THE LAW OF HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN



but he stood unsteadily. The fever in his bones was
playing queer pranks with his brain. He, whose
courtesy had always been marked in its punctilio,
blazed volcano-fashion into the eruption that had been
gathering through these abnormal days and nights.
  Yet even now the long habit of decorum held waver-
ingly for a little before its breaking, and he began
with a queer strain in his voice:
  "You'll have to take my I 0 U. I've lost more than
I can pay on the peg."
  "That's all right, Comyn," began the victor. "Pay
when -" but before he could finish the other inter-
rupted with a frenzy of anger:
  "No, by God, it's not all right! It's all wrong, and
this is the last game I sit in where they deal a hand
to you."
  Spurrier's smiling lips tightened instantly out of
their infectious amiability into a forbidding straight-
ness. He pushed aside the chips he had been stacking
and rose stiffly.
  "That's a statement, Captain Comyn," he said with
a warning note in his level voice, "which requires some
explaining."
  The abrupt bursting of the tempest had left the
others in a tableau of amazement, but now the authori-
tative voice of Major Withers broke in upon the
dialogue.
  "Gentlemen, this is an army post, and I am in
command here. I will tolerate no quarrels."
  Without shifting the gaze of eyes that held those
of the captain, Spurrier answered insistently:
  "I have every respect, major, for the requirements



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