Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/50

38 "Now I ask yer, as one gentleman to another," bowing mockingly to Phil, "whether or not I done him proper."

"Ay tank so," stolidly answered the Pink Swede, smoothing the blanket on the bunk, a strategy which the boy was too much of an amateur to protest.

At first, as always with the about to be shorn, the luck was his. But just as the pile of green rectangles, greasy and soiled but good currency nevertheless, assumed fair proportions in front of the boy, there was a sound as of pebbles thrown against the door and little square of window.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Oh, a brace o' spooks," answered Pete, "shoot, Bub, it's yer roll."

Suddenly the luck veered. It was strange how refractorily the little cubes tumbled for the youth. On the smooth surface of the blanket, the squat but skilful fingers of Pete and the Swede, holding the dice in just the right way, were rolling whatever combinations they wished. Even the yellow talons of the old man held magic.

"Come on, ye hell's pups, ye devil's back teeth," he was yelling his war cry on all-fours, "Nacheralls, by ."

So on it went until the pile of greenbacks, and the boy's watch and scarf-pin to boot, were divided with a suspicious equity among the three.

By now the vile whiskey which he had resampled, despite his reflections on its quality, had set his temper sparking. He picked up the dice, shook them in his hand, and sneered:

"Loaded!"

"Them dice is not loaded," retorted Pete, shoving his jowl