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Already the horse's hoofs, as its rider plucked at the reins, were sliding outside. Deveril caught up the coin and tossed it again. And this time, true to his word, and not trusting the other, Bruce Standing called before the silver dollar struck the floor:

"Tails!"

And as the silver dollar struck and rolled and stopped, and at last lay flat, and the two stooped over it so close that almost the black hair of one and the reddish hair of the other brushed, they saw that it was heads. And that Timber-Wolf, repudiating his motto, "Always heads!" had lost three thousand dollars. And at the instant their intruder burst in upon them from the road.

Here, after his own strange fashion, came Billy Winch, Timber-Wolf's one-legged retainer. An able-bodied man and agile had been Billy Winch all of his hard life until, after a horse had fallen on him, the doctor had cut his leg off above the knee. "You'll go on crutches the rest of your life," they told him that day. And Billy Winch, weak and pale and sick and haggard-eyed, muttered at them: "You're a pack of damn liars! I'll cut my throat before I'll be a crutch-man." And he had kept his oath. Seldom did he stir save on the back of his horse. And when needs must that he go horseless some few steps, he went "like a man, one-leg style, hopping!" Now, hopping on his one foot so that, with his pinched, weazened face and small bright eyes, he resembled some uncouth bird, he bounced into the room.