章节正文
note of appeal in his deep gruff voice as he plunged into his
business.
"It's like this, Smoke," he began. "You've got us all guessing.
I'm representing nine other game-owners and myself from all the
saloons in town. We don't understand. We know that no system ever
worked against roulette. All the mathematic sharps in the colleges
have told us gamblers the same thing. They say that roulette itself
is the system, the one and only system, and, therefore, that no
system can beat it, for that would mean arithmetic has gone bug-
house."
Shorty nodded his head violently.
"If a system can beat a system, then there's no such thing as
system," the gambler went on. "In such a case anything could be
possible--a thing could be in two different places at once, or two
things could be in the same place that's only large enough for one
at the same time."
"Well, you've seen me play," Smoke answered defiantly; "and if you
think it's only a string of luck on my part, why worry?"
"That's the trouble. We can't help worrying. It's a system you've
got, and all the time we know it can't be. I've watched you five
nights now, and all I can make out is that you favour certain
numbers and keep on winning. Now the ten of us game-owners have got
together, and we want to make a friendly proposition. We'll put a
roulette table in a back room of the Elkhorn, pool the bank against
you, and have you buck us. It will be all quiet and private. Just
you and Shorty and us. What do you say?"
"I think it's the other way around," Smoke answered. "It's up to
you to come and see me. I'll be playing in the bar-room of the
Elkhorn to-night. You can watch me there just as well."
VIII.
That night, when Smoke took up his customary place at the table, the
keeper shut down the game.
"The game's closed," he said. "Boss's orders."
But the assembled game-owners were not to be balked. In a few
minutes they arranged a pool, each putting in a thousand, and took
over the table.
"Come on and buck us," Harvey Moran challenged, as the keeper sent
the ball on its first whirl around.
"Give me the twenty-five limit," Smoke suggested.
"Sure; go to it."
Smoke immediately placed twenty-five chips on the 'double nought,'
and won.
Moran wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Go on," he said. "We got ten thousand in this bank."
At the end of an hour and a half, the ten thousand was Smoke's.
"The bank's bust," the keeper announced.
"Got enough?" Smoke asked.
The game-owners looked at one another. They were awed. They, the
fatted proteges of the laws of chance, were undone. They were up
against one who had more intimateaccess to those laws, or who had
invoked higher and undreamed laws.
"We quit," Moran said. "Ain't that right, Burke?"
Big Burke, who owned the games in the M. and G. Saloon, nodded.
"The impossible has happened," he said. "This Smoke here has got a
system all right. If we let him go on we'll all bust. All I can
see, if we're goin' to keep our tables running, is to cut down the
limit to a dollar, or to ten cents, or a cent. He won't win much in
a night with such stakes."
All looked at Smoke. He shrugged his shoulders.
"In that case, gentlemen, I'll have to hire a gang of men to play at
all your tables. I can pay them ten dollars for a four-hour shift
and make money."
"Then we'll shut down our tables," Big Burke replied. "Unless--"
He hesitated and ran his eye over his fellows to see that they were
with him. "Unless you're willing to talk business. What will you
sell the system for?"
"Thirty thousand dollars," Smoke answered. "That's a tax of three
thousand apiece."
They debated and nodded.
"And you'll tell us your system?"
"Surely."
"And you'll promise not to play roulette in Dawson ever again?"
"No, sir," Smoke said positively. "I'll promise not to play this
system again."
"My God!" Moran exploded. "You haven't got other systems, have
you?"
"Hold on!" Shorty cried. "I want to talk to my pardner. Come over
here, Smoke, on the side."
Smoke followed into a quiet corner of the room, while hundreds of
curious eyes centred on him and Shorty.
"Look here, Smoke," Shorty whispered hoarsely. "Mebbe it ain't a
dream. In which case you're sellin' out almighty cheap. You've
sure got the world by the slack of its pants. They's millions in
it. Shake it! Shake it hard!"
"But if it's a dream?" Smoke queried softly.
"Then, for the sake of the dream an' the love of Mike, stick them
gamblers up good and plenty. What's the good of dreamin' if you
can't dream to the real right, dead sure, eternal finish?"
"Fortunately, this isn't a dream, Shorty."
"Then if you sell out for thirty thousan', I'll never forgive you."
"When I sell out for thirty thousand, you'll fall on my neck an'
wake up to find out that you haven't been dreaming at all. This is
no dream, Shorty. In about two minutes you'll see you have been
wide awake all the time. Let me tell you that when I sell out it's
because I've got to sell out."
Back at the table, Smoke informed the game-owners that his offer
still held. They proffered him their paper to the extent of three
thousand each.
"Hold out for the dust," Shorty cautioned.
"I was about to intimate that I'd take the money weighed out," Smoke
said.
The owner of the Elkhorn cashed their paper, and Shorty took
possession of the gold-dust.
"Now, I don't want to wake up," he chortled, as he hefted the
various sacks. "Toted up, it's a seventy thousan' dream. It's be
too blamed expensive to open my eyes, roll out of the blankets, an'
start breakfast."
"What's your system?" Big Burke demanded. "We've paid for it, and
we want it."
Smoke led the way to the table.
"Now, gentlemen, bear with me a moment. This isn't an ordinary
system. It can scarcely be called legitimate, but its one great
virtue is that it works. I've got my suspicious, but I'm not saying
anything. You watch. Mr Keeper, be ready with the ball. Wait, I
am going to pick '26.' Consider I've bet on it. Be ready, Mr
Keeper--Now!"
The ball whirled around.
"You observe," Smoke went on, "that '9' was directly opposite."
The ball finished in '26.'
Big Burke swore deep in his chest, and all waited.
"For 'double nought' to win, '11' must be opposite. Try it yourself
and see."
"But the system?" Moran demanded impatiently. "We know you can pick
winning numbers, and we know what those numbers are; but how do you
do it?"
"By observed sequences. By accident I chanced twice to notice the
ball whirled when '9' was opposite. Both times '26' won. After
that I saw it happen again. Then I looked for other sequences, and
found them. 'Double nought' opposite fetches '32,' and '11' fetches
'double nought.' It doesn't always happen, but it USUALLY happens.
You notice, I say 'usually.' As I said before, I have my
suspicions, but I'm not saying anything."
Big Burke, with a sudden dawn of comprehension reached over, stopped
the wheel, and examined it carefully. The heads of the nine other
game-owners bent over and joined in the examination. Big Burke
straightened up and cast a glance at the near-by stove.
"Hell," he said. "It wasn't any system at all. The table stood
close to the fire, and the blamed wheel's warped. And we've been
worked to a frazzle. No wonder he liked this table. He couldn't
have bucked for sour apples at any other table."
Harvey Moran gave a great sigh of relief and wiped his forehead.
"Well, anyway," he said, "it's cheap at the price just to find out
that it wasn't a system." His face began to work, and then he broke
into laughter and slapped Smoke on the shoulder. "Smoke, you had us
going for a while, and we patting ourselves on the back because you
were letting our tables alone! Say, I've got some real fizz I'll
open if all you'll come over to the Tivoli with me."
Later, back in the cabin, Shorty silently overhauled and hefted the
various bulging gold-sacks. He finally piled them on the table, sat
down on the edge of his bunk, and began taking off his moccasins.
"Seventy thousan'," he calculated. "It weighs three hundred and
fifty pounds. And all out of a warped wheel an' a quick eye.
Smoke, you eat'm raw, you eat'm alive, you work under water, you've
given me the jim-jams; but just the same I know it's a dream. It's
only in dreams that the good things comes true. I'm almighty
unanxious to wake up. I hope I never wake up."
"Cheer up," Smoke answered. "You won't. There are a lot of
philosophy sharps that think men are sleep-walkers. You're in good
company."
Shorty got up, went to the table, selected the heaviest sack, and
cuddled it in his arms as if it were a baby.
"I may be sleep-walkin'," he said, "but as you say, I'm sure in
mighty good company."
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK.
I.
It was before Smoke Bellew staked the farcical town-site of Tra-Lee,
made the historic corner of eggs that nearly broke Swiftwater Bill's
bank account, or won the dog-team race down the Yukon for an even
million dollars, that he and Shorty parted company on the Upper
Klondike. Shorty's task was to return down the Klondike to Dawson
to record some claims they had staked.
Smoke, with the dog-team, turned south. His quest was Surprise Lake
and the mythical Two Cabins. His traverse was to cut the headwaters
of the Indian River and cross the unknown region over the mountains
to the Stewart River. Here, somewhere, rumour persisted, was
Surprise Lake, surrounded by jagged mountains and glaciers, its
bottom paved with raw gold. Old-timers, it was said, whose very
names were forgotten in the forests of earlier years, had dived in
the ice-waters of Surprise Lake and fetched lump-gold to the surface
in both hands. At different times, parties of old-timers had
penetrated the forbidding fastness and sampled the lake's golden
bottom. But the water was too cold. Some died in the water, being
pulled up dead. Others died of consumption. And one who had gone
down never did come up. All survivors had planned to return and
drain the lake, yet none had ever gone back. Disaster always
happened. One man fell into an air-hole below Forty Mile; another
was killed and eaten by his dogs; a third was crushed by a falling
tree. And so the tale ran. Surprise Lake was a hoodoo; its
location was unremembered; and the gold still paved its undrained
bottom.
Two Cabins, no less mythical, was more definitely located. 'Five
sleeps,' up the McQuestion River from the Stewart, stood two ancient
cabins. So ancient were they that they must have been built before
ever the first known gold-hunter had entered the Yukon Basin.
Wandering moose-hunters, whom even Smoke had met and talked with,
claimed to have found the two cabins in the old days, but to have
sought vainly for the mine which those early adventurers must have
worked.
"I wish you was goin' with me," Shorty said wistfully, at parting.
"Just because you got the Indian bug ain't no reason for to go
pokin' into trouble. They's no gettin' away from it, that's loco
business.
"It's like this, Smoke," he began. "You've got us all guessing.
I'm representing nine other game-owners and myself from all the
saloons in town. We don't understand. We know that no system ever
worked against roulette. All the mathematic sharps in the colleges
have told us gamblers the same thing. They say that roulette itself
is the system, the one and only system, and, therefore, that no
system can beat it, for that would mean arithmetic has gone bug-
house."
Shorty nodded his head violently.
"If a system can beat a system, then there's no such thing as
system," the gambler went on. "In such a case anything could be
possible--a thing could be in two different places at once, or two
things could be in the same place that's only large enough for one
at the same time."
"Well, you've seen me play," Smoke answered defiantly; "and if you
think it's only a string of luck on my part, why worry?"
"That's the trouble. We can't help worrying. It's a system you've
got, and all the time we know it can't be. I've watched you five
nights now, and all I can make out is that you favour certain
numbers and keep on winning. Now the ten of us game-owners have got
together, and we want to make a friendly proposition. We'll put a
roulette table in a back room of the Elkhorn, pool the bank against
you, and have you buck us. It will be all quiet and private. Just
you and Shorty and us. What do you say?"
"I think it's the other way around," Smoke answered. "It's up to
you to come and see me. I'll be playing in the bar-room of the
Elkhorn to-night. You can watch me there just as well."
VIII.
That night, when Smoke took up his customary place at the table, the
keeper shut down the game.
"The game's closed," he said. "Boss's orders."
But the assembled game-owners were not to be balked. In a few
minutes they arranged a pool, each putting in a thousand, and took
over the table.
"Come on and buck us," Harvey Moran challenged, as the keeper sent
the ball on its first whirl around.
"Give me the twenty-five limit," Smoke suggested.
"Sure; go to it."
Smoke immediately placed twenty-five chips on the 'double nought,'
and won.
Moran wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Go on," he said. "We got ten thousand in this bank."
At the end of an hour and a half, the ten thousand was Smoke's.
"The bank's bust," the keeper announced.
"Got enough?" Smoke asked.
The game-owners looked at one another. They were awed. They, the
fatted proteges of the laws of chance, were undone. They were up
against one who had more intimateaccess to those laws, or who had
invoked higher and undreamed laws.
"We quit," Moran said. "Ain't that right, Burke?"
Big Burke, who owned the games in the M. and G. Saloon, nodded.
"The impossible has happened," he said. "This Smoke here has got a
system all right. If we let him go on we'll all bust. All I can
see, if we're goin' to keep our tables running, is to cut down the
limit to a dollar, or to ten cents, or a cent. He won't win much in
a night with such stakes."
All looked at Smoke. He shrugged his shoulders.
"In that case, gentlemen, I'll have to hire a gang of men to play at
all your tables. I can pay them ten dollars for a four-hour shift
and make money."
"Then we'll shut down our tables," Big Burke replied. "Unless--"
He hesitated and ran his eye over his fellows to see that they were
with him. "Unless you're willing to talk business. What will you
sell the system for?"
"Thirty thousand dollars," Smoke answered. "That's a tax of three
thousand apiece."
They debated and nodded.
"And you'll tell us your system?"
"Surely."
"And you'll promise not to play roulette in Dawson ever again?"
"No, sir," Smoke said positively. "I'll promise not to play this
system again."
"My God!" Moran exploded. "You haven't got other systems, have
you?"
"Hold on!" Shorty cried. "I want to talk to my pardner. Come over
here, Smoke, on the side."
Smoke followed into a quiet corner of the room, while hundreds of
curious eyes centred on him and Shorty.
"Look here, Smoke," Shorty whispered hoarsely. "Mebbe it ain't a
dream. In which case you're sellin' out almighty cheap. You've
sure got the world by the slack of its pants. They's millions in
it. Shake it! Shake it hard!"
"But if it's a dream?" Smoke queried softly.
"Then, for the sake of the dream an' the love of Mike, stick them
gamblers up good and plenty. What's the good of dreamin' if you
can't dream to the real right, dead sure, eternal finish?"
"Fortunately, this isn't a dream, Shorty."
"Then if you sell out for thirty thousan', I'll never forgive you."
"When I sell out for thirty thousand, you'll fall on my neck an'
wake up to find out that you haven't been dreaming at all. This is
no dream, Shorty. In about two minutes you'll see you have been
wide awake all the time. Let me tell you that when I sell out it's
because I've got to sell out."
Back at the table, Smoke informed the game-owners that his offer
still held. They proffered him their paper to the extent of three
thousand each.
"Hold out for the dust," Shorty cautioned.
"I was about to intimate that I'd take the money weighed out," Smoke
said.
The owner of the Elkhorn cashed their paper, and Shorty took
possession of the gold-dust.
"Now, I don't want to wake up," he chortled, as he hefted the
various sacks. "Toted up, it's a seventy thousan' dream. It's be
too blamed expensive to open my eyes, roll out of the blankets, an'
start breakfast."
"What's your system?" Big Burke demanded. "We've paid for it, and
we want it."
Smoke led the way to the table.
"Now, gentlemen, bear with me a moment. This isn't an ordinary
system. It can scarcely be called legitimate, but its one great
virtue is that it works. I've got my suspicious, but I'm not saying
anything. You watch. Mr Keeper, be ready with the ball. Wait, I
am going to pick '26.' Consider I've bet on it. Be ready, Mr
Keeper--Now!"
The ball whirled around.
"You observe," Smoke went on, "that '9' was directly opposite."
The ball finished in '26.'
Big Burke swore deep in his chest, and all waited.
"For 'double nought' to win, '11' must be opposite. Try it yourself
and see."
"But the system?" Moran demanded impatiently. "We know you can pick
winning numbers, and we know what those numbers are; but how do you
do it?"
"By observed sequences. By accident I chanced twice to notice the
ball whirled when '9' was opposite. Both times '26' won. After
that I saw it happen again. Then I looked for other sequences, and
found them. 'Double nought' opposite fetches '32,' and '11' fetches
'double nought.' It doesn't always happen, but it USUALLY happens.
You notice, I say 'usually.' As I said before, I have my
suspicions, but I'm not saying anything."
Big Burke, with a sudden dawn of comprehension reached over, stopped
the wheel, and examined it carefully. The heads of the nine other
game-owners bent over and joined in the examination. Big Burke
straightened up and cast a glance at the near-by stove.
"Hell," he said. "It wasn't any system at all. The table stood
close to the fire, and the blamed wheel's warped. And we've been
worked to a frazzle. No wonder he liked this table. He couldn't
have bucked for sour apples at any other table."
Harvey Moran gave a great sigh of relief and wiped his forehead.
"Well, anyway," he said, "it's cheap at the price just to find out
that it wasn't a system." His face began to work, and then he broke
into laughter and slapped Smoke on the shoulder. "Smoke, you had us
going for a while, and we patting ourselves on the back because you
were letting our tables alone! Say, I've got some real fizz I'll
open if all you'll come over to the Tivoli with me."
Later, back in the cabin, Shorty silently overhauled and hefted the
various bulging gold-sacks. He finally piled them on the table, sat
down on the edge of his bunk, and began taking off his moccasins.
"Seventy thousan'," he calculated. "It weighs three hundred and
fifty pounds. And all out of a warped wheel an' a quick eye.
Smoke, you eat'm raw, you eat'm alive, you work under water, you've
given me the jim-jams; but just the same I know it's a dream. It's
only in dreams that the good things comes true. I'm almighty
unanxious to wake up. I hope I never wake up."
"Cheer up," Smoke answered. "You won't. There are a lot of
philosophy sharps that think men are sleep-walkers. You're in good
company."
Shorty got up, went to the table, selected the heaviest sack, and
cuddled it in his arms as if it were a baby.
"I may be sleep-walkin'," he said, "but as you say, I'm sure in
mighty good company."
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK.
I.
It was before Smoke Bellew staked the farcical town-site of Tra-Lee,
made the historic corner of eggs that nearly broke Swiftwater Bill's
bank account, or won the dog-team race down the Yukon for an even
million dollars, that he and Shorty parted company on the Upper
Klondike. Shorty's task was to return down the Klondike to Dawson
to record some claims they had staked.
Smoke, with the dog-team, turned south. His quest was Surprise Lake
and the mythical Two Cabins. His traverse was to cut the headwaters
of the Indian River and cross the unknown region over the mountains
to the Stewart River. Here, somewhere, rumour persisted, was
Surprise Lake, surrounded by jagged mountains and glaciers, its
bottom paved with raw gold. Old-timers, it was said, whose very
names were forgotten in the forests of earlier years, had dived in
the ice-waters of Surprise Lake and fetched lump-gold to the surface
in both hands. At different times, parties of old-timers had
penetrated the forbidding fastness and sampled the lake's golden
bottom. But the water was too cold. Some died in the water, being
pulled up dead. Others died of consumption. And one who had gone
down never did come up. All survivors had planned to return and
drain the lake, yet none had ever gone back. Disaster always
happened. One man fell into an air-hole below Forty Mile; another
was killed and eaten by his dogs; a third was crushed by a falling
tree. And so the tale ran. Surprise Lake was a hoodoo; its
location was unremembered; and the gold still paved its undrained
bottom.
Two Cabins, no less mythical, was more definitely located. 'Five
sleeps,' up the McQuestion River from the Stewart, stood two ancient
cabins. So ancient were they that they must have been built before
ever the first known gold-hunter had entered the Yukon Basin.
Wandering moose-hunters, whom even Smoke had met and talked with,
claimed to have found the two cabins in the old days, but to have
sought vainly for the mine which those early adventurers must have
worked.
"I wish you was goin' with me," Shorty said wistfully, at parting.
"Just because you got the Indian bug ain't no reason for to go
pokin' into trouble. They's no gettin' away from it, that's loco
- system [´sistəm]
n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词) - therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- keeper [´ki:pə] n.管理人；看守；保管人 (初中英语单词)
- intimate [´intimit] a.亲密的 n.知己 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- eternal [i´tə:nəl] a.永远的；永恒的 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- extent [ik´stent] n.长度；程度；范围 (初中英语单词)
- expensive [ik´spensiv] a.费钱的，昂贵的 (初中英语单词)
- examination [ig,zæmi´neiʃən] n.检查；考试；检验 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- disaster [di´zɑ:stə] n.灾难，不幸 (初中英语单词)
- definitely [´definitli] ad.明确地；绝对 (初中英语单词)
- appeal [ə´pi:l] vi.&n.请求；呼吁；上诉 (高中英语单词)
- proposition [,prɔpə´ziʃən] n.提议；主张；陈述 (高中英语单词)
- customary [´kʌstəməri] a.通常的；惯例的 (高中英语单词)
- access [´ækses] n.接近；通路；进入 (高中英语单词)
- saloon [sə´lu:n] n.大厅；餐车 (高中英语单词)
- positively [´pɔzətivli] ad.确实；断然；绝对 (高中英语单词)
- legitimate [li´dʒitimit] a.合法的 vt.使合法 (高中英语单词)
- suspicious [sə´spiʃəs] a.可疑的，多疑的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- comprehension [,kɔmpri´henʃən] n.理解；领悟 (高中英语单词)
- near-by [´niə-bai] a.附近的 ad.在附近 (高中英语单词)
- historic [his´tɔrik] a.有历史意义的 (高中英语单词)
- traverse [´trævə:s] vt.横越，穿过 (高中英语单词)
- consumption [kən´sʌmpʃən] n.消耗；结核病 (高中英语单词)
- vainly [´veinli] ad.虚荣地；自负地 (高中英语单词)
- arithmetic [ə´riθmətik] n.算术 (英语四级单词)
- winning [´winiŋ] n.&a.胜利(的) (英语四级单词)
- almighty [ɔ:l´maiti] a.万能的；全能的 (英语四级单词)
- impatiently [im´peiʃəntli] ad.不耐烦地，急躁地 (英语四级单词)
- gambler [´gæmblə] n.赌徒 (英语六级单词)
- undone [,ʌn´dʌn] a.未完成的，没有做的 (英语六级单词)
- hoarsely [´hɔ:sli] ad.嘶哑地 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- wistfully [´wistfuli] ad.渴望地；不满足地 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
