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Black Jack by Max Brand
page 146 of 304 (48%)
watched their faces as through a cloud, turned again, saw the door of the
gambling hall open to allow someone to come out, and was invited by the
cool, dim interior. He crossed the street and passed through the door.

He was glad, instantly. Inside there was a blanket of silence; beyond the
window the sun was a white rain of heat, blinding and appalling. But
inside his shoes took hold on a floor moist from a recent scrubbing and
soft with the wear of rough boots; and all was dim, quiet, hushed.

There was not a great deal of business in the place, naturally, at this
hour of the day. And the room seemed so large, the tables were so
numerous, that Terry wondered how so small a town could support it. Then
he remembered the mine and everything was explained. People who dug gold
like dirt spent it in the same spirit. Half a dozen men were here and
there, playing in what seemed a listless manner, save when you looked
close.

Terry slumped into a big chair in the darkest corner and relaxed until
the coolness had worked through his skin and into his blood. Presently he
looked about him to find something to do, and his eye dropped naturally
on the first thing that made a noise--roulette. For a moment he watched
the spinning disk. The man behind the table on his high stool was
whirling the thing for his own amusement, it seemed. Terry walked over
and looked on.

He hardly knew the game. But he was fascinated by the motions of the
ball; one was never able to tell where it would stop, on one of the
thirty-six numbers, on the red or on the black, on the odd or the even.
He visualized a frantic, silent crowd around the wheel listening to the
click of the ball.
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