Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE DUKE AND THE DUCATS Q1 On the second hand he went in with three tens, drawing two cards. Don- nelly had opened for fifty dollars, and drew one card. Derringer had stayed, and also drew one. Donnelly bet a hun- dred dollars, and Daly raised a hundred. Derringer re-raised two hundred, and Donnelly promptly re-raised a. full five hundred dollars—practically his stack. “Might as well find out now as any time, cheap,” Daly thought, and called. As Derringer threw his hand into the deck Daly, as though by accident, thrust his hand forward and the cards fell face up. A four card flush. “Sixes and fours,” Donnelly said sourly as Daly showed his threes. “Heavy raising and re-raising on noth- ing, believing I’d surely lay down my threes against two raising one card draws!” thought Daly. Tex looked at him questioningly. Per- haps because he was ultrasensitive, Daly did not give the signal to start their own scheme of play. On the seventh hand, however, assurance was made doubly sure. This time it was Tex, who stuck stub- bornly on kings and eights against the raising and re-raising of three three-card draws, until his stack disappeared as he called a final seven hundred dollar raise, on Derringer’s part. The other two, who had been apparently so strong, dropped. Derringer had just a pair of jacks. “Can’t bluff a thing in this game!’’ he rasped. “No,” thought Duke. “Not with us knowing your racket. But when you boys start getting some good hands, or if we didn’t know what you were up to, how you'd clean us!” He glanced at Tex, and nodded. The crooked battle was on. During the first half dozen hands after that there was little action. Neither he nor Tex had anything to speak of, one way or another. On the seventh hand it was the Duke’s deal. Tex signaled a small pair. Daly himself had a pair of kings. No one opened, so Daly did, for twenty-five dollars. Harris and Derringer both stayed, which surprised Daly somewhat. Tex knew what he had to do. It was a hand where, by sheer weight of money between them, they could probably win on nothing. “Raise it fifty,” drawled Tex, “just on prospects.” Daly’s eyes narrowed when Donnelly stayed. He and Tex were playing against three men. He had caught none of their signals yet. Probably they were planning to do again the same thing he and Tex were—win by weight of combined money. “Knowing I’m best to go in,” Daly said calmly, “I re-raise two hundred dollars!” Harris and Derringer had passed open- ing the pot, but stayed for the raises. MacDowell, his big body radiating. his utter absorption in the situation and his joy in it, surveyed his cards carefully. Then: “This hand of mine is going to be worth everything or nothing,” he an- nounced with a grin. “I tilt her five hundred.” “Same here, big boy,” said Donnelly with that specious smile, and put in his stack. Literally thousands of hours of poker, often played under conditions where his life itself was at stake if he slipped, had given the Duke an uncanny intuition where cards were concerned. His mind, miraculously cool and clear as it always was in emergencies, was working with smooth, detached speed. “Harris might pass under the gun,” he reflected. “You can’t figure Derringer would pass a second hand if he had any- thing good. Donnelly was next to last— he wouldn’t pass anything above a pair, certainly. They’re ganging up on us again as sure as hell, on nothing.” He looked at his cards calmly. Harris’ eyes were on the table. Derringer was showing a wolfish joy in the game, his piercing eyes concentrating on Daly’s face. Donnelly was sitting back in elaborate ease. “You fellows are playing a lot of un- filled straights and four card flushes,” he comnlicloooks.com