The Stockman called without comment. The Judge hesitated, swore ferociously, and finally called.

Steve squeezed his cards with both hands for a final corroborative inspection, scratched his head and rolled his eye solemnly around the festal board.

"Eleven hundred dollars of my good coin in there now, and here I sit between the devil and the deep, blue sea. One thousand bucks. Much money. Ugh! One thousand days, each day of twenty-four golden hours set with twenty near-diamond minutes! Well! I sure hate to give you fellows this good gold."

"Steve's got one of them things!" surmised the Stockman.

"A fellow _does_ hate to lay down a bobtail straight flush when there's such a chance for action if he fills," chimed in the Eminent dealer.

"It's face up, Steve. You'd just as well show us. My boy, you ought to wear a mustache," said the Judge, critically. "Your lips get pale and give you away when you try to screw your courage up. Of course, you've got a sweet, little, rosebud mouth; but you need a big, ox-horn mustache in this vocation."

"Don't show it, Steve," advised the Stockman. "I judge his Honor's got one of them same things his black self. You might both fill--and you don't want to let him see how high yours is."

"If I only don't fill the wrong way," said Steve. "Want to split the pot or save stakes with me, Judge?"

"That would be a foolish caper. If I fill--I mean," the Judge corrected himself hastily--"I mean, I've got the money won now, unless you draw out, and that's a 52 to 1 shot."

"Me, too," said the dealer. "We both got it won. But I'll save out a hundred with you, Steve. That'll pay your bills and take you home."

"That'll be nine hundred to draw cards for a chance at nine thousand and action on what I got left. Faint heart never won a jackpot. Here goes nothin'!" said Steve, pushing the money in. "One from the top, when you get to me. If I bet after the draw, you all needn't call unless you're a mind to."

"Got that side money and pot straight?" queried the dealer lightly.

"All right?" He stretched out a long left arm and flipped the cards from the pack with a jerk of the wrist. "Cards and spades? (I'm pat, myself, of course.) Cards to you? None? Certainly. None to you, and one to you, one to you, none----"

Steve's card, spinning round as it came, turned over and lay face up on the table--the three of hearts. (Laymen will please recall that, as already specified, a straight flush was, in this game, the Best.) As the dealer was sliding the next card off to replace it, Steve caught the thin glint of a red 8 on the corner.

With a motion inconceivably swift he was on his feet, his left hand over the pack. "Hold on!" he cried. "Look at this!" He made a motion as if to spread out the four cards he had retained, checked himself and glared, crouching.

"Sit down, Steve. Don't be a fool," said the Stockman. "You know you've no right to an exposed card, and you know he didn't go to do it."

Steve bunched his four cards carefully and laid them on the table, face down. "Certainly not. Oh, no! He didn't go to do it. But he did it, just the same," he said bitterly. "Now, look here! I don't think there's anything wrong--not for a minute. Nothing worse'n dumb, idiotic thumb-hand-sidedness. I specially don't want no one else to get mixed up in this," with a glance at the Stockman. "So you and the Judge needn't feel called upon to act as seconds. But I'm vexed. I'm vexed just about nine thousand dollars' worth, likely much more, if my hand hadn't been tipped. _Mira_!" addressing the dealer, who sat quietly holding the pack in his left hand, his right resting on the table. "I've a right to _call_ for my card turned up, haven't I?"

"Sure thing," said the dealer equably.

"All right, then. One bad turn deserves another. But--plenty _cuidado!_ If any card but the eight of hearts turns up, protect yourself, or somebody's widow'll be in a position to collect life insurance, and I ain't married! Turn her over." He leaned lightly on the table with both hands. Their eyes met in a level gaze.

"Let her zip!" said the Eminent Person. Without hesitation he dropped the card over. No slightest motion from either man, no relaxing of those interlocked eyes. A catching of breaths--

"The eight of hearts!" This in concert by the quartette of undisinterested witnesses.

The two Princ.i.p.als looked down, then. That the Eminent Person's free hand had remained pa.s.sive throughout bore eloquent testimony to nerve and integrity alike. Nevertheless, he now ran that hand slowly through his hair and wiped his forehead. "That was one long five seconds--most a week, I guess. Did you ever see such a plumb dam-fool break in your whole life?" he said, appealingly, to the crowd.

"I guess," said Steve sagely, pushing the eight-spot in with his other cards--"I guess if you'd separated from a thousand big round dollars to draw a card and then got it turned over, _you_ wouldn't have cared a whoop if your left eye was out, either. It _is_ warm, ain't it?" He sat down with a sigh of relief.

The Stockman bunched his cards idly and tapped the table with them.

The Judge was casually examining the chandelier with interest and approval. Presently, he looked down and around.

"Oh, thunder! What are you waiting for, Thompson? I pa.s.s, of course!"

he said testily.

Steve shoved in his pile. "As I mentioned a while ago, you're not obliged to call this," he said demurely. "Just suit yourselves."

One card at a time, with thumb and forefinger, the Eminent Person turned over his hand with careful adjustment and alignment. After much delay, he symmetrically arranged an Ace-full, face up, and regarded it with profound attention.

"That was a right good-looking hand, too--before the draw," he remarked at last, sweeping them into the discard.

"Ye-es," a.s.sented the Stockman, mildly dubious. "It might have taken second money--maybe." He tossed in four deuces.

The Transient spread out a club flush. "Do you know?" he said confidentially--"do you know, I was actually glad to see that hand when I first picked it up?"

"Won't you fellows _never_ learn to play poker?" said the Judge severely. "Why don't you stay out till you get something?" He laid his hand down. "Four tens and most five! The Curse of Scotland and Forty Miles of Railroad! _For_-ty miles, before the draw--and gone into the hands of a deceiver!"

"Oh!" Leaning over, Steve touched the ten of spades lightly. "So _that's_ why I couldn't fill my hand!" he remarked innocently.

"Get out!" snorted the Judge. "No use throwing good money after bad. I wouldn't call you, not if I had five tens!"

He slammed in his hand. The Eminent Person thoughtfully took out the hundred he had saved. "Some one press the b.u.t.ton, and I'll do the rest," said Steve. He removed the side-money, placidly ignoring the "pot" of some fifteen hundred dollars, for which the Transient, having his money all in, was ent.i.tled to a showdown.

The Transient's jaw dropped in unaffected amazement. Dealer and Stockman drummed their fingers on the table unconcernedly. And the Judge saw a great light.

"You, _Thompson_!" he roared. "Turn over that hand! I feel that you have treated this Court with the greatest contemptibility!" He pawed the discard with frantic haste, producing the seven of hearts.

"Why, you pink-cheeked, dewy-eyed catamaran! What----_have_ you got, anyway?"

"Why, Judge," said Steve earnestly, "I've got a strong case of circ.u.mstantial evidence." He turned over the eight of hearts; then, after a pause, the ace, king, queen and jack of spades; and resumed the stacking of his chips. "I discarded that seven of hearts," he said, smiling at the Merchant.

A howl of joyous admiration went up; the Transient raked in the pot.

"The Crime of the Century!" bellowed the Judge. "I'm the victim of the Accomplished Fact! Cash my checks! I'm going to join the Ladies' Aid!"

"Aw, shut up," gasped the Transient. "No sleep till morn where youth and booty meetsh! Give ush 'nother deck!"

But Steve, having stacked his chips, folded the bills and put them in his pocket.

"What's the matter with you, you old fool?" demanded the Eminent Person affectionately. "You can't quit now."

Steve rose, bowing to right and left, spreading his hand over his heart. "Deeply as I regret and, as I might say, deplore, to quit a good easy game," he declaimed, "I must now remove myself from your big midst. For a Lalla-Cooler can only be played once in one night.

Besides, I've always heard that no man ever quit ahead of the game, and I'm going to prove the rule. I will never play another card, never no more!"

"What--not in your whole life?" said the Stockman, chin on hand, raising his eyebrows at the last word.

"Oh--in my whole _life_!" admitted Steve. He drew a dollar from his pocket, balanced it on his thumb, and continued: "We will now invoke the arbitrament of chance to decide the destinies of nations. Heads, I order an a.s.sortment of vines and fig trees, go back to the Jornado and become a cattle-king, I proceed to New-York-on-the-Hudson, by the Ess-Pee at 3:15 this A.M. presently, and arouse that somnolent city from its Rip Van Winkle."

The coin went spinning to the ceiling. "Tails!" said the Merchant, picking it up. "I must warn my friends on Wall Street, h.e.l.lo! this is a bad dollar!"

"I'll keep it for a souvenir of the joyful occasion," said Steve.

"Just one more now, and we'll all go home!"