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A MATTER OF LUCK
263

Steele did not move, did not shift his eyes from the mirror. Truitt looked at him wonderingly, then swung about, looking whither Steele was looking. Joe Embry, too, turned. And in the long glass he saw reflected the face of Bill Steele, smiling grimly.

"If I lost the whole wad," said Steele distinctly, "it would be worth it; for I've found out something I would have paid more than that to know!"

For in his heart, as he had watched Embry in the glass, he had been asking himself:

"Is Joe Embry the man who gives Truitt his orders, who owns this dive and the dive in Summit City and the string through the mountains?"

And, as though in answer to his question, Embry himself had nodded!