It was the four of clubs.
"I've the hunch that will beat you, pardner," he said listlessly. "But
I'll come again."
He turned another card, a deuce.
"That'll about beat you," he suggested. He leaned forward for Steve's
card. "Unless you've got a seven in the hole."
And a seven it was; the bright red seven of hearts. The dealer paid,
ten dollars to Steve's ten.
"Come again?" he asked.
"Not to-night," returned Packard. "I took just the one flutter to show
Blenham."
He turned and saw that Blenham had already slipped quietly out of the
room. Dan Hodges, his face a fiery red, was just coming back from the
card-room. With him was the big timber boss.
"Tin-horn!" shouted Joe Woods at Packard. "Quitter!"
A quick joy spurted up in Steve Packard's heart; he was right about
Blenham. Blenham, filled with anxiety, had gone already, would be
rushing back to Ranch Number Ten to make sure if the ten thousand
dollars were safe or had been discovered already by the rightful owner.
He had slipped away hurriedly but, after the fashion of a careful,
practical man, had taken time to confer with Dan Hodges and had
commissioned Joe Woods to hold Packard here. And so, though he could
not remember of having ever run away from a fight before, Steve Packard
was strongly of that mind right now.
"Joe Woods, I believe?" he said coolly, his mind busy with the new
problem of a new situation.
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