by Max Brand
His singing ended, and his red eye brightened and cleared, as he stared down upon the valley beneath him. It was plain that he was laying his plans rapidly. The sunset reddened, darkened, and then through the evening shadows they could mark two groups of twinkling lights, one to the left and one to the right. To the town upon the right they steered their course.
It seemed that instinct had guided the fat man aright. Even before they reached the bridge across the little river, Jarvin knew that he was right. For there were other vehicles journeying toward the town. Carts and buggies whirled along past the tired mustangs, and gay voices floated back to the journeyers. When they crossed the bridge over the creek, they could hear the widespread bellowing of hundreds of cattle.
Lawson Creek was celebrating its fair. The streets were lighted; every window showed a lamp, and an unusual activity stirred up the dust of the winding lanes. At the hotel, one room was vacant. It was enough — a little corner room with a single cot in it, but some extra blankets could be rolled down on the floor for the second and the third members of the party. So Soapy shouldered the baggage and carried the entire mass of it up the narrow stairs at a single journey. Peter, negotiating the stairway dexterously, saw that all possible arrangements were made for their comfort, but fat Mike Jarvin was concerned a greater matter than this. His first act was to open the window, not for the sake of more fresh air, but to scan the slope the roof beneath them. It descended fairly close to the ground, and Mr. Jarvin asked the advice of Peter soberly.
“Could a gent jump to the ground, yonder, without busting his leg?”
“Yes,” answered Peter.
“All right,” said Jarvin. “We want a place like that. A lot better than a front room with thirty feet between you and a hard street. I tell you what, Pete, when you get ready for fun, there’s nothing like having the way clear for your retreat, eh? That’s generalship, Pete, ain’t it?”
Peter said nothing, but it was not necessary to give an answer.
Jarvin continued: “The hosses is fagged out, Soapy. Go spot a good tough span of mustangs somewhere. Trade in my pair and get the others. A hundred dollars ought to be boot enough. Then you get those new mustangs sized up and have the buckboard ready. And see that the saddles are on the three horses. Maybe we’ll have to start away from here sudden and fast. If we got the time, we’ll go in the buckboard, but, if we ain’t got the time, we’ll travel in the saddle. Y’understand? You be ready at that end with the life line. Pete and me is gonna be busy.”
Afterward, while they ate dinner, the satisfaction of Mr. Jarvin increased by leaps and bounds. There was a swirl of noise and excitement and tobacco smoke around them. Somewhere in the distance, Soapy was finding a meal to his own satisfaction and seeing to the exchange of the horses. It left Peter and Jarvin alone, and the latter unburdened his heart freely.
“When I hear folks talking like this and joking and scraping chairs and hollering and laughing, it makes me feel pretty good, Pete.”
“You like to see people happy, eh?” asked Peter, raising his brows a little, for this was a touch of humanity such as he would never have guessed in the other before.
“Happy? The devil, yes,” replied honest Mike. “Because when I hear that noise, it sounds to me just like the rattling of money. Their change is loose in their pockets, and they’re getting ready to get rid of it. Why, when that time comes, they don’t have to ask anybody to hold out a sack to catch what drops. Old Mike Jarvin will be there to rake in the coin. Old Mike Jarvin will be there, ready to take what they got to spare. That’s the kind of a burden that I love to take off of the shoulders of other folks, Pete.” He laughed and rolled a little from side to side, so complete was his joy. “There’s something fat coming in now. There’s one of them chaps that’s known as ‘good’ boys, Pete. Handsome, quiet, discreet-looking. But you lay to it, that there’s just as much of the devil tied up inside of him as there is inside of any man. Some of the neatest hauls that I ever made in my life was made from just such quiet boys as that. Sure, he’s important, too. He’s the son of somebody. Look at the two old gents get up to shake hands with him. Look at the way that they slap him on the shoulder. Why, son, that’s a sign that he’s too big for them to trim, and that’s why they admire him so much. Now, Pete, I’d like to get that fish on my hook. Because the amount of coin that I’d get out of him would surprise you a lot. A whole lot, old son.” He grinned again.
Peter, not realizing why Mike had indulged in this elaborate description, ventured a glance over his shoulder. Then he knew — for he saw the fine, clear eye and the handsome face of none other than Charles Hale. He turned his head hastily back, and shuddered a little. Peeling that he had hardened himself against the opinion of the world, he had tried to tell himself that it all made no difference, and that he would go on his way, regardless of the manner in which others might look upon him. But now he shrank as from a whip at the thought of meeting Charlie and talking with him, hearing the hurrying questions and answering them with — what lies?
He would have to tell the truth, and a gloomy truth that would be. While he was brooding over this so deeply, he heard little of what his companion was saying in the interim. Finally he did hear Jarvin ask: “Now, Pete, did you ever take a hand in a little game of poker?”
“In a crooked game, do you mean?” asked Peter.
“It’s a lot better to call it an arranged game, Pete. But I ain’t the man to dodge facts. Crooked you can call it, if you want to.”
Peter raised his fine head and smiled. “I think that you’re joking, Mike.”
Jarvin regarded him an instant and blinked. “Sure, I’m joking.” And he turned his talk to other channels.
The arrangement was not difficult, after all. Peter was not to be asked to offer protection, except against the most imminent destruction. In that case, he would come to the rescue — but not otherwise. He would not have to sit at the table. All that would be required would be that Peter take his place somewhere in the room where his patron started gambling. Then he could keep an eye upon the events as they passed. Only in case of a crisis would he be asked to give help.
It was a bitter pill, but Peter saw that he would have to swallow it. After all, it was rather a nice point as to whether protecting a thief was not as bad as thievery itself. Peter tried to tell himself that, in the final outcome of the business, he could say that the thing in which he was interested was not in the knavery of the fat man or in any of his acts of sharp practice, but merely in the preservation of Jarvin from danger. Consoling himself as well as he could with that thought, he prayed that there would be no need for his intervention.
There were a dozen places where game’s were running that night. The cattlemen and the miners, flushed with money, staked high. In the room where Jarvin selected a chair at a corner table — with a great, gaping window conveniently behind him — there was already a bustling crowd when they entered.
The chairs, presently, would not hold a third of the people who wanted to play. A shifting crowd began to pass back and forth, pausing to stare at the play, and then shift on. Behind that screen stood Peter, propped between his crutches and the wall, his steel-braced legs holding him up without effort on his part. Between the heads and over the shoulders of the others, he could look down and watch the progress of Jarvin’s campaign.
CHAPTER XXVII
IT WAS A liberal education in roguery to watch the progress of Mike Jarvin. Having secured that chair near the open window through which a single backward leap would carry him, fat Mike entered the game with a softness that amazed Peter. In his innocence, Peter expected wild exploits to begin at once, expected looks of wonder, envy, and, presently, of rage to be cast at the stranger. He found to his astonishment that Mike seemed the very least important person at that table. His bets were certainly not a whit larger than those of the others. Indeed, he seemed to stake his money unwillingly. As for cleverness at the cards, Jarvin surprised him by losing time and again. Whatever
he did was wrong. If he bet cautiously with a powerful hand, no one cared to stay. If he tried It gallant bluff, he was sure to be called after he had pushed a quantity of cash onto the table.
There was only one way in which Mike Jarvin began to be conspicuous at that table, and this was through his successive losses. Indeed, he began to be little better than a joke. They smiled faintly — poker smiles — as he lost round after round, They looked swiftly at one another as he attacked the dealing of the pack and, in the vigor of his shuffling, spilled the cards upon the floor. Then, as he dealt slowly and clumsily around the table, perspiring, someone could not help asking, in a mingled tone of contempt and amusement and pity: “What might your business be... when you ain’t playing cards, stranger?”
General smiles were suppressed with difficulty. Mike answered gently: “Mining is my business, friends. That’s what I do for a living. Not card playing, as you might suspect.”
The faces of the others at the gaming table turned purple with suppressed laughter at this remark. Another rancher said dryly: “Matter of fact, sir, I was sort of thinking that maybe you made a regular thing of this.”
“Oh, no,” said the innocent Mike, “I just have a fling at it now and then.”
Laughter could not be held in longer, at this point, and there was a universal shout of joy at this simplicity.
However, he was a miner. No one who digs his gold out of the ample wallet of the earth is to be given much pity, when he sits at the gamblers’ table. They looked upon Mr. Jarvin as sure prey, and, to the bewilderment of big Peter, they had what they wanted.
He did not keep a very accurate score of the game, but he was sure that by the time it had proceeded an hour, Jarvin was at least $200 or $300 out of pocket. There was an interruption here, as one of the players plunged foolishly on three aces and was neatly and briefly trimmed by the florid lumberman who sat to the left of Jarvin.
“That’s me, boys,” said the loser. “I’m done, if you don’t object.” And he left the game.
“Who’s next?” asked the red-faced lumberman as he raked in the spoils of war. “Who’s next, gents? How about you, sir?”
“Why,” said the familiar voice of Charlie Hale, “I’m not much at this sort of thing, but I’ll take a hand.” Being next to the vacant chair, he slipped into it.
Peter bit his lip in vexation. But, after all, the chair of Charlie had its back turned to him, and there was not a great chance that his cousin should turn about and see him. At least, he I profoundly hoped not.
His entrance made no great difference. It was plain by his very manner in holding his cards that he was not an expert at the game of poker, but it was equally plain that he intended to invest in the contest all his natural store of good sense and discretion. He lost his first two bets, but he recouped handsomely on the third round. Still Jarvin had not won a bet.
“You was down buying some of those Herefords of the Giveney Ranch?” asked a withered cowpuncher at the right of Charlie.
“Yes.”
“They beat everything on the range... those Herefords,” said the cowpuncher with conviction.
“I believe that they do very well, on this part of the range,” said Charles with a modesty that became his youth.
There was a general nodding of heads around the table. They respected this young man a very great deal. That was plain. They respected him just as much as they were inclined to laugh at poor Mike Jarvin who, however, suddenly won a small stake.
“First win in the last hour, ain’t it?” asked the lumberman with a broad grin.
“Yes” — Mike sighed— “luck has been ag’in’ me, a little. But maybe it’ll set my way, pretty soon, eh?”
He looked about the table with such an open and confident smile that even Peter found himself shaking his head and smiling in shame and amusement at such a foolish confidence in Dame Fortune. As for the rest, they had now reached the point where they were beginning to pass the wink openly to one another concerning Jarvin.
However, the game lapsed into its former drowsy quiet until Peter heard someone saying: “Here’s fifteen hundred to see that.”
It was the voice of Charlie — and, behold, Charles had lost. $2,000 passed from his pocket at that one stroke. It was by some hundreds higher than any betting of the evening. There was a half-frightened look on the faces of most of the others at the table. Even the red-faced lumberman — who had won again — did not seem more pleased by his victory than he was awed by it. But Charles was sitting very erect in his chair, smiling cheerfully upon the others.
There was a world of battle behind that smile, and Peter could not help guessing that his cousin was in for a little elbow rubbing with misfortune that evening.
A moment later, Charlie was betting still more hugely. Three others remained in the pot with him. The bets climbed slowly out of the hundreds, into the small thousands — until one stopped — and only the red-faced lumberman and Mike remained with Charles. And Charles won.
He had recouped all of his losses without much waste of time. It occurred to Peter that a level head and a sound set of active wits might carry a novice even over worse reefs than this. But Mike’s behavior amazed him even more than this. For he was saying: “That’s the way! Sort of tickles me to see the money trickling out like this. Win big or lose big. That’s what I feel like this evening. What about it, boys?”
He was as good as his word. He dropped $1,500 in the very next pot, and Charles won again.
Said someone near Peter: “Now, I don’t mind seeing a greenhorn plucked but darned if there ain’t a limit. Now that poor, old fat fool whatever his name might be... he’s had enough. They’d ought to get him out of the game.”
Peter bit his lip. If only they could know the name of yonder simple old fellow.
But the game had entered upon a new phase. The red-faced lumberman was suddenly out of the match. He had lost to Charles, and then a crashing stake had gone to Jarvin, his first big winning of the evening. The lumberman ran for shelter. The others had gone there before him. There was only Mike Jarvin and Charles. And the stakes were nothing but thousands.
It occurred to Peter that this was a crime against his own blood. He should step up and whisper a word to Charles and warn him that he sat at the table with one of the biggest rogues in the world. But he restrained himself.
For one thing, his Uncle Andrew had piled up enough money to stand a very severe loss indeed, and if there was any such wildness as this in Charlie’s blood, it was far better that he should have it out before he came into all of his father’s lands.
There was no question as to how the game would run now Jarvin had begun to win. And he had managed it so that everyone looked upon him with a sort of wondering sympathy. It was, in fact, that run of luck for which Mike had been waiting all the evening.
“Looks like I can’t lose,” honest Mike said. “A while back it looked like I couldn’t win. Now, stranger, I’ll tell you what. If I was you, I wouldn’t play any more tonight. It ain’t your lucky night for winning.”
“Never mind that,” snapped Charles. “It’s your deal, I believe.”
Oh, yes, it was the deal of Mr. Jarvin. His fat fingers seemed to have grown more clumsy than ever as they struggled with the recalcitrant pack of cards. Even so, it was a strangely lucky pack for him.
Here was Charles writing on a scrap of paper: I owe you ten thousand dollars. Signed — Charles Hale.
“Is that good with you?” he asked.
“Why, man, I dunno your name,” said Jarvin, “but your face looks honest to me. Sure your signature is good. Only... I would just like to advise you that since you have begun to lose... maybe it would be better if we quit now. You’ve lost pretty near twenty thousand dollars, Mister Hale.”
It cast a hush over the crowd. This, indeed, was gambling upon a large scale. Charles, stiff and straight in his chair, played with perfect calm. Only his face was a little pale, and his back was rigid. He was doing the usual foolish
thing. He was plunging to recoup, doubling his bets. The minutes were dizzy ones that saw poor Charlie betting $5,000 on two kings. Yet he had an excellent hand the next moment. The bets passed hastily back and forth — I.O.U.s from Charlie, money and more of the same slips for Jarvin.
Then came the call — three sevens and a pair of deuces in the hand of Charlie, a pair of deuces and three jacks in the hand of Mike Jarvin.
“I congratulate you,” said Charles as he pushed back his chair. “That’s as far as I care to go this evening. I’ve finished.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
SO CHARLES WALKED from the room with his head high and his eyes calm, glances of respect trailing after him, as much as to say: “There’s a man.”
But when they looked back to Mike Jarvin, they shook their heads and smiled. “A lucky old fool,” was the general comment.
“I hope,” Jarvin was saying, “that boy can stand losin’ as much money as that. Who might he be? Name of Charles Hale. Can he stand it?”
“Is that Charlie Hale?” said a bystander. “Sure he can stand it. Or his old man can stand it for him. Got millions, I guess. Rich as the devil. It won’t hurt them none.”
“Well, well!” exclaimed Mr. Jarvin. “Dog-gone me if I ever cleaned up like this before. I guess that I’d ought to shut up shop, after that, eh?”
They entreated him to stay. They knew that his pockets were loaded with a fortune, and not a small fortune, at that. If only he would sit in at a game where the stakes were not rushed over their heads — they were willing and confident enough that they could take away the last penny of his gold, by easy degrees.
But nothing could persuade him to remain. He had played out his lucky streak. Some other day, perhaps, if they still wanted to play. He waded through the crowd, and Peter found himself following behind the other with a half smile upon his lips. In the street, he came up with Jarvin and found the miner bursting with happiness.