章节正文
recollections of the night before. He felt, somehow, that he had
won to empery over the delicate lines and firm muscles of those feet
and ankles he had rubbed with snow, and this empery seemed to extend
to all women. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possession
mastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to
walk up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say "Come."
It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him
forget empery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he
blazed no corner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but,
instead, he found himself confronted by another stream. He lined up
with his eye a blasted willow tree and a big and recognizable
spruce. He returned to the stream where were the centre stakes. He
followed the bed of the creek around a wide horseshoe bend through
the flat, and found that the two creeks were the same creek. Next,
he floundered twice through the snow from valley rim to valley rim,
running the first line from the lower stake of 'twenty-seven,' the
second from the upper stake of 'twenty-eight,' and he found that THE
UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWER STAKE OF THE
FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty had located
their two claims on the horseshoe.
Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of
washing a pan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.
"We got it!" Shorty cried, holding out the pan. "Look at it! A
nasty mess of gold. Two hundred right there if it's a cent. She
runs rich from the top of the wash-gravel. I've churned around
placers some, but I never got butter like what's in this pan."
Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a
cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong
and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however,
was disgruntled by his partner's lack of delight in the discovery.
"Why don't you kick in an' get excited?" he demanded. "We got our
pile right here, unless you're stickin' up your nose at two-hundred-
dollar pans."
Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying.
"Shorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama Canal?"
"What's the answer?"
"Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the
western entrance, that's all."
"Go on," Shorty said. "I ain't seen the joke yet."
"In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe
bend."
Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up.
"Go on," he repeated.
"The upper stake of twenty-eight is ten feet below the lower stake
of twenty-seven."
"You mean we ain't got nothin', Smoke?"
"Worse than that; we've got ten feet less than nothing."
Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five minutes later he
returned. In response to Joy's look, he nodded. Without speech, he
went over to a log and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in
front of his moccasins.
"We might as well break camp and start back for Dawson," Smoke said,
beginning to fold the blankets.
"I am sorry, Smoke," Joy said. "It's all my fault."
"It's all right," he answered. "All in the day's work, you know."
"But it's my fault, wholly mine," she persisted. "Dad's staked for
me down near Discovery, I know. I'll give you my claim."
He shook his head.
"Shorty," she pleaded.
Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was a colossal laugh.
Chuckles and muffled explosions yielded to hearty roars.
"It ain't hysterics," he explained, "I sure get powerful amused at
times, an' this is one of them."
His gaze chanced to fall on the gold pan. He walked over and
gravely kicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.
"It ain't ourn," he said. "It belongs to the geezer I backed up
five hundred feet last night. An' what gets me is four hundred an'
ninety of them feet was to the good . . . his good. Come on, Smoke.
Let's start the hike to Dawson. Though if you're hankerin' to kill
me I won't lift a finger to prevent."
SHORTY DREAMS.
I.
"Funny you don't gamble none," Shorty said to Smoke one night in the
Elkhorn. "Ain't it in your blood?"
"It is," Smoke answered. "But the statistics are in my head. I
like an even break for my money."
All about them, in the huge bar-room, arose the click and rattle and
rumble of a dozen games, at which fur-clad, moccasined men tried
their luck. Smoke waved his hand to include them all.
"Look at them," he said. "It's cold mathematics that they will lose
more than they win to-night, that the big proportion is losing right
now."
"You're sure strong on figgers," Shorty murmured admiringly. "An'
in the main you're right. But they's such a thing as facts. An'
one fact is streaks of luck. They's times when every geezer playin'
wins, as I know, for I've sat in in such games an' saw more'n one
bank busted. The only way to win at gamblin' is wait for a hunch
that you've got a lucky streak comin' and then to play it to the
roof."
"It sounds simple," Smoke criticized. "So simple I can't see how
men can lose."
"The trouble is," Shorty admitted, "that most men gets fooled on
their hunches. On occasion I sure get fooled on mine. The thing is
to try, an' find out."
Smoke shook his head.
"That's a statistic, too, Shorty. Most men prove wrong on their
hunches."
"But don't you ever get one of them streaky feelin's that all you
got to do is put your money down an' pick a winner?"
Smoke laughed.
"I'm too scared of the percentage against me. But I'll tell you
what, Shorty. I'll throw a dollar on the 'high card' right now and
see if it will buy us a drink."
Smoke was edging his way in to the faro table, when Shorty caught
his arm.
"Hold on. I'm gettin' one of them hunches now. You put that dollar
on roulette."
They went over to a roulette table near the bar.
"Wait till I give the word," Shorty counselled.
"What number?" Smoke asked.
"Pick it yourself. But wait till I say let her go."
"You don't mean to say I've got an even chance on that table?" Smoke
argued.
"As good as the next geezers."
"But not as good as the bank's."
"Wait and see," Shorty urged. "Now! Let her go!"
The game-keeper had just sent the little ivory ball whirling around
the smooth rim above the revolving, many-slotted wheel. Smoke, at
the lower end of the table, reached over a player, and blindly
tossed the dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and
stopped fairly in the centre of '34.'
The ball came to rest, and the game-keeper announced, "Thirty-four
wins!" He swept the table, and alongside of Smoke's dollar, stacked
thirty-five dollars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped
him on the shoulder.
"Now, that was the real goods of a hunch, Smoke! How'd I know it?
There's no tellin'. I just knew you'd win. Why, if that dollar of
yourn'd fell on any other number it'd won just the same. When the
hunch is right, you just can't help winnin'."
"Suppose it had come 'double nought'?" Smoke queried, as they made
their way to the bar.
"Then your dollar'd ben on 'double nought,'" was Shorty's answer.
"They's no gettin' away from it. A hunch is a hunch. Here's how.
Come on back to the table. I got a hunch, after pickin' you for a
winner, that I can pick some few numbers myself."
"Are you playing a system?" Smoke asked, at the end of ten minutes,
when his partner had dropped a hundred dollars.
Shorty shook his head indignantly, as he spread his chips out in the
vicinities of '3,' '11,' and '17,' and tossed a spare chip on the
'green.'
"Hell is sure cluttered with geezers that played systems," he
exposited, as the keeper raked the table.
From idly watching, Smoke became fascinated, following closely every
detail of the game from the whirling of the ball to the making and
the paying of the bets. He made no plays, however, merely
contenting himself with looking on. Yet so interested was he, that
Shorty, announcing that he had had enough, with difficulty drew
Smoke away from the table. The game-keeper returned Shorty the gold
sack he had deposited as a credential for playing, and with it went
a slip of paper on which was scribbled, "Out . . . 350 dollars."
Shorty carried the sack and the paper across the room and handed
them to the weigher, who sat behind a large pair of gold-scales.
Out of Shorty's sack he weighed 350 dollars, which he poured into
the coffer of the house.
"That hunch of yours was another one of those statistics," Smoke
jeered.
"I had to play it, didn't I, in order to find out?" Shorty retorted.
"I reckon I was crowdin' some just on account of tryin' to convince
you they's such a thing as hunches."
"Never mind, Shorty," Smoke laughed. "I've got a hunch right now--"
Shorty's eyes sparkled as he cried eagerly: "What is it? Kick in
an' play it pronto."
"It's not that kind, Shorty. Now, what I've got is a hunch that
some day I'll work out a system that will beat the spots off that
table."
"System!" Shorty groaned, then surveyed his partner with a vast
pity. "Smoke, listen to your side-kicker an' leave system alone.
Systems is sure losers. They ain't no hunches in systems."
"That's why I like them," Smoke answered. "A system is statistical.
When you get the right system you can't lose, and that's the
difference between it and a hunch. You never know when the right
hunch is going wrong."
"But I know a lot of systems that went wrong, an' I never seen a
system win." Shorty paused and sighed. "Look here, Smoke, if
you're gettin' cracked on systems this ain't no place for you, an'
it's about time we hit the trail again."
II.
During the several following weeks, the two partners played at cross
purposes. Smoke was bent on spending his time watching the roulette
game in the Elkhorn, while Shorty was equally bent on travelling
trail. At last Smoke put his foot down when a stampede was proposed
for two hundred miles down the Yukon.
"Look here, Shorty," he said, "I'm not going. That trip will take
ten days, and before that time I hope to have my system in proper
working order. I could almost win with it now. What are you
dragging me around the country this way for anyway?"
"Smoke, I got to take care of you," was Shorty's reply. "You're
getting nutty. I'd drag you stampedin' to Jericho or the North Pole
if I could keep you away from that table."
"It's all right, Shorty. But just remember I've reached full man-
grown, meat-eating size. The only dragging you'll do, will be
dragging home the dust I'm going to win with that system of mine,
and you'll most likely have to do it with a dog-team."
Shorty's response was a groan.
"And I don't want you to be bucking any games on your own," Smoke
went on. "We're going to divide the winnings, and I'll need all our
money to get started. That system's young yet, and it's liable to
trip me for a few falls before I get it lined up."
III.
At last, after long hours and days spent at watching the table, the
night came when Smoke proclaimed he was ready, and Shorty, glum and
won to empery over the delicate lines and firm muscles of those feet
and ankles he had rubbed with snow, and this empery seemed to extend
to all women. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possession
mastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to
walk up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say "Come."
It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him
forget empery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he
blazed no corner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but,
instead, he found himself confronted by another stream. He lined up
with his eye a blasted willow tree and a big and recognizable
spruce. He returned to the stream where were the centre stakes. He
followed the bed of the creek around a wide horseshoe bend through
the flat, and found that the two creeks were the same creek. Next,
he floundered twice through the snow from valley rim to valley rim,
running the first line from the lower stake of 'twenty-seven,' the
second from the upper stake of 'twenty-eight,' and he found that THE
UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWER STAKE OF THE
FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty had located
their two claims on the horseshoe.
Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of
washing a pan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.
"We got it!" Shorty cried, holding out the pan. "Look at it! A
nasty mess of gold. Two hundred right there if it's a cent. She
runs rich from the top of the wash-gravel. I've churned around
placers some, but I never got butter like what's in this pan."
Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a
cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong
and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however,
was disgruntled by his partner's lack of delight in the discovery.
"Why don't you kick in an' get excited?" he demanded. "We got our
pile right here, unless you're stickin' up your nose at two-hundred-
dollar pans."
Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying.
"Shorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama Canal?"
"What's the answer?"
"Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the
western entrance, that's all."
"Go on," Shorty said. "I ain't seen the joke yet."
"In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe
bend."
Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up.
"Go on," he repeated.
"The upper stake of twenty-eight is ten feet below the lower stake
of twenty-seven."
"You mean we ain't got nothin', Smoke?"
"Worse than that; we've got ten feet less than nothing."
Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five minutes later he
returned. In response to Joy's look, he nodded. Without speech, he
went over to a log and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in
front of his moccasins.
"We might as well break camp and start back for Dawson," Smoke said,
beginning to fold the blankets.
"I am sorry, Smoke," Joy said. "It's all my fault."
"It's all right," he answered. "All in the day's work, you know."
"But it's my fault, wholly mine," she persisted. "Dad's staked for
me down near Discovery, I know. I'll give you my claim."
He shook his head.
"Shorty," she pleaded.
Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was a colossal laugh.
Chuckles and muffled explosions yielded to hearty roars.
"It ain't hysterics," he explained, "I sure get powerful amused at
times, an' this is one of them."
His gaze chanced to fall on the gold pan. He walked over and
gravely kicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.
"It ain't ourn," he said. "It belongs to the geezer I backed up
five hundred feet last night. An' what gets me is four hundred an'
ninety of them feet was to the good . . . his good. Come on, Smoke.
Let's start the hike to Dawson. Though if you're hankerin' to kill
me I won't lift a finger to prevent."
SHORTY DREAMS.
I.
"Funny you don't gamble none," Shorty said to Smoke one night in the
Elkhorn. "Ain't it in your blood?"
"It is," Smoke answered. "But the statistics are in my head. I
like an even break for my money."
All about them, in the huge bar-room, arose the click and rattle and
rumble of a dozen games, at which fur-clad, moccasined men tried
their luck. Smoke waved his hand to include them all.
"Look at them," he said. "It's cold mathematics that they will lose
more than they win to-night, that the big proportion is losing right
now."
"You're sure strong on figgers," Shorty murmured admiringly. "An'
in the main you're right. But they's such a thing as facts. An'
one fact is streaks of luck. They's times when every geezer playin'
wins, as I know, for I've sat in in such games an' saw more'n one
bank busted. The only way to win at gamblin' is wait for a hunch
that you've got a lucky streak comin' and then to play it to the
roof."
"It sounds simple," Smoke criticized. "So simple I can't see how
men can lose."
"The trouble is," Shorty admitted, "that most men gets fooled on
their hunches. On occasion I sure get fooled on mine. The thing is
to try, an' find out."
Smoke shook his head.
"That's a statistic, too, Shorty. Most men prove wrong on their
hunches."
"But don't you ever get one of them streaky feelin's that all you
got to do is put your money down an' pick a winner?"
Smoke laughed.
"I'm too scared of the percentage against me. But I'll tell you
what, Shorty. I'll throw a dollar on the 'high card' right now and
see if it will buy us a drink."
Smoke was edging his way in to the faro table, when Shorty caught
his arm.
"Hold on. I'm gettin' one of them hunches now. You put that dollar
on roulette."
They went over to a roulette table near the bar.
"Wait till I give the word," Shorty counselled.
"What number?" Smoke asked.
"Pick it yourself. But wait till I say let her go."
"You don't mean to say I've got an even chance on that table?" Smoke
argued.
"As good as the next geezers."
"But not as good as the bank's."
"Wait and see," Shorty urged. "Now! Let her go!"
The game-keeper had just sent the little ivory ball whirling around
the smooth rim above the revolving, many-slotted wheel. Smoke, at
the lower end of the table, reached over a player, and blindly
tossed the dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and
stopped fairly in the centre of '34.'
The ball came to rest, and the game-keeper announced, "Thirty-four
wins!" He swept the table, and alongside of Smoke's dollar, stacked
thirty-five dollars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped
him on the shoulder.
"Now, that was the real goods of a hunch, Smoke! How'd I know it?
There's no tellin'. I just knew you'd win. Why, if that dollar of
yourn'd fell on any other number it'd won just the same. When the
hunch is right, you just can't help winnin'."
"Suppose it had come 'double nought'?" Smoke queried, as they made
their way to the bar.
"Then your dollar'd ben on 'double nought,'" was Shorty's answer.
"They's no gettin' away from it. A hunch is a hunch. Here's how.
Come on back to the table. I got a hunch, after pickin' you for a
winner, that I can pick some few numbers myself."
"Are you playing a system?" Smoke asked, at the end of ten minutes,
when his partner had dropped a hundred dollars.
Shorty shook his head indignantly, as he spread his chips out in the
vicinities of '3,' '11,' and '17,' and tossed a spare chip on the
'green.'
"Hell is sure cluttered with geezers that played systems," he
exposited, as the keeper raked the table.
From idly watching, Smoke became fascinated, following closely every
detail of the game from the whirling of the ball to the making and
the paying of the bets. He made no plays, however, merely
contenting himself with looking on. Yet so interested was he, that
Shorty, announcing that he had had enough, with difficulty drew
Smoke away from the table. The game-keeper returned Shorty the gold
sack he had deposited as a credential for playing, and with it went
a slip of paper on which was scribbled, "Out . . . 350 dollars."
Shorty carried the sack and the paper across the room and handed
them to the weigher, who sat behind a large pair of gold-scales.
Out of Shorty's sack he weighed 350 dollars, which he poured into
the coffer of the house.
"That hunch of yours was another one of those statistics," Smoke
jeered.
"I had to play it, didn't I, in order to find out?" Shorty retorted.
"I reckon I was crowdin' some just on account of tryin' to convince
you they's such a thing as hunches."
"Never mind, Shorty," Smoke laughed. "I've got a hunch right now--"
Shorty's eyes sparkled as he cried eagerly: "What is it? Kick in
an' play it pronto."
"It's not that kind, Shorty. Now, what I've got is a hunch that
some day I'll work out a system that will beat the spots off that
table."
"System!" Shorty groaned, then surveyed his partner with a vast
pity. "Smoke, listen to your side-kicker an' leave system alone.
Systems is sure losers. They ain't no hunches in systems."
"That's why I like them," Smoke answered. "A system is statistical.
When you get the right system you can't lose, and that's the
difference between it and a hunch. You never know when the right
hunch is going wrong."
"But I know a lot of systems that went wrong, an' I never seen a
system win." Shorty paused and sighed. "Look here, Smoke, if
you're gettin' cracked on systems this ain't no place for you, an'
it's about time we hit the trail again."
II.
During the several following weeks, the two partners played at cross
purposes. Smoke was bent on spending his time watching the roulette
game in the Elkhorn, while Shorty was equally bent on travelling
trail. At last Smoke put his foot down when a stampede was proposed
for two hundred miles down the Yukon.
"Look here, Shorty," he said, "I'm not going. That trip will take
ten days, and before that time I hope to have my system in proper
working order. I could almost win with it now. What are you
dragging me around the country this way for anyway?"
"Smoke, I got to take care of you," was Shorty's reply. "You're
getting nutty. I'd drag you stampedin' to Jericho or the North Pole
if I could keep you away from that table."
"It's all right, Shorty. But just remember I've reached full man-
grown, meat-eating size. The only dragging you'll do, will be
dragging home the dust I'm going to win with that system of mine,
and you'll most likely have to do it with a dog-team."
Shorty's response was a groan.
"And I don't want you to be bucking any games on your own," Smoke
went on. "We're going to divide the winnings, and I'll need all our
money to get started. That system's young yet, and it's liable to
trip me for a few falls before I get it lined up."
III.
At last, after long hours and days spent at watching the table, the
night came when Smoke proclaimed he was ready, and Shorty, glum and
- delicate [´delikət]
a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词) - valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- willow [´wiləu] n.柳树 (初中英语单词)
- twilight [´twailait] n.黎明；黄昏 (初中英语单词)
- coarse [kɔ:s] a.粗(糙)的；粗鲁的 (初中英语单词)
- eagerly [´i:gəli] ad.渴望地，急切地 (初中英语单词)
- swallow [swɔləu] n.燕子 v.吞，咽；淹没 (初中英语单词)
- steadily [´stedili] ad.坚定地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- rattle [´rætl] n.嘎吱声 (初中英语单词)
- proportion [prə´pɔ:ʃən] n.比率 vt.使成比例 (初中英语单词)
- percentage [pə´sentidʒ] n.百分数；比例；部分 (初中英语单词)
- player [´pleiə] n.游戏的人；选手 (初中英语单词)
- partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
- keeper [´ki:pə] n.管理人；看守；保管人 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- system [´sistəm] n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词)
- equally [´i:kwəli] ad.相等地；平等地 (初中英语单词)
- gravel [´grævəl] n.砾石 vt.铺砾石 (高中英语单词)
- panama [,pænə´mɑ:] n.巴拿马；巴拿马运河 (高中英语单词)
- response [ri´spɔns] n.回答；响应 (高中英语单词)
- hearty [´hɑ:ti] a.热忱的；强健的 (高中英语单词)
- gamble [´gæmbəl] v.&n.赌博；投机；冒险 (高中英语单词)
- streak [stri:k] n.纹理 v.用线条(条纹) (高中英语单词)
- alongside [əlɔŋ´said] ad.在旁 prep.横靠 (高中英语单词)
- liable [´laiəbəl] a.易于...的；有责任的 (高中英语单词)
- colossal [kə´lɔsəl] a.庞大的；异常的 (英语四级单词)
- statistics [stə´tistiks] n.统计学；统计 (英语四级单词)
- mathematics [,mæθə´mætiks] n.数学 (英语四级单词)
- horseshoe [´hɔ:s,ʃu] n.马蹄铁；马蹄铁形 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- departed [di´pɑ:tid] a.已往的；已故的 (英语六级单词)
- indignantly [in´dignəntli] ad.愤慨地，义愤地 (英语六级单词)
- coffer [´kɔfə] n.保险箱；资产 (英语六级单词)
- cracked [krækt] a.有裂缝的；碎的；粗哑 (英语六级单词)
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