Kitabı oku: «Smoke Bellew», sayfa 5

Though only three in the afternoon, the long grey twilight of the Arctic had settled down. They watched for a blazed tree on either bank, which would show the center-stake of the last claim located. Joy, impulsively eager, was the first to find it. She darted ahead of Smoke, crying: “Somebody’s been here! See the snow! Look for the blaze! There it is! See that spruce!”

She sank suddenly to her waist in the snow.

“Now I’ve done it,” she said woefully. Then she cried: “Don’t come near me! I’ll wade out.”

Step by step, each time breaking through the thin skin of ice concealed under the dry snow, she forced her way to solid footing. Smoke did not wait, but sprang to the bank, where dry and seasoned twigs and sticks, lodged amongst the brush by spring freshets, waited the match. By the time she reached his side, the first flames and flickers of an assured fire were rising.

“Sit down!” he commanded.

She obediently sat down in the snow. He slipped his pack from his back, and spread a blanket for her feet.

From above came the voices of the stampeders who followed them.

“Let Shorty stake,” she urged.

“Go on, Shorty,” Smoke said, as he attacked her moccasins, already stiff with ice. “Pace off a thousand feet and place the two center-stakes. We can fix the corner-stakes afterwards.”

With his knife Smoke cut away the lacings and leather of the moccasins. So stiff were they with ice that they snapped and crackled under the hacking and sawing. The Siwash socks and heavy woollen stockings were sheaths of ice. It was as if her feet and calves were encased in corrugated iron.

“How are your feet?” he asked, as he worked.

“Pretty numb. I can’t move nor feel my toes. But it will be all right. The fire is burning beautifully. Watch out you don’t freeze your own hands. They must be numb now from the way you’re fumbling.”

He slipped his mittens on, and for nearly a minute smashed the open hands savagely against his sides. When he felt the blood-prickles, he pulled off the mittens and ripped and tore and sawed and hacked at the frozen garments. The white skin of one foot appeared, then that of the other, to be exposed to the bite of seventy below zero, which is the equivalent of one hundred and two below freezing.

Then came the rubbing with snow, carried on with an intensity of cruel fierceness, till she squirmed and shrank and moved her toes, and joyously complained of the hurt.

He half-dragged her, and she half-lifted herself, nearer to the fire. He placed her feet on the blanket close to the flesh-saving flames.

“You’ll have to take care of them for a while,” he said.

She could now safely remove her mittens and manipulate her own feet, with the wisdom of the initiated, being watchful that the heat of the fire was absorbed slowly. While she did this, he attacked his hands. The snow did not melt nor moisten. Its light crystals were like so much sand. Slowly the stings and pangs of circulation came back into the chilled flesh. Then he tended the fire, unstrapped the light pack from her back, and got out a complete change of foot-gear.

Shorty returned along the creek bed and climbed the bank to them. “I sure staked a full thousan’ feet,” he proclaimed. “Number twenty-seven an’ number twenty-eight, though I’d only got the upper stake of twenty-seven, when I met the first geezer of the bunch behind. He just straight declared I wasn’t goin’ to stake twenty-eight. An’ I told him – ”

“Yes, yes,” Joy cried. “What did you tell him?”

“Well, I told him straight that if he didn’t back up plum five hundred feet I’d sure punch his frozen nose into ice-cream an’ chocolate eclaires. He backed up, an’ I’ve got in the center-stakes of two full an’ honest five-hundred-foot creek claims. He staked next, and I guess by now the bunch has Squaw Creek located to head-waters an’ down the other side. Ourn is safe. It’s too dark to see now, but we can put out the corner-stakes in the mornin’.”

When they awoke, they found a change had taken place during the night. So warm was it, that Shorty and Smoke, still in their mutual blankets, estimated the temperature at no more than twenty below. The cold snap had broken. On top of their blankets lay six inches of frost crystals.

“Good morning! how are your feet?” was Smoke’s greeting across the ashes of the fire to where Joy Gastell, carefully shaking aside the snow, was sitting up in her sleeping-furs.

Shorty built the fire and quarried ice from the creek, while Smoke cooked breakfast. Daylight came on as they finished the meal.

“You go an’ fix them corner-stakes, Smoke,” Shorty said. “There’s gravel under where I chopped ice for the coffee, an’ I’m goin’ to melt water and wash a pan of that same gravel for luck.”

Smoke departed, axe in hand, to blaze the stakes. Starting from the down-stream center-stake of ‘twenty-seven,’ he headed at right angles across the narrow valley towards its rim. He proceeded methodically, almost automatically, for his mind was alive with recollections of the night before. He felt, somehow, that he had won to empery over the delicate lines and firm muscles of those feet and ankles he had rubbed with snow, and this empery seemed to extend to the rest and all of this woman of his kind. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possession mastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to walk up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say “Come.”

It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him forget empery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he blazed no corner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but, instead, he found himself confronted by another stream. He lined up with his eye a blasted willow tree and a big and recognizable spruce. He returned to the stream where were the center-stakes. He followed the bed of the creek around a wide horseshoe bend through the flat and found that the two creeks were the same creek. Next, he floundered twice through the snow from valley rim to valley rim, running the first line from the lower stake of ‘twenty-seven,’ the second from the upper stake of ‘twenty-eight,’ and he found that THE UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWER STAKE OF THE FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty had located their two claims on the horseshoe.

Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of washing a pan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.

“We got it!” Shorty cried, holding out the pan. “Look at it! A nasty mess of gold. Two hundred right there if it’s a cent. She runs rich from the top of the wash-gravel. I’ve churned around placers some, but I never got butter like what’s in this pan.”

Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, was disgruntled by his partner’s lack of delight in the discovery.

“Why don’t you kick in an’ get excited?” he demanded. “We got our pile right here, unless you’re stickin’ up your nose at two-hundred-dollar pans.”

Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying. “Shorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama Canal?”

“What’s the answer?”

“Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the western entrance, that’s all.”

“Go on,” Shorty said. “I ain’t seen the joke yet.”

“In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe bend.”

Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up. “Go on,” he repeated.

“The upper stake of ‘twenty-eight’ is ten feet below the lower stake of ‘twenty-seven.’”

“You mean we ain’t got nothin’, Smoke?”

“Worse than that; we’ve got ten feet less than nothing.”

Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five minutes later he returned. In response to Joy’s look, he nodded. Without speech, he went over to a log and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in front of his moccasins.

“We might as well break camp and start back for Dawson,” Smoke said, beginning to fold the blankets.

“I am sorry, Smoke,” Joy said. “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s all right,” he answered. “All in the day’s work, you know.”

“But it’s my fault, wholly mine,” she persisted. “Dad’s staked for me down near Discovery, I know. I’ll give you my claim.”

He shook his head.

“Shorty,” she pleaded.

Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was a colossal laugh. Chuckles and muffled explosions yielded to hearty roars.

“It ain’t hysterics,” he explained. “I sure get powerful amused at times, an’ this is one of them.”

His gaze chanced to fall on the gold-pan. He walked over and gravely kicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.

“It ain’t ourn,” he said. “It belongs to the geezer I backed up five hundred feet last night. An’ what gets me is four hundred an’ ninety of them feet was to the good – his good. Come on, Smoke. Let’s start the hike to Dawson. Though if you’re hankerin’ to kill me I won’t lift a finger to prevent.”

IV. SHORTY DREAMS

“Funny you don’t gamble none,” Shorty said to Smoke one night in the Elkhorn. “Ain’t it in your blood?”

“It is,” Smoke answered. “But the statistics are in my head. I like an even break for my money.”

All about them, in the huge bar-room, arose the click and rattle and rumble of a dozen games, at which fur-clad, moccasined men tried their luck. Smoke waved his hand to include them all.

“Look at them,” he said. “It’s cold mathematics that they will lose more than they win to-night, that the big proportion are losing right now.”

“You’re sure strong on figgers,” Shorty murmured admiringly. “An’ in the main you’re right. But they’s such a thing as facts. An’ one fact is streaks of luck. They’s times when every geezer playin’ wins, as I know, for I’ve sat in such games an’ saw more’n one bank busted. The only way to win at gamblin’ is wait for a hunch that you’ve got a lucky streak comin’ and then play it to the roof.”

“It sounds simple,” Smoke criticized. “So simple I can’t see how men can lose.”

“The trouble is,” Shorty admitted, “that most men gets fooled on their hunches. On occasion I sure get fooled on mine. The thing is to try an’ find out.”

Smoke shook his head. “That’s a statistic, too, Shorty. Most men prove wrong on their hunches.”

“But don’t you ever get one of them streaky feelin’s that all you got to do is put your money down an’ pick a winner?”

Smoke laughed. “I’m too scared of the percentage against me. But I’ll tell you what, Shorty. I’ll throw a dollar on the ‘high card’ right now and see if it will buy us a drink.”

Smoke was edging his way in to the faro table, when Shorty caught his arm.

“Hold on. I’m gettin’ one of them hunches now. You put that dollar on roulette.”

They went over to a roulette table near the bar.

“Wait till I give the word,” Shorty counselled.

“What number?” Smoke asked.

“Pick it yourself. But wait till I say let her go.”

“You don’t mean to say I’ve got an even chance on that table?” Smoke argued.

“As good as the next geezer’s.”

“But not as good as the bank’s.”

“Wait an’ see,” Shorty urged. “Now! Let her go!”

The game-keeper had just sent the little ivory ball whirling around the smooth rim above the revolving, many-slotted wheel. Smoke, at the lower end of the table, reached over a player, and blindly tossed the dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and stopped fairly in the center of “34.”

The ball came to rest, and the game-keeper announced, “Thirty-four wins!” He swept the table, and alongside of Smoke’s dollar, stacked thirty-five dollars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped him on the shoulder.

“Now, that was the real goods of a hunch, Smoke! How’d I know it? There’s no tellin’. I just knew you’d win. Why, if that dollar of yourn’d fell on any other number it’d won just the same. When the hunch is right, you just can’t help winnin’.”

“Suppose it had come ‘double naught’?” Smoke queried, as they made their way to the bar.

“Then your dollar’d been on ‘double naught,’” was Shorty’s answer. “They’s no gettin’ away from it. A hunch is a hunch. Here’s how. Come on back to the table. I got a hunch, after pickin’ you for a winner, that I can pick some few numbers myself.”

“Are you playing a system?” Smoke asked, at the end of ten minutes, when his partner had dropped a hundred dollars.

Shorty shook his head indignantly, as he spread his chips out in the vicinities of “3,” “11,” and “17,” and tossed a spare chip on the green.

“Hell is sure cluttered with geezers that played systems,” he exposited, as the keeper raked the table.

From idly watching, Smoke became fascinated, following closely every detail of the game from the whirling of the ball to the making and the paying of the bets. He made no plays, however, merely contenting himself with looking on. Yet so interested was he, that Shorty, announcing that he had had enough, with difficulty drew Smoke away from the table.

The game-keeper returned Shorty the gold-sack he had deposited as a credential for playing, and with it went a slip of paper on which was scribbled, “Out – $350.00.” Shorty carried the sack and the paper across the room and handed them to the weigher, who sat behind a large pair of gold-scales. Out of Shorty’s sack he weighed three hundred and fifty dollars, which he poured into the coffer of the house.

“That hunch of yours was another one of those statistics,” Smoke jeered.

“I had to play it, didn’t I, in order to find out?” Shorty retorted. “I reckon I was crowdin’ some just on account of tryin’ to convince you they’s such a thing as hunches.”

“Never mind, Shorty,” Smoke laughed. “I’ve got a hunch right now – ”

Shorty’s eyes sparkled as he cried eagerly: “What is it? Kick in an’ play it pronto.”

“It’s not that kind, Shorty. Now, what I’ve got is a hunch that some day I’ll work out a system that will beat the spots off that table.”

“System!” Shorty groaned, then surveyed his partner with a vast pity. “Smoke, listen to your side-kicker an’ leave system alone. Systems is sure losers. They ain’t no hunches in systems.”

“That’s why I like them,” Smoke answered. “A system is statistical. When you get the right system you can’t lose, and that’s the difference between it and a hunch. You never know when the right hunch is going wrong.”

“But I know a lot of systems that went wrong, an’ I never seen a system win.” Shorty paused and sighed. “Look here, Smoke, if you’re gettin’ cracked on systems this ain’t no place for you, an’ it’s about time we hit the trail again.”

During the several following weeks, the two partners played at cross purposes. Smoke was bent on spending his time watching the roulette game in the Elkhorn, while Shorty was equally bent on travelling trail. At last Smoke put his foot down when a stampede was proposed for two hundred miles down the Yukon.

“Look here, Shorty,” he said, “I’m not going. That trip will take ten days, and before that time I hope to have my system in proper working order. I could almost win with it now. What are you dragging me around the country this way for, anyway?”

“Smoke, I got to take care of you,” was Shorty’s reply. “You’re gettin’ nutty. I’d drag you stampedin’ to Jericho or the North Pole if I could keep you away from that table.”

“It’s all right, Shorty. But just remember I’ve reached full man-grown, meat-eating size. The only dragging you’ll do, will be dragging home the dust I’m going to win with that system of mine, and you’ll most likely have to do it with a dog-team.”

Shorty’s response was a groan.

“And I don’t want you to be bucking any games on your own,” Smoke went on. “We’re going to divide the winnings, and I’ll need all our money to get started. That system’s young yet, and it’s liable to trip me for a few falls before I get it lined up.”

At last, after long hours and days spent at watching the table, the night came when Smoke proclaimed he was ready, and Shorty, glum and pessimistic, with all the seeming of one attending a funeral, accompanied his partner to the Elkhorn. Smoke bought a stack of chips and stationed himself at the game-keeper’s end of the table. Again and again the ball was whirled, and the other players won or lost, but Smoke did not venture a chip. Shorty waxed impatient.

“Buck in, buck in,” he urged. “Let’s get this funeral over. What’s the matter? Got cold feet?”

Smoke shook his head and waited. A dozen plays went by, and then, suddenly, he placed ten one-dollar chips on “26.” The number won, and the keeper paid Smoke three hundred and fifty dollars. A dozen plays went by, twenty plays, and thirty, when Smoke placed ten dollars on “32.” Again he received three hundred and fifty dollars.

“It’s a hunch!” Shorty whispered vociferously in his ear. “Ride it! Ride it!”

Half an hour went by, during which Smoke was inactive, then he placed ten dollars on “34” and won.

“A hunch!” Shorty whispered.

“Nothing of the sort,” Smoke whispered back. “It’s the system. Isn’t she a dandy?”

“You can’t tell me,” Shorty contended. “Hunches comes in mighty funny ways. You might think it’s a system, but it ain’t. Systems is impossible. They can’t happen. It’s a sure hunch you’re playin’.”

Smoke now altered his play. He bet more frequently, with single chips, scattered here and there, and he lost more often than he won.

“Quit it,” Shorty advised. “Cash in. You’ve rung the bull’s-eye three times, an’ you’re ahead a thousand. You can’t keep it up.”

At this moment the ball started whirling, and Smoke dropped ten chips on “26.” The ball fell into the slot of “26,” and the keeper again paid him three hundred and fifty dollars.

“If you’re plum crazy an’ got the immortal cinch, bet ‘em the limit,” Shorty said. “Put down twenty-five next time.”

A quarter of an hour passed, during which Smoke won and lost on small scattering bets. Then, with the abruptness that characterized his big betting, he placed twenty-five dollars on the “double naught,” and the keeper paid him eight hundred and seventy-five dollars.

“Wake me up, Smoke, I’m dreamin’,” Shorty moaned.

Smoke smiled, consulted his notebook, and became absorbed in calculation. He continually drew the notebook from his pocket, and from time to time jotted down figures.

A crowd had packed densely around the table, while the players themselves were attempting to cover the same numbers he covered. It was then that a change came over his play. Ten times in succession he placed ten dollars on “18” and lost. At this stage he was deserted by the hardiest. He changed his number and won another three hundred and fifty dollars. Immediately the players were back with him, deserting again after a series of losing bets.

“Quit it, Smoke, quit it,” Shorty advised. “The longest string of hunches is only so long, an’ your string’s finished. No more bull’s-eyes for you.”

“I’m going to ring her once again before I cash in,” Smoke answered.

For a few minutes, with varying luck, he played scattering chips over the table, and then dropped twenty-five dollars on the “double naught.”

“I’ll take my slip now,” he said to the dealer, as he won.

“Oh, you don’t need to show it to me,” Shorty said, as they walked to the weigher. “I been keepin’ track. You’re something like thirty-six hundred to the good. How near am I?”

“Thirty-six-sixty,” Smoke replied. “And now you’ve got to pack the dust home. That was the agreement.”

“Don’t crowd your luck,” Shorty pleaded with Smoke, the next night, in the cabin, as he evidenced preparations to return to the Elkhorn. “You played a mighty long string of hunches, but you played it out. If you go back you’ll sure drop all your winnings.”

“But I tell you it isn’t hunches, Shorty. It’s statistics. It’s a system. It can’t lose.”

“System be damned. They ain’t no such a thing as system. I made seventeen straight passes at a crap table once. Was it system? Nope. It was fool luck, only I had cold feet an’ didn’t dast let it ride. If it’d rid, instead of me drawin’ down after the third pass, I’d ‘a’ won over thirty thousan’ on the original two-bit piece.”

“Just the same, Shorty, this is a real system.”

“Huh! You got to show me.”

“I did show you. Come on with me now, and I’ll show you again.”

When they entered the Elkhorn, all eyes centered on Smoke, and those about the table made way for him as he took up his old place at the keeper’s end. His play was quite unlike that of the previous night. In the course of an hour and a half he made only four bets, but each bet was for twenty-five dollars, and each bet won. He cashed in thirty-five hundred dollars, and Shorty carried the dust home to the cabin.

“Now’s the time to jump the game,” Shorty advised, as he sat on the edge of his bunk and took off his moccasins. “You’re seven thousan’ ahead. A man’s a fool that’d crowd his luck harder.”

“Shorty, a man would be a blithering lunatic if he didn’t keep on backing a winning system like mine.”

“Smoke, you’re a sure bright boy. You’re college-learnt. You know more’n a minute than I could know in forty thousan’ years. But just the same you’re dead wrong when you call your luck a system. I’ve been around some, an’ seen a few, an’ I tell you straight an’ confidential an’ all-assurin’, a system to beat a bankin’ game ain’t possible.”

“But I’m showing you this one. It’s a pipe.”

“No, you’re not, Smoke. It’s a pipe-dream. I’m asleep. Bimeby I’ll wake up, an’ build the fire, an’ start breakfast.”

“Well, my unbelieving friend, there’s the dust. Heft it.”

So saying, Smoke tossed the bulging gold-sack upon his partner’s knees. It weighed thirty-five pounds, and Shorty was fully aware of the crush of its impact on his flesh.

“It’s real,” Smoke hammered his point home.

“Huh! I’ve saw some mighty real dreams in my time. In a dream all things is possible. In real life a system ain’t possible. Now, I ain’t never been to college, but I’m plum justified in sizin’ up this gamblin’ orgy of ourn as a sure-enough dream.”

“Hamilton’s ‘Law of Parsimony,’” Smoke laughed.

“I ain’t never heard of the geezer, but his dope’s sure right. I’m dreamin’, Smoke, an’ you’re just snoopin’ around in my dream an’ tormentin’ me with system. If you love me, if you sure do love me, you’ll just yell, ‘Shorty! Wake up!’ An’ I’ll wake up an’ start breakfast.”

The third night of play, as Smoke laid his first bet, the game-keeper shoved fifteen dollars back to him.

“Ten’s all you can play,” he said. “The limit’s come down.”

“Gettin’ picayune,” Shorty sneered.

“No one has to play at this table that don’t want to,” the keeper retorted. “And I’m willing to say straight out in meeting that we’d sooner your pardner didn’t play at our table.”

“Scared of his system, eh?” Shorty challenged, as the keeper paid over three hundred and fifty dollars.

“I ain’t saying I believe in system, because I don’t. There never was a system that’d beat roulette or any percentage game. But just the same I’ve seen some queer strings of luck, and I ain’t going to let this bank go bust if I can help it.”

“Cold feet.”

“Gambling is just as much business, my friend, as any other business. We ain’t philanthropists.”

Night by night, Smoke continued to win. His method of play varied. Expert after expert, in the jam about the table, scribbled down his bets and numbers in vain attempts to work out his system. They complained of their inability to get a clew to start with, and swore that it was pure luck, though the most colossal streak of it they had ever seen.

It was Smoke’s varied play that obfuscated them. Sometimes, consulting his note-book or engaging in long calculations, an hour elapsed without his staking a chip. At other times he would win three limit-bets and clean up a thousand dollars and odd in five or ten minutes. At still other times, his tactics would be to scatter single chips prodigally and amazingly over the table. This would continue for from ten to thirty minutes of play, when, abruptly, as the ball whirled through the last few of its circles, he would play the limit on column, colour, and number, and win all three. Once, to complete confusion in the minds of those that strove to divine his secret, he lost forty straight bets, each at the limit. But each night, play no matter how diversely, Shorty carried home thirty-five hundred dollars for him.

“It ain’t no system,” Shorty expounded at one of their bed-going discussions. “I follow you, an’ follow you, but they ain’t no figgerin’ it out. You never play twice the same. All you do is pick winners when you want to, an’ when you don’t want to, you just on purpose don’t.”

“Maybe you’re nearer right than you think, Shorty. I’ve just got to pick losers sometimes. It’s part of the system.”

“System – hell! I’ve talked with every gambler in town, an’ the last one is agreed they ain’t no such thing as system.”

“Yet I’m showing them one all the time.”

“Look here, Smoke.” Shorty paused over the candle, in the act of blowing it out. “I’m real irritated. Maybe you think this is a candle. It ain’t. No, sir! An’ this ain’t me neither. I’m out on trail somewheres, in my blankets, lyin’ flat on my back with my mouth open, an’ dreamin’ all this. That ain’t you talkin’, any more than this candle is a candle.”

“It’s funny, how I happen to be dreaming along with you then,” Smoke persisted.

“No, it ain’t. You’re part of my dream, that’s all. I’ve hearn many a man talk in my dreams. I want to tell you one thing, Smoke. I’m gettin’ mangy an’ mad. If this here dream keeps up much more I’m goin’ to bite my veins an’ howl.”

On the sixth night of play at the Elkhorn, the limit was reduced to five dollars.

“It’s all right,” Smoke assured the game-keeper. “I want thirty-five hundred to-night, as usual, and you only compel me to play longer. I’ve got to pick twice as many winners, that’s all.”

“Why don’t you buck somebody else’s table?” the keeper demanded wrathfully.

“Because I like this one.” Smoke glanced over to the roaring stove only a few feet away. “Besides, there are no draughts here, and it is warm and comfortable.”

On the ninth night, when Shorty had carried the dust home, he had a fit. “I quit, Smoke, I quit,” he began. “I know when I got enough. I ain’t dreamin’. I’m wide awake. A system can’t be, but you got one just the same. There’s nothin’ in the rule o’ three. The almanac’s clean out. The world’s gone smash. There’s nothin’ regular an’ uniform no more. The multiplication table’s gone loco. Two is eight, nine is eleven, and two-times-six is eight hundred an’ forty-six – an’ – an’ a half. Anything is everything, an’ nothing’s all, an’ twice all is cold-cream, milk-shakes, an’ calico horses. You’ve got a system. Figgers beat the figgerin’. What ain’t is, an’ what isn’t has to be. The sun rises in the west, the moon’s a pay-streak, the stars is canned corn-beef, scurvy’s the blessin’ of God, him that dies kicks again, rocks floats, water’s gas, I ain’t me, you’re somebody else, an’ mebbe we’re twins if we ain’t hashed-brown potatoes fried in verdigris. Wake me up! Somebody! Oh! Wake me up!”

The next morning a visitor came to the cabin. Smoke knew him, Harvey Moran, the owner of all the games in the Tivoli. There was a note of appeal in his deep gruff voice as he plunged into his business.

“It’s like this, Smoke,” he began. “You’ve got us all guessing. I’m representing nine other game-owners and myself from all the saloons in town. We don’t understand. We know that no system ever worked against roulette. All the mathematic sharps in the colleges have told us gamblers the same thing. They say that roulette itself is the system, the one and only system, and, therefore, that no system can beat it, for that would mean arithmetic has gone bug-house.”

Shorty nodded his head violently.

“If a system can beat a system, then there’s no such thing as system,” the gambler went on. “In such a case anything could be possible – a thing could be in two different places at once, or two things could be in the same place that’s only large enough for one at the same time.”

“Well, you’ve seen me play,” Smoke answered defiantly; “and if you think it’s only a string of luck on my part, why worry?”

“That’s the trouble. We can’t help worrying. It’s a system you’ve got, and all the time we know it can’t be. I’ve watched you five nights now, and all I can make out is that you favour certain numbers and keep on winning. Now the ten of us game-owners have got together, and we want to make a friendly proposition. We’ll put a roulette-table in a back room of the Elkhorn, pool the bank against you, and have you buck us. It will be all quiet and private. Just you and Shorty and us. What do you say?”

“I think it’s the other way around,” Smoke answered. “It’s up to you to come and see me. I’ll be playing in the barroom of the Elkhorn to-night. You can watch me there just as well.”

That night, when Smoke took up his customary place at the table, the keeper shut down the game. “The game’s closed,” he said. “Boss’s orders.”

But the assembled game-owners were not to be balked. In a few minutes they arranged a pool, each putting in a thousand, and took over the table.

“Come on and buck us,” Harvey Moran challenged, as the keeper sent the ball on its first whirl around.

“Give me the twenty-five limit,” Smoke suggested.

“Sure; go to it.”

Smoke immediately placed twenty-five chips on the “double naught,” and won.

Moran wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Go on,” he said. “We got ten thousand in this bank.”

At the end of an hour and a half, the ten thousand was Smoke’s.

“The bank’s bust,” the keeper announced.

“Got enough?” Smoke asked.

The game-owners looked at one another. They were awed. They, the fatted proteges of the laws of chance, were undone. They were up against one who had more intimate access to those laws, or who had invoked higher and undreamed laws.

“We quit,” Moran said. “Ain’t that right, Burke?”

Big Burke, who owned the games in the M. and G. Saloon, nodded. “The impossible has happened,” he said. “This Smoke here has got a system all right. If we let him go on we’ll all bust. All I can see, if we’re goin’ to keep our tables running, is to cut down the limit to a dollar, or to ten cents, or a cent. He won’t win much in a night with such stakes.”