Claim Number One Part 20

"Hold on!" said the doctor as Hun was tilting the box to throw. "Cover that money before you throw. I've got six hundred dollars down there, and I want you to count out three thousand by the side of it."

"Well, I've got the money, friend, if that's what you doubt," said Shanklin, with a lofty air of the injured gentleman.

He drew a sheaf of bills from the valise and, in the stillness of awe which had come over the crowd, counted down the required amount.

"I've won fortunes, gentlemen, and I've lost 'em," said Shanklin, taking up the box again. "Keep your eye on the dice."

He was so certain of what would come out of the box that he reached for the money before the dice had settled, ready to sweep it away. But a change came over his face, as of sudden pain, when he saw the result of the throw, and with a little dry snort his hand shot out toward the revolver which lay beside his valise.

The little man with whiskers, admirably cool, got there first. Hun Shanklin was looking into the end of his own gun, and unloading, through the vent of his ugly, flat mouth, the acc.u.mulated venom of his life. He was caught in his own trap by a sharper man than himself, a being that up to that minute he had believed the world could not produce.

Dr. Slavens quickly gathered the money. The others around the table, blazing now in their desire to get a division of fortune's favors, put down their bets and called loudly for the gamekeeper to cover them.

"Game's closed," Shanklin announced, shutting up his valise, into which he had tossed both dice and box.

He made a move as if to part the tent-wall behind him.

"Hold on!" said the doctor, s.n.a.t.c.hing off his goggles and pushing up the brim of his hat. "I've got another score to settle with you, Shanklin.

Do you know me now?"

Shanklin didn't wait to reply. He dropped to his knees just as Slavens reached for him, catching the collar of his coat. In an instant the gambler was gone, but his coat was in Dr. Slavens' hand, a circ.u.mstance from which the a.s.sembled men drew a great deal of merriment.

The chief of police, remiss in his high duty, should have been there to sustain Shanklin's hand, according to their gentlemanly agreement when the partnership was formed. He arrived too late. Shanklin was gone, and from the turmoil in the tent the chief concluded that he had trimmed somebody in his old-fashioned, comfortable way. So his duty, as he saw it in that moment, lay in clearing them out and dispersing them, and turning deaf ears to all squeals from the shorn and skinned.

Dr. Slavens and his friend had nothing to linger for. They were the first to leave, the doctor carrying Shanklin's coat under his arm, the pockets of his own greasy makeshift bulging with more money than he ever had felt the touch of before. As they hurried along the dark street away from the scene of their triumph, the little man with fiery whiskers did the talking.

"Mackenzie is my name," said he, all of the suspicion gone out of him, deep, feeling admiration in its place, "and if you was to happen up to southern Montana you'd find me pretty well known. I've got fifty thousand sheep on the range up there, average four dollars a head, and I'd hand half of 'em over to you right now if you'd show me how you turned that trick. That was the slickest thing I ever saw!"

"It wouldn't do you any good at all to know how it was done," said Slavens, "for it was a trick for the occasion and the man we worked it on. The thing for us to do is to go to some decent, quiet place and divide this money."

"Give me my two hundred and the stake," said Mackenzie, "and keep the rest. I don't need money; I've got two national banks full of it up there in Montana now."

"Lord knows I need it!" said the doctor, beginning to sweat over the nearness to visions which he once believed he should never overhaul.

He stepped along so fast in his eagerness to come up with and lay hands on them that Mackenzie was thrown into a trot to keep up.

"I don't know who you are or where you came from," said Mackenzie, "but you're not a crook, anyhow. That money's yours; you got it out of him as beautiful as I ever saw a man skinned in my day. But if you don't want to tip it off, that's your business."

"It was a chance," said the doctor, recalling a night beside the river and the words of Agnes when she spoke of that theme, "and I had the sense and the courage for once to take it."

In the cafe-tent where they had taken their supper they sat with a stew of canned oysters between them, and made the division of the money which the lost die had won. Mackenzie would accept no more than the two hundred dollars which he had lost on Shanklin's game, together with the five hundred and ten advanced in the hope of regaining it.

It was near midnight when they parted, Mackenzie to seek his lodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in the hope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit of clothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done, he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him to his rest.

Sitting there on the side of his bed, he explored the pockets of Hun Shanklin's coat. There were a number of business cards, advertising various concerns in Comanche, which Shanklin had used for recording his memoranda; two telegrams, and a printed page of paper, folded into small s.p.a.ce. There was nothing more.

The paper was an extra edition of _The Chieftain_, such as the doctor had grown sadly familiar with on the day of the drawing. With a return of the heartsickness which he had felt that day, he unfolded it far enough to see the date. It was the day of the drawing. He dropped the half-folded sheet to the floor and took up the telegrams.

One, dated the day before, was from Meander. The other was evidently Shanklin's reply, which perhaps had not been filed, or perhaps was a copy. The first read:

Can close with Peterson if you are sure he will be Number One.

Be certain on numbers N. W. quar. 6-12-33. Repeat.

Jerry.

The reply which Shanklin had written and perhaps sent, preserving a copy in his crafty, cautious way, was:

Peterson is Number One. N. W. quarter 6-12-33 is right.

There was neither name nor address on the telegram, but it was easy to see that it was for "Jerry" at Meander. Some deal was on foot, a crooked deal, no doubt, between Shanklin and somebody for something in which Peterson and Number One----

Hold on! Slavens sat up with a quickening of interest in those two words which he thought he never should feel again. Peterson! That was the name of the winner of Number One. Certainly! Queer that he didn't put two and two together at the first glance, thought he. He wondered how much they were paying Peterson for his relinquishment, and what there was in the northwest quarter of Section Six, Township Twelve, Range Thirty-three, that Hun Shanklin wanted to get his hands on.

Well, it was interesting, at any rate, even though he didn't draw himself. In a flash he thought of Agnes and of her hopes, and her high number, and wondered whether she had gone to Meander to file. Slavens held up Shanklin's coat by the collar and ran through the pockets in the hope of finding something that would yield further particulars.

There was nothing else in the coat. It didn't matter, he reflected; his interest in Claim Number One was gone forever. He didn't care who had it, or what was done with it, or whether Hun Shanklin and the man called Jerry gave ten thousand dollars for it or ten cents.

But that was a pretty good coat. It was a great deal better and more respectable than the one he had on, and it looked as if it might come nearer fitting. True, Shanklin was a thin man; but he was wide.

The doctor put on the garment. It was a very comfortable fit; the sleeves were a little long, but there was room enough in the shoulders.

Surprising, said he, how wide that old rascal was in the chest. He transferred his money to Hun Shanklin's pockets, chuckling at the thought that he was returning it whence it came. In conscience, said he, if conscience required such a palliative, he had made rest.i.tution.

On the floor at his foot lay the extra. In falling it had presented to his view the other side of the fold. The ruled, double-column box, with the surrounding type lifted irregularly around it, attracted his attention. He picked it up, sat again on the edge of the bed, and read his own name printed there as the winner of Number One.

He couldn't make it out. He turned the paper, looking again at the date.

"Owing to a mistake in transmitting the news," he read. He got up and walked the length of his compartment, the paper in his hand. How was that? Number One--he was the winner of Number One! How was that? How _was_ that?

There was fortune's caper for you! Number One! And the time past--or but a few hours between then and the limit--for stepping up and claiming it!

And Hun Shanklin had a hand in it. Wait a minute--wait!

Hun Shanklin, and a man called Jerry, and Peterson, the Swede. But Shanklin, who sent telegrams a.s.suring somebody that Peterson was Number One--Shanklin most of all. Slavens pa.s.sed his hand with tentative pressure over the soiled bandage which bound his brow, feeling with finger and thumb along the dark stain which traced what it hid from sight. Shanklin! That would explain some things, many things. Perhaps all things.

He stood there, counting on his fingers like a schoolboy, frowning as he counted. One--two--three. The third day--that was the third day. And he was Number One. And he had lost!

Out in the office of the lodging-place a lamp burned smokily at the elbow of an old man who read a paper by its light.

"This should be the twenty-eighth, according to my reckoning," said Slavens, appearing before him and speaking without prelude.

The old man looked up, unfriendly, severe.

"You're purty good at figures," said he.

He b.u.mped his bony shoulders over his paper again.

Undaunted, Slavens asked him the hour. The old clerk drew out a cheap watch and held it close to his grizzled face.

"Time for all honest men but me and you to be in bed, I reckon. It's a quarter to one."