In a ballroom deep in the basement of the Silver Legacy casino, far from the raucous bleeping of the slot machines upstairs, Peter Stremmel stood before a couple hundred people, working hard to sell some paintings. ThirtyIhave. Thirtytwofiveandnowthirtyfive. Thirtysevenfive. Stremmel is the emcee of the annual Coeur d'Alene Art Auction, the biggest Western art sale in the world -- and an event that for the past decade has taken place not in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, but in Reno, Nev. Stremmel, who is 60, has been dealing art since 1969. On this July day, he had already been moving art out the door for two hours in his nicely tailored suit, a pair of reading glasses hung on a cord around his neck. He was given to poignant exclamations of "mercy" when paintings sold for particularly high or -- as happened more frequently -- low prices. At 3 p.m., a