“Single green,” chants Frenchy. “Populist, by jingo!” I says, as Frenchy rakes the three tens and pays ’em, with five more to the green.
Ten each on 16, 2, 1. Then he planks the six on double green. “I hate a piker!” he states. And 00 came.
“Alfalfa,” I yells. “Grangers for ever!”
Things was looking up now, but Stranger was noways concerned. “Six thirty-fives is two hundred and ten—six I had makes two sixteen. Hold on till I make a purty.” He bets ten straight on 16, ten on each corner, ten on each side. Same play for 2, and a lone ten on the unit. I never seen a board look so plumb ridiculous.
“Hope springs infernal in the human breast. Let ’er go, Hanna!” he says. “A short life and a merry one!”
The ball spun nearly two weeks. “Sixteen, black and even,” remarks Frenchy.
I takes a swift glance at the wheel then, to corroborate my ears. “And Bryan,” suggests Stranger.
“Bryan! Bryan!” yells the crowd. Miners and cow-boys is Democrats ex officio, and Frenchy’s surreptitious habit of defending himself was endearin’ Stranger to ’em. Besides, he was winning. That helps with crowds.
Paying them bets was complex. We was over eleven hundred to the good on the turn. Other business was suspended, and the crowd lined up, leaving the gladiators the center of the stage, and a twenty-foot lane so they could have plenty of air.
“I will now avenge the crime of ’73,” remarks Stranger. “I’m getting it trained.” He made the same layout. Strike me dead, if the ball didn’t jump in a pocket—out—and back—and out again and deliberated between 2 and 35 while the wheel went around fourteen times. You could have heard the split-second hand on a stop watch in the next county while it balanced—and at last rope-walked down in two.