and the challenge of it stirred the latter's sense of humor.
"Guess I'm one of the bums 'going to,'" he said cheerfully. The man's fat-surrounded eyes ceased to grin.
"Startin' fer the Yukon in—July? Never heard of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "It's as ridiculous as startin' fer hell in summer time. You'll make Alaska when she freezes up, and sit around till she opens next spring. Say——"
"You mean I'll get hung up for—ten months?" cried Gordon aghast.
"Jest depends on your business."
"Yes, of course."
Gordon's heart sank as the man grunted up from his seat, and handed him back his mutilated ticket. He watched him pass on down the car and finally vanish through the doorway of the parlor-car beyond. Then his eyes came back to his surroundings. He stared at the heads of his fellow travelers dotting the tops of the seats about him. Then his eyes dropped to his grip on the opposite seat lying under his overcoat, and again, later, they turned reflectively towards the window. Ten months. Ten months, and he only had six before him in which to accomplish his purpose. Was there ever a more perfect imbecile? Was there ever such a fool trick?
A smile of chagrin grew in his eyes as he remembered how he had arrived at the Pennsylvania Depot, and had studied the list of places to which he could go, seeking to find in the names an inspiration for the accomplishment of his purpose. There had been so many that his amazed head had been set whirling. There he had stood, wondering and gawking like some foolish country "Rube," without one single idea beyond the fact that he must go somewhere and make one hundred thousand dollars in six months' time.
Then had come that one illuminating flash. He saw the name in great capital letters in an advertisement. "The Yukon." Of course. It was the one and only place in the world for quick fortunes, and forthwith he had booked his passage to Seattle.
Nor was he likely to forget his immense satisfaction when he heard Harding's respectful "Yes, sir," in response to his information. Now he certainly was convinced that he was own brother to the finest bred jackass in the whole wide world. However, there was nothing to be done but go on to Seattle. He had paid for his ticket, and, Providence willing, to Seattle he would go.
But Providence had its own ideas upon the matter. Furthermore, Providence began at once to set its own machinery working in his behalf. It was the same Providence that looks after drunken men and imbeciles. Half an hour later it impelled him to gather up his traps and pass forward into the smoker, accompanied by one of his own big, expensive cigars.
He pushed his way into the car through the narrow door of communication. A haze of tobacco smoke blurred his view, but at once he became aware of a single, melancholy, benevolent eye gazing steadily at him.
It was an amiable eye and withal shrewd. Also it was surrounded by a shaggy dark brow. This had a fellow, too, but the eye belonging to the fellow was concealed beneath what was intended to be a flesh-tinted cover, secured in place by elastic round its owner's head.
The surrounding face was rugged and weather tanned. And it finished with a mop of iron-gray hair at one end, and an aggressively tufted chin beard at the other. But the thrusting whisker could not disguise the general strength of the face.
Below this was a spread of large body clad in a store suit of some pretensions, but of ill fit, and a heavy gold watchchain and a large diamond pin in the neckwear suggested opulence. Furthermore, One Eye suggested the prime of middle life, and robust health and satisfaction.
There was only one other occupant of the car. He was two or three seats away, across the aisle. He promptly claimed Gordon's attention. He was amusing himself by shooting "crap" on a baize-covered traveling-table. Both men were smoking hard, and, by the density of the atmosphere, and the aroma, the newcomer estimated that they, unlike himself, were not five-cent-cigar men.
He paused at the dice thrower's seat and watched the proceedings. The man appeared not to notice his approach at all, and continued to labor on with his pastime, carrying on a muttered address to the obdurate "bones."
"Come 'sev,'" he muttered again and again, as he flung the dice on the table with a flick of the fingers.
But the "seven" would not come up, and at last he raised a pair of keen black eyes to Gordon's face.
"Cussed things, them durned bones," he said briefly, and went on with his play.
Gordon smiled.
"It's like most things. It's luck that tells."
The player grinned down at the dice and nodded agreement, while he continued his muttered demands. Gordon flung his traps into another seat, and sat himself down opposite the man. Crap dice never failed to fascinate him.
The melancholy benevolence of One Eye remained fixed upon the pair.
The seven refused to come up, and finally the player desisted.
"Sort of workin' calculations," he explained, with an amiable grin. "An' they don't calc worth a cent. As you say, the hull blamed thing is chance. Sevens, or any other old things 'll just come up when they darned please, and neither me nor any other feller can make 'em come—playin' straight."
The man bared his gold-filled teeth in another amiable grin. And Gordon fell.
His unsuspicious mind was quite unable to appreciate the obvious cut of the man. The rather flashy style of his clothes. The keen, quick, black eyes. The disarming ingenuousness of his manner and speech. These things meant nothing to him. The men he knew were as ready to win or lose a few hundred dollars on the turn of a card as they were to drink a cocktail. The thought of sharp practice in gambling was something which never entered their heads.
He drew out a dollar bill and laid it on the table. The sight of it across the aisle made One Eye blink. But the black-eyed stranger promptly covered it, and picked up the dice. He shook them in the palm of his hand and spun them on the baize, clipping his fingers sharply.
"Come 'sev,'" he muttered.
The miracle of it. The seven came up and he swept in the two dollars. In a moment he had replaced them with a five-dollar bill. Gordon responded.
"I'll take two dollars of that," he said, and staked his money.
The man spun the dice, and a five came up. Then it was Gordon's turn to talk to the dice, calling on them for a seven each time the man threw. The play became absorbing, and One Eye, from across the aisle, craned forward. The seven came up before the five, and Gordon won, and the dice passed.
The game proceeded, and the luck alternated. Then Gordon began to win. He won consistently for awhile, and nearly twenty dollars had passed from the stranger's pocket to his.
It was an interesting study in psychology. Gordon was utterly without suspicion, and full of boyish enthusiasm. His blue eyes were full of excited interest. He followed each throw, and talked the jargon of the game like any gambler. All his boredom with the journey was gone. His quest was thrust into the background. Nothing troubled him in the least. The joy of the rolling dice was on him, and he laughed and jested as the wayward "bones" defied or acquiesced to his requirements.
The stranger was far more subtle. For a big powerful man he possessed absurdly delicate hands. He handled the dice with an expert touch, which Gordon utterly lacked. He talked to the dice as they fell in a manner
