Page:Fighting Back (1924).pdf/229

 Kid Roberts hesitated and I shook my head vigorously and whispered "Lay off!" to him, over Diana's shoul'der.

He glanced from me to her bewitchin'ly appealin' face and just then a guy standin' near us remarks to his friend that he seen young Pearson lose twenty-five hundred bucks on a single hand and he thinks the cards is "readers." Among crooked gamblers, boys and girls, "readers" is playin' cards with little dots or other marks here and there in the scroll work on the backs of 'em. Sometimes these marks simply looks like errors in the engravin', and the average guy wouldn't notice 'em in a million years, or think anything about 'em if he did. But the educated player can look at the backs of a deck of "readers" and read the cards face down like he'd read his newspaper!

When it dawned on Kid Roberts that these yeggs was deliberately cleanin' Diana's brother, all thoughts of caution fled from his mind. With flashin' eye and grim face he started for the card table to bear down on the gamblers, but I frantically managed to get him to speak to the conductor before doin' anything himself. Mr. Conductor, which didn't seem exactly wild to butt in, told the Kid he couldn't bust up no sociable session of cards unless somebody was caught cheatin'. Get some positive evidence that the game's crooked, he says, and he'll make 'em quit.

Throwin' a highly disgusted look at the faint-hearted ticket puncher, Kid Roberts quickly pushes his way in beside the card players, calmly reaches over to the deck and picks up a handful of cards. Young Pear-