No, I don't regyard crooked folks as dangerous at poker, only you've
got to watch 'em. So long as your eye is on 'em a heap attentive
they're powerless to perform their partic'lar miracle, an' as a result,
since that's the one end an' aim of their efforts, they becomes mighty
inocuous. As a roole, crooked people ain't good players on the squar',
an' as long as you makes 'em play squar', they're yours.

"'But speakin' of this devious person on the Las Vegas Plaza that time:
The outfit is onknown to me--I'm only a pilgrim an' a stranger an'
don't intend to tarry none--when I sets up to the lay-out. I ain't got
a bet down, however, before I sees the gent who's dealin', sign-up the
seven to the case-keep, an' instanter I feels like I'd known that bevy
of bandits since long before the war. Also, I realises their methods
after I takes a good hard look. That dealer's got what post
gradyooates in faro-bank robbery calls a "end squeeze" box; the deck is
trimmed--"wedges" is the name--to put the odds ag'in the evens, an'
sanded so as to let two kyards come at a clatter whenever said
pheenomenon is demanded by the exigencies of their crimes; an' thar you
be. No, it's a fifty-two-kyard deck all right, an' the dealer depends
on "puttin' back" to keep all straight. An' I'm driven to concede
that the put-back work of said party is like a romance; puttin' back's
his speshulty. His left hand would sort o' settle as light as a dead
leaf over the kyard he's after that a-way--not a tenth part of a
second--an' that pasteboard would come along, palmed, an' as his hand
floats over the box as he's goin' to make the next turn the kyard would
reassoome its cunnin' place inside. An' all as smoothly serene as
pray'r meetin's.'

"'An', nacherally, you denounces this felon,' says Colonel Sterett,
who's come in an' who's integrity is of the active sort.

"'Nacherally, I don't say a word,' retorts Cherokee. 'I ain't for
years inhabited these roode an' sand-blown regions, remote as they be
from best ideals an' high examples of the East, not to long before have
learned the excellence of that maxim about lettin' every man kill his
own snakes. I says nothin'; I merely looks about to locate the victim
of them machinations with a view of goin' ag'inst his play.'

"It's when Cherokee arrives at this place in his recitals that Dave
evolves his interruptions. He's camped by himse'f in a reemote corner
of the room, an' he ain't been noticin' nob