelve! There had been fewer than nine chances in a hundred that Joel could have made such a throw. Yet, his proverbial hoodoo was broken. Luck, for once, seemed to have gravitated his way. Fenno made no comment, but bent over to pat Treve with an odd new air of personal possession, while Mack listened scowlingly to Toni’s tale of the lost sheep. “Suppose you and _your_ dog chase out with Toni and round ’em up?” said Royce, at last, turning maliciously to his partner. “They’re not mine any longer, you know. Any more than Treve is. For once I’ll have the fun of going to bed and letting the rest of the outfit do the hustling. Good-night.” At dusk, three days later, the one livery car from Santa Carlotta stopped at the ranch gate to carry Royce Mack and his belongings to the distant railroad, whence the night train was to bear him eastward to his bride. Herders piled the car with luggage; then stood at the gate to say good-by to their former boss. Joel loitered in the doorway; Treve beside him, Fenno was frowning and fidgeting. Royce came up to him with outstretched hand. For a moment the old man ignored the hand. Once more his jaws were at work with senility’s cud. Suddenly he burst forth: “Trevy’s your’n! Take him along East with you!” There was a world of stifled heartache and stark misery in the grouchy old voice.