"I'm in hard luck. Got scooped up to the White Elephant and want you to
give me a luck charm."

The eyes of the hag glittered greedily as Sam held out a five-dollar
bill, and throwing the door wide open she bade him enter.

As Sam did so his experienced eye took in the whole room, the skull,
charts, bottles and even the cards did not escape his gaze.

Nance pushed forward a chair, and telling him under pain of breaking the
spell not to utter a word, she retired behind the curtain.

Left alone Sam took a more deliberate survey of the apartment and could
hardly repress an exclamation of satisfaction as he saw lying on the
floor the old slouch hat which Chip had worn the preceding day. His
face, however, showed nothing as Nance reappeared bearing in one hand a
peculiar lamp, scrolled and formed in a fanciful pattern and in the
other a large book bound in parchment, covered with hieroglyphics.
Putting the lamp on the table she extinguished the gas, and the pale-
blue flame of the alcohol in the lamp cast its ghastly beams over the
strange place.

Muttering rapidly to herself she threw powder on the flame, causing a
green flash to appear each time, with her eyes fastened on the open
pages of the book.

Amused at the hollow fraud, Sam looked on, very much interested and
racking his brain to devise some means of gaining a further entrance to
the house. From its outside appearance he knew he must be in one of the
rear rooms, and if Chip was not behind the curtain he must be in an