His gaze chanced to fall on the gold-pan. He walked over and gravely kicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.
“It ain't ourn,” he said. “It belongs to the geezer I backed up five hundred feet last night. An' what gets me is four hundred an' ninety of them feet was to the good—his good. Come on, Smoke. Let's start the hike to Dawson. Though if you're hankerin' to kill me I won't lift a finger to prevent.”
IV. SHORTY DREAMS.
“Funny you don't gamble none,” Shorty said to Smoke one night in the Elkhorn. “Ain't it in your blood?”
“It is,” Smoke answered. “But the statistics are in my head. I like an even break for my money.”
All about them, in the huge bar-room, arose the click and rattle and rumble of a dozen games, at which fur-clad, moccasined men tried their luck. Smoke waved his hand to include them all.
“Look at them,” he said. “It's cold mathematics that they will lose more than they win to-night, that the big proportion are losing right now.”
“You're sure strong on figgers,” Shorty murmured admiringly. “An' in the main you're right. But they's such a thing as facts. An' one fact is streaks of luck. They's times when every geezer playin' wins, as I know, for I've sat in such games an' saw more'n one bank busted. The only way to win at gamblin' is wait for a hunch that you've got a lucky streak comin' and then play it to the roof.”
“It sounds simple,” Smoke criticized. “So simple I can't see how men can lose.”