“After some hours’ play the second day, though, all hands seemed to get impatient. ’Twa’n’t that they played any less cautious, but they seemed to be gettin’ on to one another’s play better an’ better all the time an’ feelin’ as though they was justified in playin’ to the strength o’ their hands more’n they had. I noticed they begun callin’ one another once in awhile, an’ a call had been ruther a scarce thing before that. Dunnigan was caught bluffin’ most outrageous once, on a busted flush, but nobody even smiled. Blivins had called him on two pairs, an’ he raked in a pot of near a thousand dollars just as if nothin’ had happened.
“All of a sudden came a most astonishin’ deal. I reckon it was honest enough, for, as I said, they was a-watchin’ one another like cats, an’ slick as they all was, there warn’t one of ’em but knowed the others would catch him if he tried to deal crooked. So just naturally we had to assume it was honest, anyway, although Dunning dealt the cards, an’ he was one o’ the best manipulators I ever see.
“What made it surprisin’ was that the cards had been a-runnin’ most almighty slow up to that time, as they will sometimes for a long spell. There had been a few good hands, o’ course, but there hadn’t been a real struggle worth talkin’ about in all those hours o’ play. This time, though, there was struggle enough to satisfy the most sanguinary.
“Dunning dealt, as I said, an’ Waters had the age. He got four hearts with the ace and king at the head. Blivins was next player an’ he caught three queens. Dunnigan was next an’ he found kings and eights in his hand. Simpson was next an’ he got four spades—little ones. An’ Dunning dealt himself four ten-spots, pat.
“That of itself was a tol’able noteworthy deal, but the draw was still more astonishin’. They’d all come in as a matter o’ course, an Waters had just naturally raised it a blue chip. That give Dunning a chance, an’ he raised it a hundred dollars. I asked him a long time afterward how ’twas he didn’t raise the first round, an’ he said he couldn’t exactly say, on’y he had a sort o’ hunch that Waters would raise, as he did, an’ so give him all the better show. Everybody stood this raise also, and then they called for cards.
“Waters got his fifth heart. Blivins caught the fourth queen. Dunnigan made a king full, an’ Simpson got nothin’. Dunning, o’ course, drew a dummy to his four tens.
“If ever there was a kettle o’ fish that was. Blivins bet five hundred on the go off, an’ Dunnigan raised him five hundred as a simple act o’ Christian duty, havin’ a king full against one two-card and three one-card draws, Simpson threw down his cards, havin’ no chance to do anything else. Dunning just naturally put up a thousand dollars more, an’ Waters was between the devil an’ the deep blue sea.
“Just naturally he says to himself that Blivins an’ Dunning was a-playin’ whipsaw an’ cal’latin’ to scare him out right away. Dunnigan was the man he was after, same as the others was, an’ he reckoned he could beat Dunnigan, but he didn’t see how he was goin’ to stand up against the other two. Talk about your self-control. There was a man that felt certain in his own mind that he had the winnin’ hand when he reely had the poorest one in the game. He was low man for fair, but you couldn’t ha’ made him think so just then. An’ ’twas sharper than a serpent’s tooth to see the other two fellers gettin’ away with Dunnigan’s money, as he could see they was likely to do.
“What did he do? Why, he throwed down his cards o’ course, like a good player as he was. He knowed that, although the chances was that he had the best hand, he was goin’ to have to play that hand so high that the three chances against him made it poor play to back it. An’ mind you, ’twarn’t honest play he was lookin’ for, but a whipsaw game by two men with plenty of money an’ more nerve.
“Blivins couldn’t do no less than raise it another thousand, an’ it was up to Dunnigan to make the play of his life. He thought he was makin’ it when he saw both raises an’ went two thousand better. I don’t know but what I might ha’ done the same thing, but I’ve played poker now longer’n I had then, an’ I’ve seen four of a kind out a good many times. ’Pears to me like I’d ha’ sensed somethin’ o’ the sort when I see two good players bettin’ like them two did, an’ one of ’em drawin’ two cards an’ the other only one.