After awhile Gordon's luck began to wane. His twenty dollars dropped to fifteen. Then to ten. Then to five. The stranger threw a run of "sevens." Then the dice passed. But Gordon lost them again, and presently the five dollars he was still winning passed out of his hands.
From that moment luck deserted him entirely. The stranger threw a succession of wins. Gordon increased his stakes to five-dollar bills. Now and again he pulled in a win, but always, it seemed, to lose two successive throws immediately afterwards. There were times when it seemed impossible to wrest the dice from his opponent. Whenever he held them himself he lost them almost immediately.
"Seventy-five dollars, that makes," he said, after one such loss. "They're going your way, sure."
"It's the luck of things," replied the stranger laconically.
One Eye across the aisle smiled to himself, and abandoned his craning.
Gordon plunged. He doubled his bets with the abandon of youth and inexperience. And the stranger never failed to tempt him that way when they were his dice. He always laid more stake than he believed his opponent would accept.
The hundred dollars was reached and passed in Gordon's losses. Still the game went on. He passed the hundred and fifty—and then Providence stepped in.
By this time a number of onlookers had gathered in the car. The place was full of smoke. They were standing in the aisle. They were sitting on the arms of the seats of the two players. One or two were leaning over the backs of the seats.
Suddenly the speeding train jolted heavily over some rough points. It swayed for a moment with a sort of deep-sea roll. The onlooker seated on the arm of the stranger's seat was jerked from his balance and sprawled on the player. In his efforts to save himself he grabbed at the table, which promptly toppled. The gambler made a lunge to save it, and, in the confusion of the moment, a second pair of crap dice, identical with the pair Gordon was about to shoot, rolled out of his hand.
Just for an instant there was a breathless pause as Gordon pounced on them. Then one word escaped him, and his face went deathly white as he glared furiously at the man across the table.