Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

8 Adventure was that the youngster was feeling better, although he was ever conscious of Mac- Dowell’s presence. ‘Fellow poker-hounds, I received a check from home today, it being my birthday, and I crave to lose it to Tex MacDowell. Any- body with me?” asked Pete Miller. “Tf that’s the way you’re feeling, I’m trailing along,” grinned Tex, as he rolled a cigaret. “T still possess a few nickels,” stated Binder, a lanky observer. “How about you, Ransom me _ boy? Dost ever indulge? I warn you against a certain Texan who is a drawing, bluffing, pot-stealing fool, but the more the merrier!” A refusal rose to Ransom’s lips, but the smile on MacDowell’s face decided him. So MacDowell thought he was afraid of him, did he? Besides, Dave really loved the game. “Tickled to death,” he replied. @ THE game started with Mills, Ran- *. som, Binder, Hickman and Mac- ' Dowell. Tex, who had learned the game from his ranchman father at the tender age of eight, was in hiselement. He knew the value of his cards, was a master at varying his play and played for the sheer love of it. He never backed shorts, neither raised the pot nor laid down his hand, and bluffed just often enough to make sure of a reasonable number of calls. When he bluffed he started before the draw, and it took a good man to catch him unless there was a pat hand hanging around the table. For two hours the game went along even- ly. Mills had lost a few dollars and Tex, with a run of persistently useless cards, was behind as well. In the hands of another man his cards would have probably meant a hundred-dollar contribution, for he had been having that worst of all luck in poker— fairly good hands that never won. And Ransom had been the man who had topped him most. It was apparent to every one that Dave was playing as if MacDowell was the only man in the game and he made des- perate draws and calls rather than let Tex get away with anything. Aided by very good luck, Dave was fifty dollars ahead, playing rather excitedly, although he was no amateur. Abruptly the game broke. Binder with an ace-high flush raked in a big pot against a straight and three kings, eliciting loud wails from Mills and Hickman. Tex raised a pot that Binder opened and every one stayed for the sum of seven dollars After the flurry was over Tex showed three sixes, Binder threw away his three treys, while the four-card straight and flushes of the other three were unimproved. Every pot meant action for a while, until Tex had some two hundred dollars velvet, Dave was about even, leaving the other three holding the sack. ‘Virtue is its own reward,”’ remarked Tex as he shuffled the cards. ‘‘You see how badly off you are, George, according to the axiom.”’ “Y’m goin to get washed of sin mighty sudden, then,” Hickman replied, squinting appraisingly at MacDowell’s bloated stacks of chips. ‘‘How do you happen to stay even against this man, Ransom?”’ “My next attack will be in the Ransom sector,” stated Tex with a grin that purged his remark of anything but good-humored badinage, but Dave looked up with quick resentment. sf sure of yourself, aren’t you?” he sneered. Suddenly the air was charged with ex- citement. The others looked at Tex quick- ly, but that comfortably lounging gentle-— man merely smiled mockingly. “No, not exactly sure of myself,” he drawled. ‘‘In fact, I’m getting scared.” As he swiftly dealt the cards his thoughts would probably have surprized the others, no one more so than Ransom. THe little fool! But I don’t know but what I’d be wrathy in his place, at that.”’ Rather surprizing sympathy for a man who showed his dislike for him in every word and action. ‘Tex was a baffling man in a lot of ways. He threw his dealer’s ante, a dollar chip, into the pot, which had been passed once, and looked at his cards. He had a four- card straight flush in spades—two to five, with a useless seven of diamonds. “Pass,’’ remarked Mills, on MacDowell’s left, in somewhat too resigned tones. Tex glanced at him sharply. “Open, for three dollars,” stated Binder. ‘‘Raised five,’”? snapped Ransom, still smarting from his verbal passage at arms with MacDowell. He felt that he had made a fool of himself and had come out second best all around. As a matter of fact, he held only a pair of aces. COmicloo N ) CO