“They played an’ played for six or seven hours, settin’ ’em up for the house once in awhile by way of a kitty, but none of ’em gittin’ much ahead. Just naturally the boys all stayed. I don’t never give ’em too much credit when they’re broke, for fear of encouragin’ ’em in pernicious habits, an’ they was a pretty dry lot. They was a-watchin’ the game close, an’ stood around tol’able close, but o’ course not crowdin’ the players. Ike stood a little behind Barlow, lookin’ over his left shoulder, but o’ course sayin’ nothin’. We didn’t s’pose he could see what cards was held, no more than the rest of us, for all three men was playin’ close to their chests, as was natural. It seems, though, that Ike has eyes consid’able better’n the average hawk, an’ he was keepin’ tabs on the game right smart. “It come Jim Harris’s deal, an’ I noticed the stranger give a sort of a little start as he watched the cards droppin’. Then he looked at his hand an’ I see his face change just the least little. He seemed to hesitate a little an’ then he reached into his pocket an’ pulled out his gun, an’ laid it on the table alongside of his cards. ‘It’s kind of uncomfortable settin’ on the end of it,’ he says with a little grin, which we all understood well enough. Pete Barlow did, anyhow, for he dropped his cards on the table almost before he had lifted them, and flashed out his own gun. ‘That’s so. ’Tis uncomfortable,’ he says, as he lays it on the table. Jim Harris, he warn’t far behind, an’ when he lays out his weapon he says, ‘I might as well be in the fashion.’ “Just naturally we all understood what all that meant, but we warn’t any of us expectin’ what followed. It were fairly amazin’. Ike reached over in front o’ Pete Barlow an’ grabbed his pistol, sayin’ as he did so, ‘You look after your playin’, Pete. If there’s goin’ to be any shootin’ done, I’ll shoot for you.’ “Now I reckon there couldn’t be no worse break made than that, an’ I looked to see Pete break out in a blaze o’ wrath, but I was clean flabbergasted when he looked up pleasant an’ smiled an’ said: ‘All right, Ike.’ I was clean flabbergasted an’ I never understood the thing at all till Ike explained it to me afterward. “‘You see Harris had boxed the cards,’ he says, ‘an’ the stranger seen it. That’s why he pulled his gun. I seen that Pete had three tens an’ a pair o’ aces, an’ I guessed the rest. Now, it was a clean plumb miracle, but I happened to have a ten o’ clubs in my pocket o’ the same pattern o’ cards. It was one of a pack that dropped in the water an’ I’d put it in my pocket. I didn’t know why at the time, but now I can see it was the will o’ heaven. I reached over an’ took the gun just for an excuse to drop the card in Pete’s lap. He seen it an’ tumbled.’