Hydrofoil Mystery Read Free

even know I had, I was now sitting on almost thirty-five bucks.
    There was a steady stream of new players as one salesman reached his destination and left the train to be replaced in the game by somebody who’d just come on board. Nobody was there long enough to win or lose more than a few dollars. For the most part they weren’t bad players. The way these old guys all seemed to know each other, I suspected that travelling salemen played cards almost as much as sailors.
    The next hand was dealt. As I looked at my cards I tried to mentally count the money sitting in my pile.
    There was still a long way to go, and if I could keep on winning at this pace I’d have over a hundred dollars in my pocket before we reached Iona. Maybe that would be enough for me to just turn back around—buy a ticket back to Halifax, spend the summer with my friends and forget all about being some fancy servant in Baddeck. Boy, would that be something.
    â€œHow about if we raise the limit on bets?” I said.
    The other three men looked up from their cards and directly at me, and the guy dealing stopped for a minute. “What did you have in mind, kid?” the dealer asked. “I don’t know. Maybe we could double it,” I suggested.
    Nobody spoke. “Unless you gentleman aren’t up to the challenge,” I added, not so subtly taunting them.
    â€œHah! I think I can handle that action,” one of them responded.
    â€œUnless your mama’s going to object,” added another, and they all started to chuckle.
    â€œMy mother is two hundred miles down the line from here. You sure your mamas and wives are okay with it?”
    The dealer looked around at the other players. One scowled and the other three smiled slightly, but all nodded in agreement. “Okay, kid, I think we might be prepared to take some of your money … after all, it’s as good as anybody else’s. Let’s play poker.”

Chapter Two
    â€œS ON, ARE YOU ALL right?” the conductor asked.
    â€œI’m fine,” I said softly, lifting my head off my hands. “It’s just that we’ve been in the station a while.
    Everybody else has already disembarked. This is the end of the line. You are getting off, aren’t you?”
    I nodded my head. What choice did I have now? Slowly I rose and then bent down to pick up my two bags.
    â€œDid you lose much money?” he asked.
    â€œA little,” I answered. What I couldn’t answer—what I could hardly believe—was that I’d lost everything. In my pocket were the few coins I had left. Somewhere down the line things had started to go wrong. At first it happened slowly, but then it got worse and worse. And as I started to lose I got more desperate to try to win back what I’d lost and try to gain what I needed to escape from a summer in Baddeck. But it didn’t work. I’d never seen such luck before! Hand after hand, they just kept on winning and I kept on losing. Finally, in one drastic bid to get even all at once, I bet almost all that I had left … and lost. It was right after that that the four salesmen all said they’d reached their station and left the train together.
    â€œI’ve seen those men play poker before. They don’t seem to lose too often,” the conductor said. “I figure a fewof them make more money off the gaming table than they do selling anything out of their sample cases.” He paused. “You’re going to Baddeck, aren’t you?”
    I nodded.
    â€œThen you really better get moving. The Blue Hill is scheduled to be leaving soon.”
    â€œThe Blue Hill ?”
    â€œThe ferry that goes to Baddeck.” He pulled out his watch. “She leaves in about five min—”
    His words were drowned out by the blast of a loud horn.
    â€œThat would be the Blue Hill letting everybody know she’s almost built up a big enough head of steam to be heading out,” he