"I can't tell how nervous you make me, wanting a reason for every blooming thing. The notion hit me plumb between the eyes, Matt, and that's all there is to it. But if I can't use the Sprite I can sell her, can't I? And if I did want to go cruising, I've got you to run her for me! Oh, speak to me about that. But," and here McGlory's face fell, "I'm not going to get her. Johnny Hardluck has been running neck and neck with me ever since I was knee-high to a clump of cactus. If I'd have bought a hundred and ninety-nine tickets, the pasteboard I failed to corral would be the one that bobbed up when the wheel stopped runnin'. That's me, but I'm so plumb locoed that I keep trying to bust this hard-luck blockade. What's that—a twenty-dollar gold piece?"
Matt had stooped down while McGlory was talking, and picked up a flat object from the ground in front of him.
"A baggage check," answered Matt. "Some of the crowd here must have dropped it. If we could find——"
Just then, a man appeared carrying his derby hat in his hand. The hat was filled with numbered slips.
"Gents," called the man, "this here drawin' for the Sprite is now a-goin' to take place. Somebody's a-goin' to get that little streak o' greased lightnin' for a dollar. She's a good boat, an' wouldn't be sold for twice two hundred if her owner hadn't tumbled into a stretch of hard luck. She's done her mile in four minutes, the Sprite has, right here in the bay. This here hat is filled with slips o' paper numbered from one to two hundred, like the tickets. One of 'em's goin' to be drawed by the kid, who'll be blindfolded for the occasion. The lucky number the kid first pulls from the hat takes the boat."
Cheers from the assembled crowd greeted the "kid" as he climbed out of the boat and allowed a handkerchief to be tied over his eyes. Then, with much formality, and while the breathless crowd watched, the youngster's grimy hand went into the hat and pushed around wrist-deep among the slips.
"If the feller that gets the boat lives over in 'Frisco," pursued the man, while the boy dallied provokingly with the slips, "he won't have to wait for the next boat back. All he's got to do is to jump into the Sprite, head her where he wants to go, and cut loose. She's full o' oil and gasoline, an' could go from here to Vallejo without takin' on any more."
The boy's hand lifted from the hat and held up a slip.
"Number seventy-three," read the man; "number seventy-three is the lucky ticket, an' gets the Sprite. Who's got number seventy-three?"