"And it went agin bad cards too." "I ain't superstitious," said the Judge, with awe and fatuity beaming from every line of his credulous face, "but it's flyin' in the face of Providence to go agin such signs as that." "Make it again, to see if the Old Man must go," suggested the Left Bower.
The suggestion was received with favor, the three men gathering breathlessly around the player.

Again the fateful cards were shuffled deliberately, placed in their mysterious combination, with the same ominous result.

Yet everybody seemed to breathe more freely, as if relieved from some responsibility, the Judge accepting this manifest expression of Providence with resigned self-righteousness.
"Yes, gentlemen," resumed the Left Bower, serenely, as if a calm legal decision had just been recorded, "we must not let any foolishness or sentiment get mixed up with this thing, but look at it like business men.

The only sensible move is to get up and get out of the camp." "And the Old Man ?" queried the Judge.
"The Old Man--hush! he's coming." The doorway was darkened by a slight lissome shadow.

It was the absent partner, otherwise known as "the Old Man." Need it be added that he was a BOY of nineteen, with a slight down just clothing his upper lip! "The creek is up over the ford, and I had to 'shin' up a willow on the bank and swing myself across," he said, with a quick, frank laugh; "but all the same, boys, it's going to clear up in about an hour, you bet.
It's breaking away over Bald Mountain, and there's a sun flash on a bit of snow on Lone Peak.