An excerpt from "Sam Hane Saves The Day"

CHAPTER FIVE: THE GAMBLER

 

"Stop!!" I cried in a voice of thunder. "I'll not stand by and see a man cheated of his honest earnings!"

The gambler turned in the street, and walked cooly back to me. His pencil thin moustache glistened with the wax that held it steady.

"Why, it's the banjo player," he said. "And it talks. How droll."

I placed my banjo out of harms way, and looked him in the eye. "Give that man back his money. You had the ace secreted in your sleeve, and substituted cards. You are a cheat and a scoundrel," I said.

By now, quite a crowd of ruffians and onlookers had gathered, including my trail companion Mogollon Munk. He nodded to me, and took up a position where he could cover the crowd, as the gambler insolently hooked his fingers into his suspenders.

"I need not give back the money. It was the chance of the game, and he lost." The gambler said. Just then, without warning, he swung a fist straight to my face!

I was expecting such a move, and dodged the attack; like lightning I returned the blow, my fist connected, and in a trice the gambler lay in the street. I stood over him, fists clenched, and said in a steely voice, "Return the money, cur, or I shall have to chastise you even more!"

Like a whipped dog he drew forth the roll of bills, and silently gave them over to me. I handed them to the farmer, who regarded them as if they had dropped from Heaven. "You have saved my farm!" he said.

The gambler got up and slunk off, looking back poisonously at both Mogollon Munk and myself. "Sam, my friend, we have not seen the last of him, I'd wager," Mogollon Munk said.

"And if we do, we shall give him his just desserts once more," I replied.

Next: Belle Tain In Peril!

And don't miss "Sam Hane and Doc Holliday on Whiskey Row,"
soon to be serialized in
CAPTAIN BILLY'S WHIZ-BANG MAGAZINE!