“It looked like a most amazin’ run o’ luck, but the stranger never turned a hair. He did call for the drinks all round, as a sort o’ reco’nition, but he sot as calm as ever, waitin’ for his cards, an’ lookin’ as if he didn’t know what to do with ’em when they come. The others had bought fifty apiece when they come back, so there was money enough on the table to make it worth while, an’ the play got stronger. First, Winterbottom he bet twenty on two pairs an’ the stranger called on one pair. Then Bascom he bet ten on a pair o’ queens an’ the stranger called on ace high. Then Blaisdell bet twenty-five on three jacks, Bascom saw it on aces up, Winterbottom stayed out, havin’ nothin’, an’ the stranger called on a nine-high straight. No matter what he held he wouldn’t raise. “Blaisdell kind o’ got huffy this time, an’ seein’ the stranger was still pretty well to the good, he began cussin’ a little an’ proposed to take off the limit. The others said they was willin’, an’ they ast McCarthy if he was, an’ he said ‘Yes.’ Blamed if it didn’t ’pear like ‘yes’ was ’most the only word he knowed in the language. “Well, the bets was heavier after that, an’ the stranger lost what he had in front of him in the next three pots, callin’ on the most ridiculousest hands you ever see, but he stayed right along in for the next deal, so they knowed he must have more money in his clothes. It were his first say, Bascom havin’ the age, an’ he dug out two silver dollars an’ come in, the ante bein’ a dollar. The others stayed, an’ McCarthy drawed three cards. When it come to the bettin’, he bet a dollar, an’ Winterbottom put up fifty, havin’ filled a flush. Blaisdell dropped out an’ Bascom raised it fifty. McCarthy never said a word, but he pulled out his wallet an’ fished up a hundred-dollar bill. Winterbottom raised it fifty an’ Bascom raised it fifty more, an’ the stranger laid down another hundred. “It looked like his finish there, for sure, for o’ course nobody thought he had much of a hand, an’ the boys thought all they had to do was to keep raisin’. They knowed he’d keep callin’, for he hadn’t done nothin’ else for nigh an hour, an’ all they had to do was to keep up the crisscross an’ whipsaw him out of his pile. ’Twa’n’t certain whether Bascom or Winterbottom would win, but one of ’em was sure to, an’ the money would stay right here. “Well, they kep’ it up for five minutes, I reckon, till Bascom come to the end of his wad. He on’y had six or seven hundred in his clothes an’ Winterbottom wasn’t much stronger. It didn’t look worth while for Bascom to send for more money, for the stranger’s pocketbook was empty an’ he’d fished out his last hundred from one of his pockets, so Bascom just made good when Winterbottom raised, an’ the stranger got his chance to call, nobody supposin’ that he had more’n perhaps three of a kind, an’ likely not that, he havin’ called on every hand he held whether ’twas good for anything or not.