"
"Aw, don't go yet, Jim," protested one of his companions. "Your credit's
good and you can play on your I. O. U.'s."
"Yes," agreed another. "Or you can put up that Spanish saddle of yourn.
I've allers had a kind of hankerin' fur that. It's good fur eighty plunks
in chips."
"Nuthin' doin'," announced the first emphatically. "Any time I hold four
kings and still can't rake in the pot, it shore is my unlucky day. But
I'll be here with bells on next pay day. So long," and he strode out of
the room, slamming the door behind him.
The others were preparing to go on three-handed, when the stranger
intervened.
"If it's an open game, gents, and you've no objections, I'll take a
hand," he said.
As no one demurred, he slid into the vacant chair, bought a hundred
dollars worth of chips and the game proceeded.
For a time Fortune seemed to divide her favors impartially, and the chips
before each player remained about the same. Then the luck changed and the
stranger began to win heavily. He raked in one pot after another, losing
only occasionally, and then, generally, when the stakes were small.
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