"'That puts the ambrosia on me,' says Faro Nell, blushin' with pleasure, an' she calls to Black Jack.
"'As I observes,' goes on Cherokee, 'every sport has his speshulty. Thar's Casino Joe; his is that he can "tell the last four." Nacherally, bein' thus gifted, a game of casino is like so much money in the bank for Joe. Still, his gifts ain't crooked, they're genius; Joe's simply born able to "tell the last four."
"'Which, you gents is familiar by repoote at least with the several plans for redoocin' draw-poker to the prosaic level of shore-things. Thar's the "bug" an' the "foot-move" an' the "sleeve holdout" an' dozens of kindred schemes for playin' a cold hand. An' thar's optimists, when the game is easy, who depends wholly on a handkerchief in their laps to cover their nefariousness. If I'm driven to counsel a gent concernin' poker it would be to never play with strangers; an' partic'lar to never spec'late with a gent who sneezes a lot, or turns his head an' talks of draughts of cold air invading' the place, or says his foot's asleep an' gets up to stampede about the room after a hand is dealt an' prior to the same bein' played. It's four to one this afflicted sharp is workin' a holdout. Then that's the "punch" to mark a deck, an' the "lookin' glass" to catch the kyards as they're dealt. Then thar's sech manoovers as stockin' a deck, an' shiftin' a cut, an' dealin' double. Thar's gents who does their work from the bottom of a deck—-puts up a hand on the bottom, an' confers it on a pard or on themse'fs as dovetails with their moods. He's a one-arm party—shy his right arm, he is—who deals a hand from the bottom the best I ever beholds.
"'No, I don't regyard crooked folks as dangerous at poker, only you've got to watch 'em. So long as your eye is on 'em a heap attentive they're powerless to perform their partic'lar miracle, an' as a result, since that's the one end an' aim of their efforts, they becomes mighty inocuous. As a roole, crooked people ain't good players on the squar', an' as long as you makes 'em play squar', they're yours.
"'But speakin' of this devious person on the Las Vegas Plaza that time: The outfit is onknown to me—I'm only a pilgrim an' a stranger an' don't intend to tarry none—when I sets up to the lay-out. I ain't got a bet down, however, before I sees the gent who's dealin', sign-up the seven to the case-keep, an' instanter I feels like I'd known that bevy of bandits since long before the war. Also, I realises their methods after I takes a good hard look. That dealer's got what post gradyooates in faro-bank robbery calls a "end squeeze" box; the deck is trimmed—"wedges" is the name—to put the odds ag'in the evens, an' sanded so as to let two kyards come at a clatter whenever said pheenomenon is demanded by the exigencies of their crimes; an' thar you be. No, it's a fifty-two-kyard deck all right, an' the dealer depends on "puttin' back" to keep all straight. An' I'm driven to concede that the put-back work of said party is like a romance; puttin' back's his speshulty. His left hand would sort o' settle as light as a dead leaf over the kyard he's after that a-way—not a tenth part of a second—an' that pasteboard would come along, palmed, an' as his hand floats over the box as he's goin' to make the next turn the kyard would reassoome its cunnin' place inside. An' all as smoothly serene as pray'r meetin's.'
"'An', nacherally, you denounces this felon,' says Colonel Sterett, who's come in an' who's integrity is of the active sort.
"'Nacherally, I don't say a word,' retorts Cherokee. 'I ain't for years inhabited these roode an' sand-blown regions, remote as they be from best ideals an' high examples of the East, not to long before have learned the excellence of that maxim about lettin' every man kill his own snakes. I says nothin'; I merely looks about to locate the victim of them machinations with a view of goin' ag'inst his play.'
"It's when Cherokee arrives at this place in his recitals that Dave evolves his interruptions. He's camped by himse'f in a reemote corner of the room, an' he ain't been noticin' nobody an' nobody's been noticin' him. All at once, in tones which is low but a heap discordant, Dave hums to himse'f something that sounds like:
'Bye O babe, lie still in slumber,
Holy angels gyard thy bed.'
"At this, Cherokee in a horrified way stops, an' we-all looks at each other. Enright makes a dispar'in' gesture towards Dave an' says: