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 geezer's."

"But not as good as the bank's."

"Wait an' 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 center
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 naught'?" Smoke queried, as they made their
way to the bar.

"Then your dollar'd been on 'double naught,'" 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 expo