Terry left the hotel more gloomy than he had been even when he departed from the ranch¹ that morning. The certainty of Denver that he would find it impossible to stay by his program of honest work had made a strong impression upon his imaginative mind, as though the little safecracker really had the power to look into the future and into the minds of men. Where he should look for work next, he had no idea. And he balanced between a desire to stay near the town and work out his destiny there, or else drift far away. Distance, however, seemed to have no barrier against rumor². After two days of hard riding, he had placed a broad gap between himself and the Cornish ranch, yet in a short time rumor had overtaken him, casually³, inevitably⁴, and the force of his name was strong enough to take away his job.  
Standing⁵ in the middle of the street he looked darkly over the squat⁶ roofs of the town to the ragged⁷ mountains that marched away against the horizon—a bleak⁸ outlook. Which way should he ride?
 
A loud outburst of curses roared behind him, a whip snapped above him, he stepped aside and barely from under the feet of the leaders as a long team wound by with the freight wagon⁹ creaking and swaying and rumbling¹⁰ behind it. The driver leaned from his seat in passing and volleyed a few crackling remarks in the very ear of Terry. It was strange that he did not resent it. Ordinarily he would have wanted to, climb onto that seat and roll the driver down in the dust, but today he lacked ambition. Pain numbed¹¹ him, a peculiar¹² mental pain. And, with the world free before him to roam in, he felt imprisoned¹³.
 
He turned. Someone was laughing at him from the veranda¹⁴ of the hotel and pointing him out to another, who laughed raucously¹⁵ in turn. Terry knew what was in their minds. A man who allowed himself to be cursed by a passing teamster was not worthy¹⁶ of the gun strapped¹⁷ at his thigh¹⁸. He watched their faces as through a cloud, turned again, saw the door of the gambling¹⁹ 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 appalling²⁰. 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 slumped²¹ 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 visualized²² a frantic²³, silent crowd around the wheel listening to the click of the ball.
 
And now he noted²⁴ that the wheel had stopped the last four times on the odd. He jerked a five-dollar gold piece out of his pocket and placed it on the even. The wheel spun²⁵, clicked to a stop, and the rake of the croupier slicked his five dollars away across the smooth-worn top of the table.
 
How very simple! But certainly the wheel must stop on the even this time, having struck the odd five times in a row. He placed ten dollars on the even.
 
He did not feel that it was gambling. He had never gambled in his life, for Elizabeth Cornish had raised him to look on gambling not as a sin, but as a crowning folly²⁶. However, this was surely not gambling. There was no temptation. Not a word had been spoken to him since he entered the place. There was no excitement, no music, none of the drink and song of which he had heard so much in robbing men of their cooler senses. It was only his little system that tempted²⁷ him on.
 
He did not know that all gambling really begins with the creation of a system that will beat the game. And when a man follows a system, he is started on the most cold-blooded gambling in the world.
 
Again the disk stopped, and the ball clicked softly and the ten dollars slid away behind the rake of the man on the stool. This would never do! Fifteen dollars gone out of a total capital of fifty! He doubled with some trepidation²⁸ again. Thirty dollars wagered²⁹. The wheel spun—the money disappeared under the rake.
 
Terry felt like setting his teeth. Instead, he smiled. He drew out his last five dollars and wagered it with a coldness that seemed to make sure of loss, on a single number. The wheel spun, clicked; he did not even watch, and was turning away when a sound of a little musical shower of gold attracted him. Gold was being piled before him. Five times thirty- six made one hundred and eighty dollars he had won! He came back to the table, scooped³⁰ up his winnings carelessly and bent³¹ a kinder eye upon the wheel. He felt that there was a sort of friendly entente³² between them.
 
It was time to go now, however. He sauntered to the door with a guilty c............