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As the time limit ain't up, I can't buck faro-bank none; but if you an' Ellis, Cherokee, can tol'rate a little draw, I'm your onmurmurin' dupe. "As I relates prior, the play is to let Ellis win a home-stake an' quit. At last they begins, Ellis seein' thar's no chance for faro- bank. Dan plays but little; usual, he merely picks up his kyards, cusses a lot, an' passes out.

"Which it almost breaks even with a chimley I constructs once in my log camp on the Upper Red. That Red River floo is a wonder! Draw? Son, it could draw four kyards an' make a flush.

My grandfather is dead at the time, so his examples lost to us; but my father, sort o' projectin' 'round for p'sition, decides it would be onfair in him to throw the weight of his valor to either side, so he stands a pat hand on that embroglio, declines kyards, an' as I states is nootral.

"'Cherokee does right, says Nell to Dan, 'like Cherokee allers does. An' I'll do the same as Cherokee. Stranger, goes on Nell, turnin' from Dan to this Holliday; 'go as far as you likes. The bridle's off the hoss. "'An' much obleeged to you, Miss! says this Holliday, with another of them p'lite bows. 'As the kyards goes in the box, I makes you the same three bets I makes first to Mister Hall.

One is as much as you can manage now." She spoke witheringly. "I give you one more chance." "More than I can manage. You know Dick will get drunk " "Not unless you make him. Who was drunk at that barbecue at Jones's Cross Roads last summer!" "Oh, Mary!" "Who set up till after Sunday mornin' playin' kyards . Yes, gamblin' the last night of last County Cote!" "Oh, Mary! All right.

Also, I realises their methods after I takes a good hard look. That dealer's got what post gradyooates in faro-bank robbery calls a "end squeeze" box; the deck is trimmed "wedges" is the name to put the odds ag'in the evens, an' sanded so as to let two kyards come at a clatter whenever said pheenomenon is demanded by the exigencies of their crimes; an' thar you be.

You can believe it; it takes a load offen the public mind about that infant when the kyards comes that a-way. "Which the story's soon told now.

Turn your kyards, an' turn 'em squar'. If you don't, I'll peel the ha'r an' hide plumb off the top of your head." "Cherokee looks at the Lizard sorter soopercillus an' indifferent; but he don't say nothin'. He goes on with the deal, an', the kyards comin' that a-way, he takes in the Lizard's two bets.

I takes one also; the same bein' futile, so far as he'pin' my hand goes; an' the others takes kyards various. "Thar's only one raise, an' that's when it gets to Hamilton. He sets in a little over two hundred dollars, bein' the balance of the stake; an' two of us is feeble-minded enough to call. What does he have? Well, it's ample for our ondoin' that a-way.

First, she gives us The Dying Ranger, the same bein' enough of itse'f to start a sob or two; speshul when folks is, as Colonel Sterett says, 'a leetle drinkin'. Then when the public clamours for more she sings something which begins: "'Thar's many a boy who once follows the herds, On the Jones an' Plummer trail; Some dies of drink an' some of lead, An' some over kyards, an' none in bed; But they're dead game sports, so with naught but good words, We gives 'em "Farewell an' hail."