"Cattle! What cattle?" Mr. Dale stared blankly at Racey. "Oh, them! Hell, they didn't have nothin' to do with it, them cattle didn't. I'd worked out a system, Racey—a system to beat roulette, and I was shore it was all right. By Gawd, it was all right! They was nothin' wrong with that system. But I had bad luck. I had most awful bad luck."
"And the system, I take it, didn't work?"
"It didn't—against my bad luck."
Mr. Dale again dropped his eyes, and Racey stared down at the hump-shouldered old figure with something akin to pity in his gaze. Certainly he was sorry for him. He was not in the least scornful despite the fact that it did not seem possible that any sensible man could be such a fool. A system—a system to beat roulette! And bad luck! The drably ancient and moth-eaten story with which every unsuccessful gambler seeks to establish an alibi.
"Whose wheel was it?" said Racey.
"Lacey's at Marysville."
"In the back room of the Sweet Dreams, huh? An' there's nothing crooked about Lacey's wheel, either. It's as square as Lacey himself."
"Lacey's wasn't the only wheel. They was McFluke's, too."
So McFluke had a wheel, had he? This was news to Racey Dawson.
"How long has McFluke been runnin' a wheel?" inquired Racey.