"Just one more deal," pleaded his partner.
Uncle Jim looked at the fire, Uncle Billy hastily dealt, and threw the
two hands face up on the table. They were the ordinary average cards.
He dealt again, with the same result. "I told you so," said Uncle Jim,
without looking up.
It certainly seemed a tame performance after their wonderful hands, and
after another trial Uncle Billy threw the cards aside and drew his stool
before the fire. "Mighty queer, warn't it?" he said, with reminiscent
awe. "Three times running. Do you know, I felt a kind o' creepy feelin'
down my back all the time. Criky! what luck! None of the boys would
believe it if we told 'em--least of all that Dick Bullen, who don't
believe in luck, anyway. Wonder what he'd have said! and, Lord! how he'd
have looked! Wall! what are you starin' so for?"
Uncle Jim had faced around, and was gazing at Uncle Billy's
good-humored, simple face. "Nothin'!" he said briefly, and his eyes
again sought the fire.
"Then don't look as if you was seein' suthin'--you give me the creeps,"
returned Uncle Billy a little petulantly. "Let's turn in, afore the fire
goes out!"
The fateful cards were put back into the drawer, the table shoved
against the wall. The operation of undressing was quickly got over,
the clothes they wore being put on top of their blankets. Uncle Billy
yawned, "I wonder what kind of a dream I'll have tonight--it oughter be
suthin' to explain that luck." This was his "good-night" to his partner.
In a few moments he was sound asleep.
Not so Uncle Jim. He heard the wind gradually go down, and in the
oppressive silence that followed could detect the deep breathing of
his companion and the far-off yelp of a coyote. His eyesight becoming
accustomed to the semi-darkness, broken only by the scintillation of
the dying embers of their fire, he could take in every detail of their
sordid cabin and the rude environment in which they had lived so long.
The dismal patches on the bark roof, the wretched makeshifts of each
day, the dreary prolongation of discomfort, were all plain to him now,
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