business.

"It's like this, Smoke," he began. "You've got us all guessing. I'm
representing nine other game-owners and myself from all the saloons in
town. We don't understand. We know that no system ever worked against
roulette. All the mathematic sharps in the colleges have told us
gamblers the same thing. They say that roulette itself is the system,
the one and only system, and, therefore, that no system can beat it, for
that would mean arithmetic has gone bug-house."

Shorty nodded his head violently.

"If a system can beat a system, then there's no such thing as system,"
the gambler went on. "In such a case anything could be possible--a thing
could be in two different places at once, or two things could be in the
same place that's only large enough for one at the same time."

"Well, you've seen me play," Smoke answered defiantly; "and if you think
it's only a string of luck on my part, why worry?"

"That's the trouble. We can't help worrying. It's a system you've got,
and all the time we know it can't be. I've watched you five nights now,
and all I can make out is that you favour certain numbers and keep on
winning. Now the ten of us game-owners have got together, and we want to
make a friendly proposition. We'll put a roulette-table in a back room
of the Elkhorn, pool the bank against you, and have you buck us. It will
be all quiet and private. Just you and Shorty and us. What do you say?"

"I think it's the other way around," Smoke answered. "It's up to you to
come and see me. I'll be playing in the barroom of the Elkhorn to-night.
You can watch me there just as well."

That night, when Smoke took up his customary place at the table,
the keeper shut down the game. "The game's closed," he said. "Boss's
orders."

But the assembled game-owners were not to be balked. In a few minutes
they arranged a pool, each putting in a thousand, and took over the
table.

"Come on and buck us," Harvey Moran challenged, as the keeper sent the
ball on its first whirl around.

"Give me the twenty-five limit," Smoke suggested.

"Sure; go to it."

Smoke immediately placed twenty-five chips on the "double naught," and
won.

Moran wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Go on," he said. "We got ten
thousand in this bank."

At the end of an hour and a half, the ten thousand was Smoke's.

"The bank's bust," the keeper announced.

"Got enough?" Smoke asked.

The game-owners looked at one another. They were awed. They, th