While he scooped the two coins up, he did not see the croupier turn his head and shoot a single glance to a fat, squat man in the corner of the room, a glance to which the fat man responded with the slightest of nods and smiles. He was the owner. And he was not particularly happy at the thought of some hundred and fifty dollars being taken out of his treasury by some chance stranger.
Terry did not see the glance, and before long he was incapable of seeing anything saving the flash of the disk, the blur of the alternate colors as they spun together. He paid no heed to the path of the sunlight as it stretched along the floor under the window and told of a westering sun. The first Terry knew of it he was standing in a warm pool of gold, but he gave the sun at his feet no more than a casual glance. It was metallic gold that he was fascinated by and the whims and fancies of that singular wheel. Twice that afternoon his fortune had mounted above three thousand dollars—once it mounted to an even six thousand. He had stopped to count his winnings at this point, and on the verge of leaving decided to make it an even ten thousand before he went away. And five minutes later he was gambling with five hundred in his wallet.
When the sunlight grew yellow, other men began to enter the room. Terry was still at his post. He did not see them. There was no human face in the world for him except the colorless face of the croupier, and the long, pale eyelashes that lifted now and then over greenish-orange eyes. And Terry did not heed when he was shouldered by the growing crowd around the wheel.
He only knew that other bets were being placed and that it was a nuisance, for the croupier took much longer in paying debts and collecting winnings, so that the wheel spun less often.
Meantime he was by no means unnoticed. A little whisper had gone the rounds that a real plunger was in town. And when men came into the hall, their attention was directed automatically by the turn of other eyes toward six feet of muscular manhood, heavy-shouldered and erect, with a flare of a red silk bandanna around his throat and a heavy sombrero worn tilted a little to one side and back on his head.
“He's playing a system,” said someone. “Been standing there all afternoon and making poor Pedro—the thief!—sweat and shake in his boots.”
In fact, the owner of the place had lost his complacence and his smile together. He approached near to the wheel and watched its spin with a face turned sallow and flat of cheek from anxiety. For with the setting of the sun it seemed that luck flooded upon Terry Hollis. He began to bet in chunks of five hundred, alternating between the red and the odd, and winning with startling regularity. His winnings were now shoved into an awkward canvas bag. Twenty thousand dollars! That had grown from the fifty.
No wonder the crowd had two looks for Terry. His face had lost its color and grown marvellously expressionless.
“The real gambler's look,” they said.
His mouth was pinched at the corners, and otherwise his expression never varied.
Once he turned. A broad-faced man, laughing and obviously too self-contented to see what he was doing, trod heavily on the toes of Terry, stepping past the latter to get his winnings. He was caught by the shoulder and whirled around. The crowd saw the tall man draw his right foot back, balance, lift a trifle on his toes, and then a balled fist shot up, caught the broad-faced man under the chin and dumped him in a crumpled heap half a dozen feet away. They picked him up and took him away, a stunned wreck. Terry had turned back to his game, and in ten seconds had forgotten what he had done.
But the crowd remembered, and particularly he who had twice laughed at Terry from the veranda of the hotel.
The heap in the canvas sack diminished, shrank—he dumped the remainder of the contents into his pocket. He had been betting in solid lumps of a thousand for the past twenty minutes, and the crowd watched in amazement. This was drunken gambling, but the fellow was obviously sober. Then a hand touched the shoulder of Terry.
“Just a minute, partner.”
He looked into the face of a big man, as tall as he and far heavier of build: a magnificent big head, heavily marked features, a short-cropped black beard that gave him dignity. A middle-aged man, about forty-five, and still in the prime of life.
“Lemme pass a few words with you.”
Terry drew back to the side.
CHAPTER 22
“My Name's Pollard,” said the older man. “Joe Pollard.”
“Glad to know you, sir. My name—is Terry.” The other admitted this reticence with a faint smile.
“I got a name around here for keeping my mouth shut and not butting in on another gent's game. But I always noticed that when a gent is in a losing run, half the time he don't know it. Maybe that might be the way with you. I been watching and seen your winnings shrink considerable lately.”
Terry weighed his money. “Yes, it's shrunk a good deal.”
“Stand out of the game till later on. Come over and have a bite to eat with me.”
He went willingly, suddenly aware of a raging appetite and a dinner long postponed. The man of the black beard was extremely friendly.
“One of the prettiest runs I ever see, that one you made,” he confided when they were at the table in the hotel. “You got a system, I figure.”
“A new one,” said Terry. “I've never played before.”
The other blinked.
“Beginner's luck, I suppose,” said Terry frankly. “I started with fifty, and now I suppose I have about eight hundred.”
“Not bad, not bad,” said the other. “Too bad you didn't stop half an hour before. Just passing through these parts?”
