in't no such thing as system."

"Yet I'm showing them one all the time."

"Look here, Smoke." Shorty paused over the candle, in the act of blowing
it out. "I'm real irritated. Maybe you think this is a candle. It ain't.
No, sir! An' this ain't me neither. I'm out on trail somewheres, in my
blankets, lyin' flat on my back with my mouth open, an' dreamin' all
this. That ain't you talkin', any more than this candle is a candle."

"It's funny, how I happen to be dreaming along with you then," Smoke
persisted.

"No, it ain't. You're part of my dream, that's all. I've hearn many a
man talk in my dreams. I want to tell you one thing, Smoke. I'm gettin'
mangy an' mad. If this here dream keeps up much more I'm goin' to bite
my veins an' howl."

On the sixth night of play at the Elkhorn, the limit was reduced to five
dollars.

"It's all right," Smoke assured the game-keeper. "I want thirty-five
hundred to-night, as usual, and you only compel me to play longer. I've
got to pick twice as many winners, that's all."

"Why don't you buck somebody else's table?" the keeper demanded
wrathfully.

"Because I like this one." Smoke glanced over to the roaring stove only
a few feet away. "Besides, there are no draughts here, and it is warm
and comfortable."

On the ninth night, when Shorty had carried the dust home, he had a fit.
"I quit, Smoke, I quit," he began. "I know when I got enough. I ain't
dreamin'. I'm wide awake. A system can't be, but you got one just the
same. There's nothin' in the rule o' three. The almanac's clean out.
The world's gone smash. There's nothin' regular an' uniform no more.
The multiplication table's gone loco. Two is eight, nine is eleven, and
two-times-six is eight hundred an' forty-six--an'--an' a half.
Anything is everything, an' nothing's all, an' twice all is cold-cream,
milk-shakes, an' calico horses. You've got a system. Figgers beat the
figgerin'. What ain't is, an' what isn't has to be. The sun rises in the
west, the moon's a pay-streak, the stars is canned corn-beef, scurvy's
the blessin' of God, him that dies kicks again, rocks floats, water's
gas, I ain't me, you're somebody else, an' mebbe we're twins if we ain't
hashed-brown potatoes fried in verdigris. Wake me up! Somebody! Oh! Wake
me up!"

The next morning a visitor came to the cabin. Smoke knew him, Harvey
Moran, the owner of all the games in the Tivoli. There was a note of
appeal in his deep gruff voice as he plunged into his