Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WY CF FE VOL. CXL Part I SATURDAY, JANUARY 21,1922 [bss S by, J Allan K L YY NUMBER 1 Author of “Salt of the Sea,” “The War Cloth,” ete. CHAPTER I. GAMBLERS’ LUCK. HE story begins properly where it nearly ended—in the back room of the second floor of Pop Crandall’s private and protected gambling-house. We had all been celebrating the end of a perfect day by carrying the joy-making well over into the next. Our alma mater had man- aged to carry a hard-fought contest of field events by five points, thanks to En Sue, who had pulled us out of the mud by coming in ten yards ahead in a grueling mile—the record still stands—and that after having beaten their sprinting quarter- miler earlier in the afternoon by half as many inches. En Sue, slim and tall for a Chinaman, had long established himself in the hearts of the college as an athlete. He ran like a deer and jumped like one. To see him pole-vault was a picture. He was one of 1A the best short-stops we ever had. More- over, he was a scholar and a gentleman— plus. His father was some sort of a big contractor in Shanghai, and En Sue’s al- lowance was unlimited. Mine was limited, though I didn’t have the sense to see it at that time. He was East and I was West, but there had always been a chummery be- tween us, outside of sports. I was leaving college when he was a sophomore. We shared one common in- stinct, or inheritance—gambling—which is many a youngster’s way of seeking adven- ture. But while I played with cards, En Sue knew them. He was the most imper- turbable holder of a pair of deuces or four kings that I have ever seen, and he knew the value of every pip in his hand. That was what brought us—En Sue, Tomlinson, and myself, Kennedy—into Pop Crandall’s about one o’clock in the morning. ‘Tomlinson and myself were more or less illuminated, and En Sue less. MICLOOOK C©