CHAPTER VI
THE CROOKED GAME
"Clickity-click, clickity-click, clickity-click," the monotonous songof the rails told off the miles as the heavy train rushed westwardbetween the endless cornfields of a flat middle State. To thewell-built athletic young man who was one of the four occupants of thelittle end-room, smoking compartment, the outlook was anything butcheerful.
As far as the eye could reach long rows of shriveled husks, from whichthe season's crop of yellow ears had been torn, flapped dejectedlyagainst their dried and broken stalks. Here and there a square of rich,black loam, freshly turned, bespoke the forehanded farmer; while in thefields of his neighbors straggling groups of cattle and hogs gleanedhalf-heartedly in the standing roughage.
"Not much for scenery, is it?" The offensively garrulous passengerdirected his remarks to the young man, who abstractedly surveyed thelandscape. "No, sir," he continued, "you've got to go West for Scenery.Ever been West?"
The young man nodded without removing his gaze from the window.
"I live in Colo_ray_do," the other persisted. "Went out there for myhealth--and I stayed. Johnson's my name. I'm in the mining business."
His eyes swept the compartment to include the others in the too evidentgeniality of their glance.
"Now that we're all acquainted," he ventured--"how about a little gameof seven-up, just to pass away the time? How about you, dad?"
Thus flippantly he addressed the ruddy-faced, middle-aged gentleman ingray tweeds, whose attention was apparently concentrated upon thelengthening ash of his cigar.
With enthusiasm undampened by the curtness of the latter's refusal, heturned to the remaining passenger--a youth upon whose lip sprouted atenderly pruned mustache, so obviously new that it looked itchy.
"How about you, captain?" The top-heavy youth closed his magazine andunlocked a brain-cell.
"I don't mind." He ostentatiously consulted a very gold watch. "Must bein Chicago this evening," he muttered quite audibly, pulling a ten,twent, thirt frown that caused his labial foliage to rustle withimportance.
He drew from his pocket a card upon which the ink was scarcely dry andhanded it to the effervescent Johnson, who read aloud:
Mr. LINCOLN S. TARBEL Municipal Investigator
"You see," explained its owner, "it has reached the ears of themanaging editor of my paper in South Bend that vice in various formsflourishes in Chicago! Thereupon he immediately sent for me and ordereda sweeping investigation."
Further information was forestalled by the entrance of a suave-manneredindividual who introduced himself as a cigar salesman, and who wasreadily induced to take a hand in the game.
The lightning-like glances that passed between the newcomer and theWestern Mr. Johnson, while entirely unnoted by the investigator ofmunicipal vice, aroused the interest of the athletic young man to thepoint of assenting to make the fourth. Here, evidently, was somethingabout to be pulled off, and he decided to be actively among thosepresent.
The game progressed through several uneventful deals. Suddenly Johnson,scrutinizing a hand dealt him by the cigar salesman, emitted a lowwhistle.
"If we were playing poker now I'd have something to say!"
"Oh, I don't know! I've got some poker hand myself," opined the dealer."Discard one, to make a five-card hand, and I bet you five dollars Ibeat you."
"You're on!" Each produced a bill which he handed to the athletic youngman to hold.
"Three eights and a pair of deuces," boasted the Westerner, exposingthe full hand upon the board.
"Beats three kings," admitted the other, ruefully laying down his hand.The winner pocketed the money with an exaggerated wink in the directionof the newspaper youth who had been an interested spectator.
The game progressed, and before many deals another challenge was passedand accepted between the two. This time it was the salesman whoprofited to the extent of twenty-five dollars which he received fromthe stakeholder with the remark that he would bet his whole roll on ajack full any old day.
The elderly gentleman smoked in silence and amused himself by mentallycataloguing the players. Suddenly his attention became riveted.
What he saw jarred harshly upon his estimate of the athletic young manwho, at the conclusion of his deal, dexterously slipped some cardsbeneath the table from his pile of tricks, then, bunching the pack,passed it to the Westerner for the next deal.
He was on the point of exposing this cheap bit of knavery when theyoung man glanced in his direction. Something in the steady gaze of thegray eyes, though for the life of him he could not have told what,stayed his purpose, and he settled into his seat, more puzzled thanbefore.
"If it had been any one of the others," he thought to himself; "andthen to think that he turns around and with a look virtually makes me aparty to his tuppenny trickery!"
His reflections were cut short by a sharp exclamation from theinvestigator of vice who, in spite of his desire to appear composed,was evidently laboring under great excitement.
"I'll bet twenty-five dollars I've got the best poker hand this time!"He was staring at his tight-gripped cards. Johnson looked his handover--and with a careless:
"Here's where I get even," tossed the amount to the athletic young man,who laid his cards upon the table. The cigar salesman broke in:
"Hold on! I'm in on this, too! Got a pretty fair hand myself. And justto show you sports I'm game, I'll make it a hundred."
He passed a handful of bills to the stakeholder and glared defiantly atthe newspaper person who was in the act of returning a bill-fold to hispocket.
"Why, that is all I've got!" he gasped, "and it's expense-money!"
"Well, of course," the other replied, "if you don't care to see myhand, and I don't mind telling you it's more than a middling goodone----"
"I'll bet"--the hand that extracted the neatly folded bills from theleather case shook and the voice rose to a ludicrous falsetto--"I'vegot you beat, and if I had any more money with me I'd come back atyou."
"You've got a watch there," remarked Mr. Johnson. "Let's see it. Iain't going to stay for the raise. My three sevens don't look as goodas they did."
"I paid fifty dollars for it!" piped the youth, passing the watchacross the board. Both men examined it.
"Oh, well, I don't know anything about watches, but I'll take your wordfor it. Stick her up--here's the fifty."
"I've got _four_ aces!" squealed the reporter as he spread them outface upward. He stared wildly at the other, and his hands made wetmarks where they touched the board.
"No good," remarked his opponent blandly. "Mine's hearts--all in a row,with the jack at the top." One by one he laid them down--a straightflush. South Bend stared incredulously at the cards.
"All right, Mr. Stakeholder," laughed the salesman, "pass over thekale. Just slip out a five for your trouble."
"Just a minute." The voice of the stakeholder was quiet and his lipssmiled. The two across the board bristled aggressively and the pluckedone sniffled.
"Well"--there was an ugly note in the cigar salesman's voice--"astraight flush beats four aces, don't it?"
"Oh, yes, there is no question as to that. Are these the same cards wehave been using?"
"Of course they are! What do you mean?" asked the dealer.
"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know. Our friend here has the right toknow that he got a square deal. Count the cards." The look ofapprehension on the faces of the two men faded into smiles.
"Sure thing. That's fair enough," acquiesced the dealer, proceeding togather the cards from the board. Slowly and deliberately he counted;"fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two," he finished. "Here, captain, count themyourself." He handed them to the youth, who mechanically ran themthrough.
"They are all here," he admitted.
"Now, that is funny," smiled the stakeholder, "because last deal Idropped several cards onto the floor. This gentleman saw me do it."
He nodded toward the elderly gentleman, who was now keenly intereste
d,and reached under the table.
"See--here they are. And, by the way, the nine and ten of hearts areamong them. And now, you cheap crooks," he added as he flung a handfulof bills onto the board, "take your money and beat it!"
The two men opposite looked for an instant into the narrowing grayeyes, noted a certain tightening of the square jaw and the clenching ofa pair of very capable fists, and tarried not upon further orders.Sweeping the money into their pockets they quit the compartment,casting venomous back glances toward the young man whose lips couldsmile while his eyes threatened.
"Here is yours, kid. And let me put you wise to something. The firstthing you do when you strike Chicago, buy a ticket to South Bend. Theyare waiting for you in the wicked town--they can see you coming. Thenext ones will spring a real live game, green goods, or wire tapping.They will roll you before you can locate a rescue mission. About theonly form of vice they will give you time to investigate will be whatthe taxi boy does to you.
"The cold-deck stunt you just fell for, sonny, is so old it totters. Itis the identical trick that started the coolness between Brutus andJulius Caesar."
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