ld 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 gettin'
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."

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 pessimistic, with all the seeming of one attending a funeral,
accompanied his partner to the Elkhorn. Smoke bought a stack of chips
and stationed himself at the game-keeper's end of the table. Again and
again the ball was whirled, and the other players won or lost, but Smoke
did not venture a chip. Shorty waxed impatient.

"Buck in, buck in," he urged. "Let's get this funeral over. What's the
matter? Got cold feet?"

Smoke shook his head and waited. A dozen plays went by, and then,
suddenly, he placed ten one-dollar chips on "26." The number won, and
the keeper paid Smoke three hundred and fifty dollars. A dozen plays
went by, twenty plays, and thirty, when Smoke placed ten dollars on
"32." Again he received three hundred and fifty dollars.

"It's a hunch!" Shorty whispered vociferously in his ear. "Ride it! Ride
it!"

Half an hour went by, during which Smoke was inactive, then he placed
ten dollars on "34" and won.

"A hunch!" Shorty whispered.

"Nothing of the sort," Smoke whispered back. "It's the system. Isn't she
a dandy?"

"You can't tell me," Shorty contended. "Hunches comes in mighty
funny ways. You might think it's a system, but it ain't. Systems is
impossible. They can't happen. It's a sure hunch you're playin'."

Smoke now altered his play. He bet more frequently, with single chips,
scattered here and there, and he lost more often than he won.

"Quit it," Shorty advised. "Cash in. You've rung the bull's-eye three
times, an' you're ahead a thousand. You can't keep it u