But brave old Sam had left the bars down between his wards and the gamblers' tables. It is so everywhere. The Indian may not drink, but he may play "army game" and all the others where crooked dice, crooked cards, and crooked men are to be found. Perhaps, thought the doctor, the young man with the eagle feather--which did not make him at all invisible, whatever his own faith in its virtues might have been--had played his money on the one-eyed man's game, and was hanging around to see whether retributive justice, in the form of some more fortunate player, would, in the end, clean the old rascal out.
The one-eyed man was assisted by a large gang of cappers, a gang which appeared to be in the employ of the gamblers' trust of Comanche. The doctor had seen them night after night first at one game, then at another, betting with freedom and carelessness which were the envy of the suckers packed forty deep around them. At the one-eyed man's game just then they were coming and going in a variety which gave a color of genuine patronage. That was an admirable arrangement, doubtless due to the one-eyed man's sagacity, which the doctor had noted the night before. For the game had its fascination for him, not because the fire of it was in his veins, but because it was such an out-and-out skin game that it was marvelous how fools enough could be found, even in a gathering like that, to keep it going.
The living pictures had just passed off the stage, and it was the one-eyed man's inning. He rattled his dice in the box, throwing his quick glance over the crowd, which seemed reluctant to quit the beer-tables for his board. Art was the subject which the gambler took up as he poured out his dice and left them lying on the board. He seemed so absorbed in art for the moment that he did not see a few small bets which were laid down. He leaned over confidentially and talked into the eyes of the crowd.
"Art, gentlemen, is a fine thing for the human race," said he. "You have just saw an elegant exhibition of art, and who is there in this crowd that don't feel a better man for what he saw?"
He looked around, as if inviting a challenge. None came. He resumed:
"Art in all its branches is a elegant fine thing, gentlemen. It raises a man up, and it elevates him, and it makes him feel like a millionaire. If I only had a dime, as the man said, I'd spend it for a box of cigareets just to git the chromo-card. That's what I think of art, gentlemen, and that's how crazy I am over it.