CHAPTER V
STINGY WITH AMMUNITION
IMMEDIATELY after breakfast next morning Colonel Spottiswoode went upstairs, and Zack found him pacing the deck with a problem. Up and down the slippery boards he walked, up and down the long, long lanes of dripping canvas, passing an interminable line of empty chairs, with here and there a disgusted passenger swearing at the weather. Every three minutes the fog horn let out its raucous noise. To the left a hidden steamer was tooting another horn; behind them, still another. Back and forth the Colonel paced, with hands behind him, once in a while dropping into his chair, with a pad, and trying to figure out how much he had won from each of those men on Cap Wright's crooked deal. The effort was hopeless. There is no way to untangle the complications of a poker game. If the other winners had agreed to call off the game, and restore their fraudulent gains, a settlement would have been easy. Whatever the others did, the Colonel must square himself. He could not carry that sort of money in his pocket.
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