“But I remember the time when Jake was about the easiest proposition there was to be found all up an’ down the river. ’Peared like there wa’n’t no possible way o’ losin’ money at the game that he hadn’t studied out an’ practised till he had ’em all down pat. He c’d lay down three of a kind against aces up with the same monotonous regularity that he’d bet a straight against a full. An’ he didn’t have no sense about the draw. He’d pull for a flush every time he got four of a suit, an’ sometimes when he had only three, no matter what the odds was in the bettin’. An’ when he did happen to have the winnin’ hand, if he bet it at all, which he wouldn’t half the time, he never got nothin’ to speak of out of it.
“I used to reason with him. There wa’n’t no reason as I know on why I should, for he wa’n’t nothin’ to me, more’n a fair, average customer, but somehow or other I allus cottoned to Jake f’m the time he struck the town till he’d come to be recognized as one o’ the leadin’ citizens. ’Peared like he made a impression on me f’m the first. Anyway, I felt kind o’ sorry to see him everlastin’ly buckin’ up ag’in a game that was too much for him, an’ I told him so, many’s the time.
“ ‘Jake,’ I used to say to him, ‘you hain’t no business playin’ with the Arkansas City crowd. They’ll do you, sure.’ But he’d always say: ‘Greenhut, I’m learnin’, an’ learnin’ is allus expensive. One o’ these days I’ll do ’em.’ So I let him alone.
“ ‘Peared like he learned all of a sudden. He’d been pikin’ along, playin’ a fiddlin’ game whenever he got a chance to stick his nose in, but givin’ no evidence o’ talent till this one night, when there was two strangers come in to do the talent. Jake was here an’ he had about seven dollars in his clothes when they made up a table stake game an’ each man put up fifty dollars. There was six playin’, too, so there was three hundred dollars on the table when they started. Jake, he looked on for awhile an’ never peeped. Didn’t think he’d be let in an’ consequent said nothin’ till three of the home talent dropped out, busted. That left Sam Pearsall playin’ agin the two strangers, an’ he were nervous. He wa’n’t much more’n holdin’ his own, an’ he looked round to see if there wasn’t somebody to set in. Joe Bassett an’ Jim Blaisdell was willin’ enough, but they had no money left, an’ Jake seein’ how things stood, he spoke up kind o’ timid like, an’ he says: ‘I don’t reckon I’d last more’n a few minutes, but I’ll take a hand if you’ll let me play for what I’ve got.’
“Sam spoke up quick an’ says, ‘I hain’t no objections,’ an’ the two strangers says, kind o’ careless, ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ so down he sets. But they was disgusted enough when they seen what his pile was. He dug up seven dollars an’ two bits, an’ bought his chips an’ took a hand.
“It were a dollar jack an’ one o’ the strangers opened it for four dollars, an’ Jake he throwed down. The stranger he win it, an’ the next deal it were Jake’s ante. He put up two bits, call four, an’ the others all come in an’ he wouldn’t make good. That left him just six dollars, but it were his deal.
“When I seen that deal I kind o’ says to myself that mebbe I’d sorter mistook Winterbottom, an’ mebbe he’d been practisin’ some. It were Pearsall’s ante, an’ he made it a dollar to play. The first stranger, he were a little cross-eyed man, he come in, an’ the other feller raised it two dollars. Jake he made good, takin’ three dollars, an’ Sam he raised it five. Then the cross-eyed man made it five more to play, an’ the other one stayed, an’ Jake called for a sight for his pile.
“Sam took two cards an’ the cross-eyed man took one. The next man took two, an’ Jake took two. Well, they all filled. Sam made a full, the cross-eyed man filled a flush, though it wa’n’t the straight flush he were after; the next man made a seven full, Sam’s bein’ nines, an’ Jake caught a fourth deuce.
“O’ course, all the bettin’ was amongst the other three, Jake on’y havin’ a show for the twenty-four dollars his six called for, but Sam raked in considerable over a hundred on the show-down.
“The next pot were a jack on the fours, an’ Sam made it five dollars to play. Neither one o’ the strangers opened, so it were up to Jake, an’ he busted it for nineteen dollars, bein’ his pile. Sam stayed out an’ the cross-eyed man came in, but he failed to fill, an’ Jake was on velvet with forty-eight dollars in front of him, havin’ opened on two jacks.