ng them again. "I'm a
gambler, and I'm here to make money, and make it as easy as I can; but
if I'd been takin' my pay in sheepskins since I've been in this man's
town I wouldn't have enough of them to make me a coat. Live and let live
is my motto, and if you can't let 'em live let 'em die.

"Five times one dollar is five dollars, and five times five is
twenty-five. Did any of you fellers ever make that much in a minute?
Look at them dice. Take 'em in your hand; roll 'em on the table. Don't
they run true and straight? Twenty-seven comes up for you sometimes, and
it comes up for me. But it comes up oftener for me than it does for you,
because I've got it charmed. That's m' lucky number. I was borned on the
27th of Jannewarry, in Range 27, Township 27, twenty-seven mile from
Turkey Trail, Montaney, where the wind blows circles and the water runs
up-hill.

"You win, friend," pushing stake and winnings to a sheep-herder who had
ventured a dollar. "Five times one is five."

Interest in the game began to show rising temperature; the infection of
easy money was working through the bystanders' sluggish blood. Shanklin
kept the score of loss and gain a little in his own favor, as he was
able to do from his years of practice, while still leaving the
impression among the players that collectively they were cleaning him
out. Some who felt sudden and sharp drains dropped out, but others took
their places, eyes distended, cheeks flushed, money in hand.

Dr. Slavens and his backer made their way to the front. Slavens noted
that Shanklin was making an extraordinary spread of money, which he had
beside his hand in a little valise. It was craftily disposed in the
mouth of the half-open bag, which seemed crammed to the hinges with it,
making an alluring bait. The long, black revolver of Shanklin's other
days and nights lay there beside the bag asserting its large-caliber
office of protection with a drowsy alligator look about it.

Slavens was as dirty and unwashed as the foulest in that crowd. His
khaki coat bore a varnish of grease, his hat was without band or
binding, and the growth of beard which covered his face like the
bristles of a brush gave him the aspect of one who had long been the
companion and warder of sheep upon the hills. With the added disguise of
the smoked-glass goggles, common to travelers in that glaring, dusty
land, it would have required one with a longer and more intimate
acquaintance with him than Hun Shankli