The Heart of the Range Part 41

"I needed the money," he said in a low voice, his eyes lowered, "and--and I had bad luck with it."

"Yeah, I know, the cattle dying and all."

"Cattle! What cattle?" Mr. Dale stared blankly at Racey. "Oh, them!

h.e.l.l, they didn't have nothin' to do with it, them cattle didn't. I'd worked out a system, Racey--a system to beat roulette, and I was sh.o.r.e it was all right. By Gawd, it was all right! They was nothin' wrong with that system. But I had bad luck. I had most awful bad luck."

"And the system, I take it, didn't work?"

"It didn't--against my bad luck."

Mr. Dale again dropped his eyes, and Racey stared down at the hump-shouldered old figure with something akin to pity in his gaze.

Certainly he was sorry for him. He was not in the least scornful despite the fact that it did not seem possible that any sensible man could be such a fool. A system--a system to beat roulette! And bad luck! The drably ancient and moth-eaten story with which every unsuccessful gambler seeks to establish an alibi.

"Whose wheel was it?" said Racey.

"Lacey's at Marysville."

"In the back room of the Sweet Dreams, huh? An' there's nothing crooked about Lacey's wheel, either. It's as square as Lacey himself."

"Lacey's wasn't the only wheel. They was McFluke's, too."

So McFluke had a wheel, had he? This was news to Racey Dawson.

"How long has McFluke been runnin' a wheel?" inquired Racey.

"Quite a while," was the vague reply.

"A year?"

"Maybe longer. I dunno."

"Funny it never got round."

"It was a private wheel. Only for his friends. Nothin' public about it."

"Who used to play it besides you?" persisted Racey, hanging to his subject like a bull-pup to a tramp's trousers.

Mr. Dale wrinkled his forehead. "Besides me? Lessee now. They were Doc Coffin, Nebraska Jones, Honey Hoke, and Punch-the-breeze Thompson."

"n.o.body else?"

"Aw, Galloway and Norton and that bunch," Mr. Dale said, shamefacedly.

Racey nodded his head slowly. A crooked wheel. Of course it was crooked. Why not? That Dale, Galloway, Norton, and a few other gentlemen of the neighbourhood were under their wives' thumbs to such a degree that they did not dare to gamble openly was a matter of common knowledge. What more natural than that someone should provide them with a private gambling place? With such cappers as Nebraska and his gang, losers would not feel equal to making much of an outcry. It must be a paying occupation for McFluke, Nebraska, or whoever was at the bottom of the business.

Racey nodded again and squatted down on his heels. He picked up a stick and squinted along its length.

"None of my business, of course," he said, casually, "but would you mind telling me how much you lost to McFluke?"

"About seven thousand."

Racey looked up at the sky. Seven thousand dollars. The full amount of the mortgage and two thousand more. And McFluke had it all.

"You see," said Mr. Dale, dolefully. "I began to make money after I'd been here awhile and my health come back. Yeah, I made money all right, all right." He pushed back his hat and scratched a grizzled head. "I had luck," he added. "But you wasn't round here then. You'd gone to the Bend."

"Yep, I'd gone to the Bend, damitall, and it sh.o.r.e seems like I'd stayed there too long. Didn't you ever guess McFluke's wheel wasn't straight?"

"Aw, it was so straight. Mac wouldn't cheat n.o.body. Yo're--yo're mistaken, Racey."

"I am, huh? Likell I'm mistaken. I know what I'm talking about. I tell you flat, McFluke is so crooked he could swallow a nail and spit out a corkscrew. And he's got that wheel trained. You just bet he has. Look under the table and see what he's doing with his feet or his knees.

My Gawd, Dale, didn't you know they make roulette wheels with a brake like a wagon?"

"I--I've heard of 'em," Mr. Dale nodded, hesitatingly. "But I'm sh.o.r.e Mac's is on the level."

"And you bet seven thousand dollars it was on the level, didn't you?"

"But--"

"But where did you come out? Do you think you ever got a show for yore money?"

"Oh, I won a bet now and then," defended Mr. Dale.

"Small ones, sh.o.r.e. Naturally he has to let you win now and then to sort of toll you along and keep you good-natured. You won now and then, yep. But did you ever win when you had a sizable stake up?"

Mr. Dale shook his head. "No, come to think of it, I don't believe I ever did."

"I knowed you didn't," exclaimed Racey, triumphantly. "I tell you that wheel is crooked."

"Not so loud," cautioned Mr. Dale. "They'll hear you in the house."

"Don't they know nothing about it a-tall?" probed Racey.

"They know about the five-thousand-dollar mortgage," admitted Dale, reluctantly.

Racey rubbed his chin. "I was here when Molly found it out."

Mr. Dale nodded miserably. He was too utterly wretched to resent Racey's interference with his affairs. "She--she told me," he said.

"Don't they know about the other two thousand you lost to McFluke, or what you dropped at Lacey's?"

Mr. Dale shook his head. "I never told 'em. I--I only lost fifteen or sixteen hundred at Lacey's, anyway."

"Fifteen or sixteen hundred is a whole lot when you ain't got it,"

said the direct and brutal Racey. "Instead of seven thousand then, you done lost eighty-five or eighty-six hundred. I swear I don't see how you managed to lose all that and yore family not find it out."

"I kept quiet."

"I guess you did keep quiet. Gawd, yes! Lookit, Dale, I'm going to help you out of this. But you'll have to start fresh. You've got to go in and make a clean breast to the family about where the other thirty-six hundred over and above the five thousand went."