Things was looking up now, but Stranger was noways concerned. “Six thirty-fives is two hundred and ten--six I had makes two sixteen. Hold on till I make a purty.” He bets ten straight on 16, ten on each corner, ten on each side. Same play for 2, and a lone ten on the unit. I never seen a board look so plumb ridiculous. “Hope springs infernal in the human breast. Let ’er go, Hanna!” he says. “A short life and a merry one!” The ball spun nearly two weeks. “Sixteen, black and even,” remarks Frenchy. I takes a swift glance at the wheel then, to corroborate my ears. “And Bryan,” suggests Stranger. “Bryan! Bryan!” yells the crowd. Miners and cow-boys is Democrats _ex officio_, and Frenchy’s surreptitious habit of defending himself was endearin’ Stranger to ’em. Besides, he was winning. That helps with crowds. Paying them bets was complex. We was over eleven hundred to the good on the turn. Other business was suspended, and the crowd lined up, leaving the gladiators the center of the stage, and a twenty-foot lane so they could have plenty of air. “I will now avenge the crime of ’73,” remarks Stranger. “I’m getting it trained.” He made the same layout. Strike me dead, if the ball didn’t jump in a pocket--out--and back--and out again and deliberated between 2 and 35 while the wheel went around fourteen times. You could have heard the split-second hand on a stop watch in the next county while it balanced--and at last rope-walked down in two. “Two, red, even,” says Frenchy in a shocked voice, like he was seein’ things at night. No one could yell--they was a-catching of their breath. And we lays by twelve hundred and fifty more. “Before proceeding further with my witchcraft,” says Stranger, “I would ask you to set your valuation of layout, lookout, license and good-will. Because,” he says, “any fool can see that the ball stops on the one this time. Science, poetry, logic, romance, sentiment and justice point to it, like spokes to a hub. And if you’re going to bank with that chicken feed”--jerking his chin toward the shattered fragments of the bank roll--“you’ll have to lower your limit ... before I play. Oh, I’m learning fast.” Frenchy looks unhappy, but there wasn’t nothing to say. His pile wasn’t big enough to pay if Stranger’s predictions was accurate. “Bring me my sack, Brown,” he calls out. Brown opens his safe and lugs over the sack. Frenchy pours it out on the table--ten thousand dollars, bills of all sizes from five to a thousand, and a coffee-pot full of gold. “Shoot,” he says. “You’re faded.” Stranger eclipses the one spot with ten dollar bills: ten each on corners, the four sides and the middle. “It’s a sure thing--we’d just as well have some side money,” he says, betting ten each on black, odd, first column, first dozen and 1 to 18. “Mr. Brown,” he says, “the gentleman who runs the game will hand you seventy dollars when the ball stops. Drinks for the crowd while it lasts,” and drops ten each on 16 and 2, for luck.