The strain was beginning to tell on his iron nerves.

He removed the cap, and with a few muttered words went back to the game, but there was a dangerous gleam in his fishy blue eyes, and the grizzled tufts of red hair above his eyes lowered threateningly.

A man who is getting swamped in a game of checkers is not in a mood to bear pleasantly any remarks on his bald head.
"Oh! don't take it off, Colonel," went on his tormentor, hospitably.
"When a man gets as old as you are, he's privileged to wear his cap.

I wonder if any of you fellers have noticed how the Colonel is shedding his hair." The old man leaped up, scattering the men on the checkerboard, which flew up and struck Squire Gordon in the face, knocking him off his stool.

The old Colonel was ashy pale, and his eyes glared out from under his huge brow like sapphires lit by flame.