"Sure I gamble. Every time I take a chance I'm gambling. So does
everybody else. When you walk past the Flatiron Building you bet it
won't fall down and crush you. We've got to take chances to live."
"How true, and I never thought of it," beamed Mrs. Selfridge. "What a
philosopher you are, Mr. Macdonald."
The Scotchman went on without paying any attention to her effervescence.
"I've gambled ever since I was a kid. I bet I could cross Death Valley
and get out alive. That time I won. I bet it would rain once down in
Arizona before my cattle died. I lost. Another time I took a contract
to run a tunnel. In my bid I bet I wouldn't run into rock. My bank went
broke that trip. When I joined the Klondike rush I was backing my luck
to stand up. Same thing when I located the Kamatlah field. The coal
might be a poor quality. Maybe I couldn't interest big capital in the
proposition. Perhaps the Government would turn me down when I came to
prove up. I was betting my last dollar against big odds. When I quit
gambling it will be because I've quit living."
"And I suppose I'm a gambler too?" Mrs. Mallory demanded with a little
tilt of her handsome head.
He looked straight at her with the keen eyes that had bored through her
from the first day they had met, the eyes that understood the manner of
woman she was and liked her none the less.
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