“Bimeby then comes a hand where Fairfax an’ Bassett did some crisscross business. Bassett had been playin’ close f’m the first, an’ he had pretty near all o’ his original wad left, spite o’ what he’d lost on that flush, so when he caught three deuces on Pearsall’s deal an’ it were a jack-pot that had been pretty well fattened, he just opened it for fifty without much fear o’ the consequences. All the others laid down except Fairfax, an’ he come in on a pair of aces. He took three cards, but Bassett only drawed one. ’Twa’n’t extry good play, for his threes wa’n’t big enough to play ’em very strong ’thouten he was goin’ to bluff, an’ he might better ha’ drawed two cards, relyin’ on Fairfax thinkin’ his threes was bigger’n they was, but luck was with him in the draw ’n’ he catched the other deuce.
“Just naturally he felt good, an’ thinkin’ mebbe Fairfax might ha’ bettered an’ might raise, he throwed in a chip.
“Fairfax fumbled his cards a minute afore he picked ’em up. I don’t know whether he were a-studyin’ or whether it were a accident, but everybody noticed it, an’ it were lucky they did, as things turned out. But when he did pick up his hands he smiled a bit an’ throwed two fifty in the pot.
“That were just what Bassett were looking for, an’ he shoved all his chips to the centre o’ the table without countin’ ’em. O’ course Fairfax couldn’t raise no more; but he counted up, an’ findin’ it took six hundred to call, he called.
“Bassett showed down his four deuces an’ says: ‘I reckon that’s good,’ an’ he reached for the pot, but Fairfax says, ‘Hold on. That’s a pretty good hand, but aces’ll beat it if you have enough of ’em,’ and he showed down four aces.
“Right there was when Sam Pearsall showed his resources. O’ course, so fur as poker goes, that is, so fur as the reglar game goes, Fairfax won the pot all right, but, as I was sayin’, there is things outside o’ the reglar game that a man can rely on in a emergency if he’s quick to think an’ quick to act, an’ Sam were always as quick as a cat.
“I don’t know how it happened that Sam had a ace o’ diamonds hid away somewheres, but they’d changed the deck several times, an’ I reckon he must ha’ thought it might come in handy to figger on, or somethin’ o’ that sort. Anyway, he had it, an’ it were the same pattern back as the deck they was playin’ with. So he speaks up quick. ‘Hold on you,’ he says. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong here. I discarded the ace o’ diamonds,’ he says, an’ reachin’ over quick, he turns the discard pile face up, an’ spreadin’ out the cards, sure enough there were the ace.
“O’ course that queered Fairfax’s hand right away. They counted the cards, an’ sure enough there were fifty-three cards in the deck. Just naturally Fairfax an’ Overton smelled a mice, an’ they called on me to bring back the cards I’d gathered up every time they’d called for a new deck, an’ I did it.
“They picked out the deck o’ the same pattern they was usin’ an’ counted that, an’ just naturally they found fifty-one cards in it, but no ace o’ diamonds. It was clear enough where the card had come from, but the question was how it come where it was, an’ there was no way o’ tellin’ whether the missin’ card was the one that Fairfax held in his hand, or whether it was the one that Pearsall had showed in the discard pile.
“There wa’n’t much said. Everybody remembered how Fairfax had fumbled his cards, but nobody cared to say nothin’ about it, for there wa’n’t no use o’ havin’ to fight with a man like Fairfax when Overton was along, specially as the pot had to be divided anyhow. It were a foul deck beyond a question, and there wa’n’t no dispute when Bassett took back his chips.