From this plane of inoffensive obscurity Case had sprung in one night to fame and, almost, to fortune. A single field had turned the chance of war, and the placid Sunday found him the most talked of man at the post. Rumor had it that he had quit five hundred dollars ahead of the game, and the most conservative estimate could not reduce it more than half. For the first time Camp Almy awoke to the conclusion that an experienced gambler was in their midst--one who had spared the soldier and his scanty pay that he might feed fat, eventually, on the officer. Rumor had it that Case's trunk contained a roulette wheel and faro "layout." In fine, long before orderly call at noon, in the whimsical humor of the garrison, he was no longer Case, the bookkeeper, but "Book, the Case Keeper," and every frontiersman, civil or military, in those days knew what that meant.
And even as they exalted Case, who toward afternoon had disappeared from public gaze, refusing to be lionized, so would they have abased Willett, who likewise had concealed himself, on the plea of needed sleep, yet had done but little sleeping. Willett was haunted by a memory, and not pleasantly. The fact that he had lost over a month's pay troubled him less by far than that he had lost repute. He had suffered much in pocket, but more in prestige. He had been a successful player in the Columbia country, too much so for the good of scores of comrades, but especially himself. He could have found it in his heart to throttle that guffawing clown, whose rude bellow of rejoicing over Case's brilliant bluff and his own defeat, had brought even the dago and his fellows in staring wonderment to the open door. He would have pledged another month's pay could he have throttled the story he knew now would be going the rounds. He was even more humiliated--far more--than they knew. They all would have shouted had they seen the hand he laid down, but he had striven to carry it off jocosely, to say _he_ had only been bluffing, and was very properly caught at his own game. Oh, he had shown a game, sportsman-like front, and had striven to pass it all off as a matter that worried him not in the least, but Craney, clear-headed, believed otherwise, and Case, muddle-headed as he was by noon, knew better, and had his reasons for knowing--reasons as potent as were those that moved him wholly to ignore Willett's half-proffered hand.