ton said, but if we find that luck runs against us more than seems right, we will have to quit and try somewhere else. Now, I'm going to stick to the black and you keep to the red, and as we'll both be winning, the fellows who are working the wheel are sure to get mad, so we won't be able to play too long in the one place."

"No, they're apt to get ugly," agreed Raymond, eyeing with disfavor the uncouth looking customers who were entering and coming from the saloon, and who did not conceal their curiosity as they passed the two fairly well dressed strangers. "And, whatever we do, Roy, we mustn't take a drink in any of these places, no matter what happens. If they see we're winning right along they'll try and dope us in some way. I'm going to stick to ginger ale, and have the bottles opened right in front of me, so's to make sure that everything's right; you'd better do the same."

all

They entered the Red Dog and sauntered to the roulette wheel, round which were grouped some half dozen men in uncouth dress and several girls in abbreviated skirts and decollete waists, eagerly watching the outcome of each spin of the wheel and ready to cajole the winners to spend a goodly portion of their winnings in liquid refreshment.

They watched the marble spinning for several turns and then Roy Kent addressed the anemic looking young man who was handling the wheel and exhorting the players to "make your stakes."

"What's your limit on the black and red, or any of the even chances?" he queried.

"Ten dollars," replied the twirler of the wheel promptly, his self-rolled cigarette hanging loosely from his hard, thin lips. "Come on, now, make your stakes!" he droned on, his hand on the wheel and giving it a whirl.

"Ten dollars!" John Raymond exclaimed, edging close beside his friend. "Why, that's no kind of a limit. My friend and I here want to try out a system, and we mean to try

it out good, but we can't try it out with a ten dollar limit."

"A system, eh?" queried the twirler, immediately interested. "What kind of a system ?" John Raymond laughed.

"That's our business," he retorted. "Maybe it isn't any good, but we want to try our luck with it. We've figured it out and if we can get a fifty dollar limit, we think there's something in it."

"What! On the even chances?" exclaimed the artist at the wheel. "I guess you don't want much! Why, you could double up on that and go on till you're bound to win!"

"Well, there's no use in discussing it," Roy Kent broke in, catching his chum by the arm. "Come on, old man, and we'll try somewhere else." And they both turned from the table to the door.

"Here, what's the matter, Bob?" cried an authoritative voice from the far end of the room, and a tall, stout man rose from the faro table at which he had been dealing, under shelter of the long, bottle-laden bar, and waddled to the roulette wheel with such haste as his bulk would permit. Recognizing a voice of authority, the two friends arrested their exit.

"They're asking for a fifty dollar limit on the even chances," explained the twirler of the wheel. "I told 'em ten dollars is the limit we allows on them, but they say they has a system and they can't work it except they has a fifty dollar limit."

"A system, eh?" said the proprietor of the saloon, turning from his employee to the couple in the doorway. "How much yer got?"

"Several hundred dollars we're willing to risk on it," replied John Raymond stiffly. "But we can't try it on any fool limit like ten dollars. No system can be worked on less than a fifty dollar limit, and even that's pretty slim." The bulky proprietor took a step back and whispered to his anemic employee:

"Look here, Bob, I guess it'll be all right. I've seen fellers playin' these fool systems before, and none of 'em

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them

Kent and Raymond seated selves side by side at the roulette wheel, and invested each in twentyfive dollars worth of five-cent chips.

When they extracted their writing tablets and placed them on their knees under cover of the table, the interest of the other players was naturally aroused, and feminine curiosity was rampant, but the young clubmen sat stolidly indifferent, and laid down their combinations of figures so discreetly that no prying eyes could gather what they were. The stout proprietor was keeping watch on them from his corner of the room, and his eyes narrowed with evident annoyance when the bartender exhibited the bottle of ginger ale which they had ordered, with the request that it should be opened in their presence.

"Put Rita and Laura on to 'em," he whispered to the bartender, and catching the roving eye of the lastnamed maiden, gave her a wink and an expressive nod in the direction of the workers of the system.

The other girl, an extremely pretty brunette, whose obvious air of refinement had struck both the young men when they had cast their eyes around the saloon, and who seemed strangely out of place in that rough bar-room, leant across the back of Raymond's chair in a fashion that should have properly been born of long intimacy.

"I bet you're going to win," she purred, her lips close to his ear and a bared arm thrown negligently across his shoulder. "I don't understand anything about figures, so you needn't

be afraid I'll catch on to what you're doing. You don't mind my staying here, do you? I'm a dandy mascot."

Raymond shook his shoulders with a gesture of disgust, then glancing up underwent a change of feelings as his eyes rested on the refined, alluring face so close to his own, and smiled good-naturedly.

"No, that's all right," he muttered, his blue eyes dancing with admiration at the soft brown ones poised in such friendly fashion above his shoulder. "As long as you don't interrupt me when I'm playing, I don't mind," and turning to the table once more, he nudged his partner with his knee. "See what I've got for a mascot!"

Kent glanced up quickly from his writing tablet and scowled angrily. "Keep your mind on what you're doing," he grumbled, reaching forward and placing six white chips on the red square in front of him. "Put your first play on the black, there, and don't be a darned fool."

Thereafter, Raymond devoted closer attention to the game, and as they proceeded, had the satisfaction of seeing his own and his partner's pile of chips gradually growing larger; slowly, it is true, as only 15 chips accrued to them individually on completion of each working out of the combination, and one of them, notably Raymond, by the luck of circumstances, was naturally winning faster than the other, but they were both of them ostensibly winning, although each backed the opposite color, and Bob, the manipulator of the wheel, was beginning to get sorely puzzled.

They played steadily until midnight, all the time gradually winning, much to the astonishment of an ever-increasing crowd, for news travels fast in a small town like Yuma, and Raymond's self-appointed mascot found it hard to maintain her position beside his chair, but keep it she bravely did, and joined her voice with those of the other denizens of the bar-room in ordering drinks; for the winners were constrained to invite all and sundry to quench their thirst at their expense at

stated intervals. This they did mainly on the girl Rita's advice, as she had fairly monopolized Raymond, keeping the other girls who frequented the place from annoying him or his friend, and counseled him that it was customary for the winners to behave handsomely to the crowd, even though they themselves confined their libations to only ginger ale.

Raymond noticed with a feeling of pleasure, for which he did not pause to account, that she made no effort to drink the wine or whisky which she was obliged to order from the assiduous bartender, but quenched her thirst by continually sipping his glasses of ginger ale, and for this he felt extremely thankful.

"I wish your mascot would help me out with some of this awful soda pop," Kent at last protested. "I'll bust up if I have to drink much more of it."

"I don't see how she can," retorted Raymond in a whisper. "She's got all her work cut out helping me with mine. Why don't you get one of those other girls to act as a mascot for you? Any of 'em would be only too glad if you stand her all the drinks she wants."

"No, no, you don't want to have anything to do with any of them," whispered Rita earnestly. "They're a bad lot, and there isn't one of them you could trust. You boys are out to make a big winning with this plan you've got, and you don't want to get mixed up with any of them. You take my advice. I know this joint."

Mutely they thanked her, and feeling at last sadly cramped from their long sitting, they rose from the table, having cashed in their chips to the tune of nearly three hundred dollars; the result of their each having separately worked the combination, and having neither of them experienced a long run of bad luck, the red and black alternating more than fairly, so they were quite satisfied that the roulette wheel was not an electric one, and decided to play against it as long as the bulky proprietor of the Red Dog would stand the strain.

Keeping up the pretense of being total abstainers to the last, they pledged the house in a parting glass of ginger ale and Raymond tossed a five dollar gold piece on to the bar to defray the cost of drinks for the crowd, and slipped a like coin into the hand of his mascot as he bade her goodnight and "thanks" at the saloon door.

"I don't see how a girl like that ever managed to find herself in that sort of place," he said, as they wended their way up the dusty street to the station hotel. "She's one of the prettiest girls I've ever met. How'd she ever come to drift in there?"

"I'm sure I don't know," retorted Kent, contentedly fingering the gold coins in his pockets. "There's no telling anything about girls. Say, we will have to change this stuff into notes in the morning. We can't go 'round carrying a lot of gold. It isn't safe in a tough town like this."

"You bet it isn't," agreed Raymond. "I never saw such a cut-throat looking lot as there was in that saloon. That was a bank we passed just now, and the best thing we can do is to open an account there in the morning and bank all we've got except enough to stake at the wheel. Two or three hundred dollars between us ought to be enough for all emergencies."

"You bet yer," laughed Kent. "If the wheel runs as it did to-night, we won't touch anyways near the limit. I wonder how long that saloon keeper will stand for it. He was looking pretty mad when we quit."

"Oh, he won't give in. Fellows like him think there's nobody on earth can beat roulette, and nobody ever has, except they played this system we're working. We'll be able to trim him good and plenty."

"He'll see pretty soon that he was a fool to give us a fifty dollar limit, and first thing you know he'll put it back to ten, and then where are we?" demanded Kent.

"Then we quit," said Raymond, promptly. "If we can't get the limit here, we'll hike on to Phoenix, although I shall be sorry to lose our

mascot," he added wistfully. His age was twenty-six, and he was born of a romantic mother.

"Your mascot, you mean," retorted Kent, experiencing uncomfortably the result of too copious quaffing of sparkling ginger ale. "If she had divided her attentions a little more I'd have been better pleased. All the same, though, I'm mighty glad she stuck to us so closely, as she kept those other girls from worrying us, and Lord knows it was hard enough keeping tab on the combinations without being worried to death by women trying to butt in."

They opened an account at the bank next morning and deposited all they possessed with the exception of $200, which they kept with them for working capital, and repairing once more to the Red Dog, settled themselves down for a long sitting, the stout proprie tor, Mallory, and the sharp-featured, Bob, viewing their reappearance with mixed feelings, of which anxiety and cupidity were not the least promi

nent.

satisfaction

Raymond noted with that the girl, Rita, was present in the saloon, and no doubt owing to the earliness of the hour, was the only girl in evidence, and knowing that it was expected of her that she should cajole the frequenters of the place to spend their money over the bar, he bade the bartender open two quarts of champagne, and invited the assembled shiftless looking crowd to drink the girl's health, which to a certain extent mollified the proprietor and his assistants, and made them view his evident friendliness for the girl in a less critical light, albeit he and Roy Kent insisted on being allowed to pledge the company in ginger ale.

All that day they played, and far into the night, with little varying success, Raymond's mascot, as he called her, holding to her post with singular tenacity, and at length calling forth anxious and sharp rebukes from the plethoric Mallory, who was hourly growing more ill tempered as he watched the workers of this puzzling

455

system augmenting their piles of chips with ever repeated demands on his cash drawer and safe.

Puzzling indeed did the working of the system appear to these seasoned gamblers, for no matter to what big numbers the vagaries of the combination might force them to go, at the close of each finished and carefully worked out play, the number of chips that were staked invariably came back to six, and a new combination was started. With monotonous regularity this occurred about every ten or fifteen minutes, one player sometimes winning faster than the other, according as the red or the black ran more frequently in his favor, but both were steadily winning, and there appeared to be no ostensible way to stop them.

"Ye're foolin' away yer time here," at last growled the exasperated proprietor, clutching Rita's shoulder roughly, and endeavoring to pull her away from beside Raymond's chair. "There's a whole crowd of fellers wantin' to treat yer up at the bar, and these fellers here don't want yer sittin' round all day and all night watching them play that fool game. Ye're in here to entertain the folks same as the other girls, and to have yer wastin' yer time the way ye're doin' ain't doin' me or you no good. Eh? What's that yer say?" he queried sharply, turning to Raymond, who had ventured a protest in a firm, but polite, tone. "What? Can't I leave the girl alone? What! yer like to have her sittin' there? Well, she ain't doin' any good sittin' alongside of you, and even if you are spendin' money and buyin' her drinks, you ain't spendin' half what ye're makin'." And his apoplectic temper getting the better of him, he dragged the girl forcibly from the chair, and struck her with his fat, heavy hand a resounding blow on either cheek.

With a bound Raymond was out of his chair, and before any restraining hand could reach him, he had smashed the bulky coward a crushing blow on the point of the jaw, but ere the latter had fallen with a thud to the floor a