Then Halloway picked up his cards an’ skint ’em down slow. The luck was still with him, for he had four treys. He was a cool player, though, an’ pretended to be studyin’ the cards, while he was really studyin’ how to play Davis good and hard again. He knowed it was no good to think about the others, for they wouldn’t be likely to stand Davis’s raise, let alone his, if he should raise back. So he thought awhile an’ then raised it a hundred. That made Davis madder’n ever. ‘You can’t bluff me that way,’ he says, very nasty, an’ as the other two laid down, he come back with two hundred more. Then, o’ course, Halloway had him. He looked more serious than ever for awhile, and finally he says, ‘Well, I reckon I’ll draw one card,’ shovin’ up his two hundred as he spoke. He let the card lay as it was dealt to him, an’ Davis, havin’ a pat flush, o’ course, drew none. Halloway looked at him for a minute, as if tryin’ to study out whether he was bluffin’ or not, an’ finally says: ‘Well, I’ll bet you five hundred, anyway.’ ‘An’ I’ll raise you a thousand,’ said Davis, with some sort o’ French swearin’ that I reckon he must ha’ brought f’m New Orleans, f’r I never heerd anything like it around here. Halloway grinned again, an’ he says: ‘I’m sorry I can’t see your thousand, but I’ll call for a show for what I have, an’ I reckon my cards is good.’ An’ he showed down his four treys. Well, that broke up the game. Davis was too mad to play any more, an’ his pals see that it was foolish for them to stack up against any such luck as Halloway was settin’ in. But it was a monstrous good game while it lasted. I never seen five dollars grow to two thousand three hundred and eighty-six quite so quick, afore nor since.” XVI HIS QUEER SYSTEM “‘Tain’t a matter of record,” said old man Greenhut, with a reminiscent look in his eye, “that any stranger has ever come to Arkansas City with any notion o’ doin’ up the town what got away with the proposition an’ any consid’able remnant o’ the wad he had with him when he arrove. The citizens o’ this town is mostly capable men, what is well qualified to drink red liquor straight an’ set into ’most any sort of a game without drawin’ weepons, ’less there’s some provocations, an’ when it comes to draw-poker it’s universally acknowledged up an’ down the river that there ain’t no superior game played anywhere. The galoot that comes here with a notion in his nut o’ makin’ a everlastin’ fortune out o’ such hands as a merciful Providence may allow him to hold in two or three nights’ play is gen’ly considered to be runnin’ in great luck if he gets out o’ town without havin’ a subscription took up for his benefit about the time the next boat ties up.