Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/291

Rh visaged spectator. "Which ain't bad if you can stick it out."

Bill Rice doubled with him, offering eight dollars, standing to win two hundred eighty dollars to Steele's fourteen thousand.

"Nine wins," said Pete, and with leisurely arm accepted the two bets which, with the ball speeding again, he arranged in their places at his hand.

"If he doubles 'em again," muttered the jaundiced man, "he's a sport!"

And Steele doubled without hesitation, laying eight hundred dollars on number five. Rice followed his lead, serenely awaiting a winning, hazarding his sixteen dollars. And both lost, the ball indicating the double-O.

Now would Steele double again? Would even he, plunger as a few quick plays had shown him to be, hazard sixteen hundred dollars on one play? Even Rice looked quickly up into his face for the answer. But no answer was there to be read; it was given with the gesture which again sought number five and shoved to it eight blue chips, each chip, two hundred dollars.

Shrugging, Rice followed him with thirty-two.

And they lost.

"Me," pondered Bill Rice, "I'm out sixty little bones like one two three. An' Bill's shot three thousand! The ol' son of a gun!"

The ball rolled and men stretched their necks in that tense excitement which is allowed onlookers. Yes; he was going to double again. … No, he wasn't. He was playing his original bet again, two hundred dollars on number five. And five lost, the double-O repeating.