Nogales international., 1936-05-09

seems to be winning.
Maitland knew nothing of the
game but was fascinated by the
. movement of his companions hands
while dealing. The fingers that
moved so supplely over the keys OF
an accordion, seemed to lure music
of another kind from the smooth
cards, as he riff1ed and snapped them
into place and shot them out with
clean precision, dropping the last
of the round and the three cards OF
the widow almost in one gesture.
He won the next bid with heart
solo This time his opponents did
not conceal their conviction that the
gan7le was unsound. But before
they had recovered from that Ger
tainty, he had made his point by a
shrewd handling of low cards. The
sweet singers took a frmer grip
On their cigars and settled into the
game.
Stakes began to climb. Frog bids
vanished. Onlookers edged in from
other groups to watch the play
among them a burly red-faced man
who stood obscurely at the rim of
the circle with his eyes fixed in
tently on Speeds face and hands.
The gambler remained calm and
composed as a deacon, playing good
hands and bad with equal devout-
ness or rather making bad ones
good, for the cards were running
hard against him.
Wouldn't surprise me whole
lot to hear you'd played this game
afore," the man declared, as he lit
a cigar before picking up new
hand.
Speed was busy arranging his
cards and did not answer. When
he raised his eyes it was in pre-
occupied way in Maitland's direc-
ton, but they rested instead on
someone else in the crowd. One OF
his eyelids fickered slightly, as if
to evade a wreath of cigarette
smoke From the gold he had col
lected, he transferred two handfuls
to his pockets. The remainder OF
the pile he pushed out to center.
This stack says l don't take a
trick" he observed. I'm goin'
tmisere.
Had Maitland been watching
closely, he would have noticed a
slight shifting on the part of the
red-faced man among the specta-
tors. He might have remembered
that skill in this game was one of
the few identifying traits of the ban
dit, Buck Solo-if he had not be-
lieved the bandit to be a captive in
the Okanagans. He might have
noticed, too, that in a lazy upward
glance that seemed to take cognlz-
ance of nothing, this fact had been
caught and registered by the man
under observation. But no ones
attention is sharpened by watching
a game he does not understand, and
Maitland's interest had begun to
stray. He elbowed his way out OF
the circle to ramble over the ship.
Most of the passengers having
chosen a position amidships, he
found that the crowd thinned as he
went forward of the main cabin. At
the forward rail lookout stood
alone, peering into the blanket OF
mist ahead. They were now in the
outer waters of the Sound; the traf-
fic had dwindicd and the hootine OF
sirens was i1auffied in far distance.
"How does she iic?" he asked ths
lookout.
"Off Port Townsend" the man
said. without turning.
The boy stood by the rail awhile,
eyeing the dim froth of water be-
low, and that gray essence of things
unseen and unforeseen through
which the steamer was cleaving her
blinded course.
He was not conscious of a con-
tradiction in his advice to the West
erner about gambling, though it ran
deeper than his mere presence on
the George E. Starr. Men of his
name and blood had raced for car
goes in the days of the clipper ships
and later plunged the winnings into
deep-bottomed carriers - to lose
them finally in wilder games OF
chance with the sea His father had
gone down in a storm with two
of their ships. This tragedy had
caused his mothers death when he
was born. The remnant of the
original stakes left in play had been
involved by = defect in the under
writing Of the lost cArgoes.
His earliest memory Yves of q
small schooner which his grand
father had managed TO salvage out
Of the general wreck From the old
man he had learned, along with a
knowledge of ships and water
After his grandfathcr's death, he
had found employment with a firm
of underwriters agents. reporting
on wrecks and salvage. It had led
him into the study of admiralty
law-a vocation his sea-going faith
ers would not have admired.
He was sent west to investigate
q wreck off the Farrallones, near
San Francisco-his first important
commission. But he had found the
owners in a position rather like that
Al