Gents were invited to step up and weigh the honesty of those dice, and gaze on the folly of an old one-eyed feller who had no more sense than to take such long chances. If anybody doubted that he took long chances, let that man step up and put down his money. Could he throw twenty-seven, or couldn’t he? That was the question, gents, and the odds were five to one that he could.
“I ain’t in this business for my health, gents,” he declared, pouring the dice out on his table, shaking them, and pouring them again. “I’m a gambler, and I’m here to make money, and make it as easy as I can; but if I’d been takin’ my pay in sheepskins since I’ve 155 been in this man’s town I wouldn’t have enough of them to make me a coat. Live and let live is my motto, and if you can’t let ’em live let ’em die.
“Five times one dollar is five dollars, and five times five is twenty-five. Did any of you fellers ever make that much in a minute? Look at them dice. Take ’em in your hand; roll ’em on the table. Don’t they run true and straight? Twenty-seven comes up for you sometimes, and it comes up for me. But it comes up oftener for me than it does for you, because I’ve got it charmed. That’s m’ lucky number. I was borned on the 27th of Jannewarry, in Range 27, Township 27, twenty-seven mile from Turkey Trail, Montaney, where the wind blows circles and the water runs up-hill.
“You win, friend,” pushing stake and winnings to a sheep-herder who had ventured a dollar. “Five times one is five.”
Interest in the game began to show rising temperature; the infection of easy money was working through the bystanders’ sluggish blood. Shanklin kept the score of loss and gain a little in his own favor, as he was able to do from his years of practice, while still leaving the impression among the players that collectively they were cleaning him out. Some who felt sudden and sharp drains dropped out, but others took their places, eyes distended, cheeks flushed, money in hand.
Dr. Slavens and his backer made their way to the front. Slavens noted that Shanklin was making an extraordinary spread of money, which he had beside 156 his hand in a little valise. It was craftily disposed in the mouth of the half-open bag, which seemed crammed to the hinges with it, making an alluring bait. The long, black revolver of Shanklin’s other days and nights lay there beside the bag asserting its large-caliber office of protection with a drowsy alligator look about it.
Slavens was as dirty and unwashed as the foulest in that crowd. His khaki coat bore a varnish of grease, his hat was without band or binding, and the growth of beard which covered his face like the bristles of a brush gave him the aspect of one who had long been the companion and warder of sheep upon the hills. With the added disguise of the smoked-glass goggles, common to travelers in that glaring, dusty land, it would have required one with a longer and more intimate acquaintance with him than Hun Shanklin could claim to pick him out of a crowd.
Slavens pulled out his roll and stood against the table, holding it in his hand with a loutish display of excitement and caution, as if unable to make up his mind whether to risk it on the game or not. When Shanklin saw it he began to direct his talk with a view to charming it out of the supposed sheep-herder’s hand.
With nervous fingers Slavens untied the strip of handkerchief, turned his back, and slipped off a dollar bill. This he put on the table with a cautious leaning forward and a suspicious hovering over it with the hand, playing the part so well that Shanklin’s sharp old eye was entirely deceived. 157
“You win, friend,” said Shanklin, pushing five dollars across the table. “This is like takin’ money away from a child.”