"'That was a cold bluff, Burbridge,' said Tunwell.
"'Oh, I don't think so,' said Burbridge. 'There was too much confidence in your eye for that.' Which shows that even a great poker player is as likely as anybody to get mixed when it comes to studying eyes in a game.
"After a while Burbridge caught a pat full house, and Tunwell filled a still better full hand. It was Tunwell's bet, and he went $1,000 on it. Burbridge laid down—wherein it was plain to be seen that he was a man who possessed that indefinable thing, the poker player's 'hunch.'
"Now, all these plays I'm telling you about were simply part of the warming up. The two men were simply studying each other. They didn't really begin to play poker until two hours after they sat down.
"Then the contractor dealt Burbridge a promising set of threes, and gave Tunwell a neat two pairs, with aces on top. Tunwell filled with another ace, and Burbridge got nothing worth mentioning in the draw, so that his three nines didn't look very big to us against an ace full. It was Burbridge's bet. He was one of those men who lay their cards down on the table and look up at the ceiling before making a bet.
"'Five thousand dollars,' said he finally, still looking up at the ceiling reflectively, and the contractor, who had seen Tunwell's draw, winced a bit.
"Tunwell looked at him pretty hard and scanned his hand. He raised him $5,000.
"'And $5,000,' said Burbridge, quietly. Now, the contractor was a pretty game sort of man, but we could see that he felt badly over this.
"Then Tunwell laid down. Burbridge's bluff worked. Of course, not until after the game did we tell him what Tunwell held that time, and when we did he said:
"'I felt from the first, before I made a bet that he had me beat—but the bigger a man's hand, the easier it is to bluff him out of the money.' Queer remark, wasn't it?