Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

22 THOMSON BURTIS said casually, ‘“‘and I’ll be damned if you draw against my little openers for nothing. Here goes my stack, if you want to draw!” There was more than $3500 in the pot, and he thought the raise the correct strategy. There could be no more betting after the draw—all stacks would be ex- hausted, and it was table stakes. ' Harris threw in his cards, as did Der- ringer and Tex. Daly tensed as Donnelly stayed. “How many?”’ he asked. There was no use of disguising his hand. Donnelly had passed, next to last man, and betting was over.. Daly took three. “Three myself. And I still have what I went in with—a pair of aces.” Daly silently laid down a pair of kings. “You win, and a good hand at that,” he said evenly. He avoided meeting MacDowell’s eyes. Donnelly had stood all that raising and re-raising, for big money, on a pair of aces. It was too uncanny to believe, almost, or else Donnelly was the poorest poker player alive. He couldn’t have played more perfectly if he had known what Daly’s hand was. “And of course the cards aren’t marked!” Daly thought fiercely as he said calmly: “T think I'll take a five thousand dollar stack this time.” In three more hands signals would change. Did- those men, by any possi- bility, know the signals between Tex and himself? They were using fingers to signal their hand—pair, two pairs, threes, straight, and so on, and voice inflections to indicate the value of the combinations. The next three hands produced nothing sensational. The table was a pool of silence amid the drone of the room. The five men at the next table, before the door, were a bit more noisy than any one else. Daly smelled a rat somewhere. That Donnelly play was unbelievable. After the signals changed, to eyes and a method ‘of folding up cards after looking at them, he felt more confidence. Twice during the next few hands the three Verona gamblers bet fairly high against mediocre ' hands on the part of the airmen, but no . signals could be detected. Then there came a hand, with Mac- Dowell dealing, on which Tex signaled three queens before the draw. Donnelly opened. Daly raised, on nothing, to help | make a pot for Tex. Harris re-raised five hundred dollars. MacDowell hesitated, and finally just stayed. “Up one thousand!’ Donnelly an- nounced, his eyes darting around the table. . Daly dropped, as did Harris, and Mac- Dowell stayed. Donnelly drew two cards, and Tex the same number. MacDowell’s eyes rose from his cards, and gazed long at the ceiling while he meditatively blew a smoke ring—two of them. He had caught a small pair for a queen full. “Check,” Donnelly snapped, and Mac- Dowell bet a thousand dollars. “Good,” Donnelly said viciously, and threw his cards into the deck. “Openers?” Daly said earnestly, and turned the hand. ee Donnelly had thrown down three aces against a two card draw, on a not un- usual sized bet for that game. “That poker is too smart for me,” Daly thought slowly, and he could fairly feel MacDowell’s eyes burning into him. “These birds know our signals!” He did the thing agreed upon between Tex and himself in ease they should want to change them.in an emergency. He borrowed a cigaret from the Southerner. Four hands after their change in signals the three Verona men tangled with them, and when the storm had blown over Tex and Daly had lost four thousand dollars between them, forcing two pairs—and they had lost to aces up in Harris’ hand. Once again the poker was too uncanny. “That was a ringtailed snorter,’’ Daly remarked without emotion. “I’m going to stretch my legs and get a drink before the next hand. Deal me out if you want to.” “I think Tl imbibe one myself,” drawled Tex. “Anybody else?” “Oh, Slats, I want to see you a minute.” comnlicloooks.com