by Rex Beach
When she had pled with him for himself a moment before Cherry Malotte was genuine and girlish but now as he spoke thus of the other woman a change came over her which he was too disturbed to note. She took on the subtleness that masked her as a rule, and her eyes were not pleasant.
“I could have told you all that and more.”
“More! What more?” he questioned.
“Do you remember when I warned you arid Dextry that they were coming to search your cabin for the gold? Well, that girl put them on to you. 1 found it out afterwards. She keeps the keys to McNamara’s safety vault where your dust lies, and she’s the one Who handles the Judge. It isn’t McNamara at all” The woman lied easily, fluently, and the man behaved her.
“Do you remember when they broke into you safe and took that money?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what made them think you had ten thousand in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. Dextry told her.”
Glenister arose. “That’s all I want to hear now. I’m going crazy. My mind aches, for I’ve never had a fight like this before and it hurts. You see, I’ve been an animal all these years When I wanted to drink, I drank, and what I wanted, I got, because I’ve been string enough to take it. This is new to me. I’m going down-stairs now and ‘try to think of something else—then I’m going home.”
When he had gone she pulled back the curtains, and leaning her chin in her hands, with elbows on the ledge, gazed down upon the crowd. The show was over and the dance had begun, but She did not see it, for she was thinking rapidly with the eagerness of one who sees the end of a long and weary search. She did not notice the Bronco Kid beckoning to her nor the man with him, So the gambler brought his friend along and invaded her box. He introduced the man as Mr. Champian.
“Do you feel like dancing?” the new-comer inquired.
“No; I’d rather look on. I feel sociable. You’re a society man, Mr. Champian. Don’t you know anything of interest? Scandal or the like?”
“Can’t say that I do. My wife attends to all that for the family But I know there’s lots of it. It’s funny td me, the airs some of these people assume up here, just as though we weren’t all equal, north of Fifty-three. I never heard the like.”
“Anything new and exciting?” inquired Bronco, mildly interested.
“The last I heard was about the Judged niece, Miss Chester.”
Cherry Malotte turned abruptly, while the Kid slowly lowered the front legs of his chair to the floor,
“What Was it?” she inquired,
“Why, it seems she compromised herself pretty badly with this fellow Glenister coming up on the steamer last spring. Mighty brazen, according to my wife. Mrs. Champian was on the same ship and says she was horribly shocked”
Ah! Glenister had told her only half the tale, thought the girl. The truth was baring itself. At that moment Champian thought she looked the typical creature of the dance-halls, the crafty, jealous, malevolent adventuress.
“And the hussy masquerades as a lady,” she sneered.
“She is a lady,” said the Kid. He sat bolt upright and rigid, and the knuckles of his clinched hands were very white. In the shadow they did not note that his dark face was ghastly, nor did he say more except to bid Champian good-bye when he left, later on. After the door had closed, however, the Kid arose and stretched his muscles, not languidly, but as though to take out the cramp of long tension. He wet his lips, and his mouth was so dry that the sound caused the girl to look up.
“What are you grinning at?” Then, as the light struck his face, she started. “My! How you look! What ails you? Are you sick?” No one, from Dawson down, had seen the Bronco Kid as he looked tonight.
“No. I’m not sick,” he answered, in a cracked voice.
Then the girl laughed harshly.
“Do you love that girl, too? Why, she’s got every man in town crazy.”
She wrung her hands, which is a bad sign in a capable person, and as Glenister crossed the floor below in her sight she said, “Ah-h—I could kill him for that!”
“So could I,” said the Kid, and left her without adieu.
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH A MAN IS POSSESSED OF A DEVIL
FOR a long time Cherry Malotte sat quietly thinking, removed by her mental stress to such an infinite distance from the music and turmoil beneath that she was conscious of it only as a formless clamor. She had tipped a chair back against the door, wedging it beneath the knob so that she might be saved from interruption, then flung herself into another seat and stared unseeingly. As she sat thus, and thought, and schemed, harsh and hateful lines seemed to eat into her face. Now and then she moaned impatiently, as though fearing lest the strategy she was plotting might prove futile; then she would rise and pace her narrow quarters. She was unconscious of time, and had spent perhaps two hours thus, when amid the buzz of talk in the next compartment she heard a name which caused her to start, listen, then drop her preoccupation like a mantle. A man was speaking of Glenister. Excitement thrilled his voice.
“I never saw anything like it since McMaster’s Night in Virginia City, thirteen years ago. He’s right,”
“Well, perhaps so,” the other replied, doubtfully, “but I don’t care to back you. I never ‘ staked’ a man in my life.”
“Then lend me the money. I’ll pay it back in an hour, but for Heaven’s sake be quick. I tell you he’s as right as a golden guinea. It’s the lucky night of his life. Why, he turned over the Black Jack game in four bets. In fifteen minutes more we can’t get close enough to a table to send in our money with a messenger-boy—every sport in camp will be here.”
“I’ll stake you to fifty,” the second man replied, in a tone that showed a trace of his companion’s excitement.
So Glenister wag gambling, the girl learned, and with such luck as to break the Black Jack game and excite the greed of every gambler in camp. News of his winnings had gone out into the street, and the sporting men were coming to share his fortune, to fatten like vultures on the adversity of their fellows, Those who had no money to stake were borrowing, like the man next door.
She left her retreat, and, descending the stairs, was greeted by a strange sight. The dance-hall was empty of all but the musicians, who blew and fiddled lustily in vain endeavor to draw from the rapidly swelling crowd that thronged the gambling-room and Stretched to the door. The press was thickest about a table midway down the hall. Cherry could see nothing of what went on there, for men and women Stood ten deep about it and others perched on chairs and tables along the walls. A roar arose suddenly, followed by utter silence; then came the clink and rattle of silver. A moment, and the crowd resumed its laughter and talk.
“All down, boys,” sounded the level voice of the dealer. “The field or the favorite. He’s made eighteen straight passes. Get your money on the line.” There ensued another breathless instant wherein she heard the thud of dice, then followed the shout of triumph that told what the spots revealed. The dealer payed off. Glenister reared himself head and shoulders above the others arid pushed out through the ring to the roulette-wheel. The rest followed. Behind the circular table they had quitted, the dealer was putting away his dice, and there was not a coin in his rack. Mexico Mullins approached Cherry, and she questioned him.
“He just broke the crap game,” Mullins told her; “nineteen passes without losing the bones.”
“How much did he win?”
“Oh, he didn’t win much himself, but it’s the people betting with him that does the damage! They’re gamblers, most of them, and they play the limit. He took out the Black Jack bank-roll first, $4,000, then cleaned the ‘Tub.’ By that time the tin horns began to come in. It’s the greatest run I ever see.”
“Did you get in?”
“Now, don’t you know that I never play anything but batik’? If he lasts long enough to reach the faro lay-out I’ll get mine.”
The excitement of the crowd began to infect the
girl, even though she looked oil from the outside. The exultant voices, the sudden hush, the tensity of nerve it all betokened, set her a-thrill. A stranger left the throng and rushed to the spot where Cherry and Mexico stood talking. He was small and sandy, with shifting glance and chinless jaw. His eyes glittered, his teeth shone ratlike through his dry lips, and his voice wag shrill. He darted towards them like some furtive, frightened little animal, unnaturally excited.
“I guess that isn’t so bad for three bets!” He Shook a sheaf of bank-notes at them.
“Why don’t you stick?” inquired Mullins.
“I am too wise. Ha! I know when to quit. He can’t win steady—he don’t play any system.”
“Then he has a good chance,” said the girl.
“There he goes now,” the little man cried as the uproar arose. “I told you he’d lose.” At the voice of the multitude he wavered as though affected by some powerful magnet.
“But he won again,” said Mexico.
“No! Did he? Lord! I quit too soon!”
He scampered back into the other room, only to return, hesitating, his money tightly clutched.
“Do you s’pose it’s safe? I never saw a man bet so reckless. I guess I’d better quit, eh?” He noted the sneer on the woman’s face, and without waiting a reply dashed off again. They saw him clamorously fight his way in towards a post at the roulette-table. “Let me through! I’ve got money and I want to play it!”
“ Pah!” said Mullins, disgustedly. “ He’s one of them Vermont desperadoes that never laid a bet till he was thirty. If Glenister loses he’ll hate him for life.”
“There are plenty of his sort here,” the girl remarked; “his soul would fit in a flea-track.” She spied the Bronco Kid sauntering back towards her and joined him. He leaned against the wall, watching the gossamer thread of smoke twist upward from his cigarette, seemingly oblivious to the surroundings, and showing no hint of the emotion he had displayed two hours before.
“This is a big killing, isn’t it?” said the girl.
The gambler nodded, murmuring indifferently.
“Why aren’t you dealing bank? Isn’t this your shift?”
“I quit last night.”
“Just in time to miss this affair. Lucky for you.”
“Yes; I own the place now. Bought it yesterday.”
“Good Heavens! Then it’s your money he’s winning.”
“Sure, at the rate of a thousand a minute.”
She glanced at the long trail of devastated tables behind Glenister and his followers. At that instant the sound told that the miner had won again, and it dawned upon Cherry that the gambler beside her stood too quietly, that his hand and voice were too steady, his glance too cold to be natural. The next moment approved her instinct.
The musicians, grown tired of their endeavors to lure back the dancers, determined to join the excitement, and ceased playing. The leader laid down his violin, the pianist trailed up the key-board with a departing twitter and quit his stool. They all crossed the hall, headed for the crowd, some of them making ready to bet. As they approached the Bronco Kid, his lips thinned and slid apart slightly, while out of his heavy-lidded eyes there flared unreasoning rage. Stepping forward, he seized the foremost man and spun him about violently.
“Where are you going?”
“Why, nobody wants to dance, so we thought we’d go out front for a bit.”
“Get back, damn you!” It was his first chance to vent the passion within him. A glance at his maddened features was sufficient for the musicians, and they did not delay. By the time they had resumed their duties, however, the curtains of composure had closed upon the Kid, masking his emotion again; but from her brief glimpse Cherry Malotte knew that this man was not of ice, as some supposed. He turned to her and said, “Do you mean what you said up-stairs?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said you could kill Glenister.”
“I could.”
“Don’t you love—”
I hate him,” she interrupted, hoarsely. He gave her a mirthless smile, and spying the crap-dealer leaving his bankrupt table, called him over and said:
“Toby, I want you to ‘drive the hearse’ when Glenister begins to play faro. I’ll deal. Understand?”
“Sure! Going to give him a little ‘work,’eh?”
“I never dealt a crooked card in this camp,” exclaimed the Kid, “but I’ll ‘lay’ that man to-night or I’ll kill him! I’ll use a ‘sand-tell,’ see! And I want to explain my signals to you. If you miss the signs you’ll queer us both and put the house on the blink.”
He rapidly rehearsed his signals in a jargon which to a layman would have been unintelligible, illustrating them by certain almost imperceptible shiftings of the fingers or changes in the position of his hand, so slight as to thwart discovery. Through it all the girl stood by and followed his every word and motion with eager attention. She needed no explanation of the terms they used. She knew them all, knew that the “hearse-driver” was the man who kept the cases, knew all the code of the “inside life.” To her it was all as an open page, and she memorized more quickly than did Toby the signs by which the Bronco Kid proposed to signal what card he had smuggled from the box or held back.
In faro it is customary for the case-keeper to sit on the opposite side of the table from the dealer, with a device before him resembling an abacus, or Chinese adding-machine. When a card is removed from the faro-box by the dealer, the “hearse-driver” moves a button opposite a corresponding card on his little machine, in order that the players, at a glance, may tell what spots have been played or are still in the box. His duties, though simple, are important, for should he make an error, and should the position of his counters not tally with the cards in the box on the “last turn,” all bets on the table are declared void. When honestly dealt, faro is the fairest of all gambling games, but it is intricate, and may hide much knavery. When the game is crooked, it is fatal, for out of the ingenuity of generations of card sharks there have been evolved a multitude of devices with which to fleece the unsuspecting. These are so carefully masked that none but the initiated may know them, while the freemasonry of the craft is strong and discovery unusual.
Instead of using a familiar arrangement like the “needle-tell,” wherein an invisible needle pricks the dealer’s thumb, thus signalling the presence of certain cards, the Bronco Kid had determined to use the “sand-tell.” In other words, he would employ a “straight box,” but a deck of cards, certain ones of which had been roughened or sand-papered slightly, so that, by pressing more heavily on the top or exposed card, the one beneath would stick to its neighbor above, and thus enable him to deal two with one motion if the occasion demanded. This roughness would likewise enable him to detect the hidden presence of a marked card by the faintest scratching sound when he dealt. In this manipulation it would be necessary, also, to shave the edges of some of the pasteboards a trifle, so that, when the deck was forced firmly against one side of the box, there would be exposed a fraction of the small figure in the left-hand comer of the concealed cards. Long practice in the art of jugglery lends such proficiency as to baffle discovery and rob the game of its uncertainty as surely as the player is robbed of his money. It is, of course, vital that the confederate case-keeper be able to interpret the dealer’s signs perfectly in order to move the sliding ebony disks to correspond, else trouble will accrue at the completion of the hand when the cases come out wrong.
Having completed his instructions, the proprietor went forward, and Cherry wormed her way towards the roulette-wheel. She wished to watch Glenister, but could not get near him because of the crowd. The men would not make room for her. Every eye was glued upon the table as though salvation lurked in its rows of red and black. They were packed behind it until the croupier had barely room to spin the ball, and although he forced them back, they pressed forward again inch by inch, drawn by the song of the ivory, drunk with its worship, maddened by the breath of Chance.
Plainly it was but a question of minutes, so she backed out and took her station beside the faro-table where the Bronco Kid was dealing. His face wore its colorless mask of indifference; his long white hands moved slowly with the certainty that betokened absolute mastery of his art. He was waiting. The ex-crap dealer was keeping cases.
The group left the roulette-table in a few moments and surrounded her, Glenister among the others. He was not the man she knew. In place of the dreary-hopelessness with which he had left her, his face was flushed and reckless, his collar was open, showing the base of his great, corded neck, while the lust of the game had coarsened him till he was again the violent, untamed, primitive man of the frontier. His self-restraint and dignity were gone. He had tried the new ways, and they were not for him. He slipped back, and the past swallowed him.
After leaving Cherry he had sought some mental relief by idly risking the silver in his pocket. He had let the coins lie and double, then double again and again. He had been indifferent whether he won or lost, so assumed a reckless disregard for the laws of probability, thinking that he would shortly lose the money he had won and then go home. He did not want it. When his luck remained the same, he raised the stakes, but it did not change—he could not lose. Before he realized it, other men were betting with him, animated purely by greed and craze of the sport. First one, then another joined till game after game was closed, and each moment the crowd had grown in size and enthusiasm so that its fever crept into him, imperceptibly at first, but ever increasing, till the mania mastered him.