Northwest! Part 1

Northwest!

by Harold Bindloss.

I

JIMMY SIGNS A NOTE

The small room at the Canadian hotel was hot and smelt of cigar-smoke and liquor. Stannard put down his cards, shrugged resignedly, and opened the window. Deering smiled and pulled a pile of paper money across the table. He was strongly built and belonged to a mountaineering club, but he was fat and his American dinner jacket looked uncomfortably tight.

Deering's habit was to smile, and Jimmy Leyland had liked his knowing twinkle. Somehow it hinted that you could not cheat Deering, but if you were his friend you could trust him, and he would see you out. Now, however, Jimmy thought he grinned. Jimmy had reckoned on winning the pool, but Deering had picked up the money he imagined was his.

Jackson wiped a spot of liquor from his white shirt and gave the boy a sympathetic glance. Jackson was thin, dark-skinned and grave, and although he did not talk much about himself, Jimmy understood he was rather an important gentleman in Carolina. Stannard had indicated something like this. Stannard and Jimmy were frankly English, but Jimmy was young and the other's hair was touched by white.

Yet Stannard was athletic, and at Parisian clubs and Swiss hotels men talked about his fencing and his exploits on the rocks. He was not a big man, but now his thin jacket was open, the moulding of his chest and the curve to his black silk belt were Greek. All the same, one rather got a sense of cultivation than strength; Stannard looked thoroughbred, and Jimmy was proud he was his friend.

Jimmy was not cultivated. He was a careless, frank and muscular English lad, but he was not altogether raw, because he knew London and Paris and had for some time enjoyed Stannard's society. His manufacturing relations in Lancashire thought him an extravagant fool, and perhaps had grounds for doing so, for since Jimmy had broken their firm control his prudence was not marked.

"I must brace up. Let's stop for a few minutes," he said and went to the window.

The room was on the second floor, and the window opening on top of the veranda, commanded the valley. Across the terrace in front of the hotel, dark pines rolled down to the river, and the water sparkled in the moon.

On the other side a belt of mist floated about the mountain slope and dark rocks went up and melted in the snow. The broken white line ran far North and was lost in the distance. One smelt the sweet resinous scents the soft Chinook wind blew across the wilderness.

Jimmy's glance rested on the river and the vague blue-white field of ice from which the green flood sprang. Now the electric elevators had stopped, the angry current's measured throb rolled across the pines. But for this, all was very quiet, and the other windows opening on the veranda were blank. Jimmy remembered the hotel manager himself had some time since firmly put out the billiard-room lights, when Jimmy was about ten dollars up at pool. He had afterwards won a much larger sum at cards, but his luck had begun to turn.

By and by Stannard came out and jumped on the high top rail. The light from the window touched his face, and his profile, cutting against the dark, was good and firmly lined. His balance on the narrow rail was like a boy's.

"If you carried my weight, you wouldn't get up like that. Two hundred pounds wants some moving," Deering remarked with a noisy laugh.

"I've known you move about an icy slope pretty fast," said Stannard, and taking his hands from the rail, pulled out his watch. "Two o'clock!" he resumed and gave Jimmy a smile. "I rather think you ought to go to bed.

You have not got Deering's steadiness and still are a few dollars up. To stop when your luck is good is a useful plan."

"My legs are steadier than my head," Deering rejoined. "When I played the ten-spot Jimmy saw my game. Cost me five dollars. I reckon I ought to go to bed!"

Jimmy frowned. He was persuaded he was sober, and although Stannard was a very good sort, sometimes his fatherly admonition jarred. Then he had won a good sum from Stannard and must not be shabby. The strange thing was he could not remember how much he had won.

"To stop as soon as my luck turns is not my plan," he said. "I feel I owe you a chance to get your own back."

"Oh, well! If you feel like that, we had better go on; but your fastidiousness may cost you something," Stannard remarked, and Deering hit Jimmy's back.

"You're a sport; I like you! Play up and play straight's your rule."

Jimmy was flattered, although he doubted Deering's soberness. He did play straight, and when he won he did not go off with a walletful of his friends' money. All the same, Jackson's bored look annoyed him, since it rather indicated that he was willing to indulge Jimmy than that he noted his scrupulous fairness. Jimmy resolved to banish the fellow's languor, and when they went back to the card table demanded that they put up the stakes. Jackson agreed resignedly, and they resumed the game.

The room got hotter and the cigar-smoke was thick. Sometimes Stannard went to the ice-pail and mixed a cooling drink. Jimmy meant to use caution, but his luck had turned, and excitement parched his mouth. By and by Stannard, who was dealing, stopped.

"Your play is wild, Jimmy," he remarked. "I think you have had enough."

Jimmy turned to the others. His face was red and his gesture boyishly theatrical.

"I play for sport, not for dollars. I don't want your money, and now you're getting something back, we'll put up the bets again."

"Then, since your wad is nearly gone, somebody must keep the score,"

said Jackson, and Stannard pulled out his note-book.

Jimmy took another drink and tried to brace up. His luck, like his roll of bills, was obviously gone, but when he was winning the others had not stopped, and he did not want them, so to speak, to let him off. When he lost he could pay. But this was not important, and he must concentrate on his cards. The cards got worse and as a rule the ace he thought one antagonist had was played by another. At length Stannard pushed back his chair from the table.

"Three o'clock and I have had enough," he said, and turned to Jimmy. "Do you know how much you are down?"

Jimmy did not know, but he imagined the sum was large, and when Stannard began to reckon he went to the window. Day was breaking and mist rolled about the pines. The snow was gray and the high rocks were blurred and dark. Jimmy heard the river and the wind in the trees. The cold braced him and he vaguely felt the landscape's austerity. His head was getting steadier, and perhaps it was the contrast, but when he turned and looked about the room he was conscious of something like disgust. Stannard, occupied with his pencil, knitted his brows, and now his graceful carelessness was not marked; Jimmy thought his look hard and calculating. Yet Stannard was his friend and model. He admitted he was highly strung and perhaps his imagination cheated him.

He was not cheated about the others. Now a reaction from the excitement had begun, he saw Deering and Jackson as he had not seen them before.

Deering's grin was sottish, the fellow was grossly fat, and he fixed his greedy glance on Stannard's note-book. Jackson, standing behind Stannard, studied the calculations, as if he meant to satisfy himself the sum was correct. Jimmy thought them impatient to know their share and their keenness annoyed him. Then Stannard put up his book.

"It looks as if your resolve to play up was rash," he remarked and stated the sum Jimmy owed. "Can you meet the reckoning?"

"You know I'm broke. You're my banker and must fix it for me."

Stannard nodded. "Very well! What about your bet in the billiard-room?"

"Nothing about it. I made the stroke."

Deering grinned indulgently, and when Jackson shrugged, Jimmy's face got red.

"If they're not satisfied, give them the lot; I don't dispute about things like that," he said haughtily. "Write an acknowledgment for all I owe and I'll sign the note."

Stannard wrote and tore the leaf from his note-book, but he now used a fountain pen. Jimmy took the pen, signed the acknowledgment and went off. When he had gone Deering looked at Stannard and laughed.

"Your touch is light, but if the boy begins to feel your hand he'll kick. Anyhow, I'll take my wad."

Stannard gave him a roll of paper money and turned to Jackson.

"I'll take mine," said Jackson. "In the morning I pull out."

"You stated you meant to stop for a time."

"There's nothing in the game for me, and I don't see what Deering expects to get," said Jackson in a languid voice. "I doubt if you'll keep him long; the boys in his home section, on the coast, reckon he puts up a square deal. Anyhow, you can't have my help."

Stannard gave him a searching glance and Deering straightened his big body. Jackson's glance was quietly scornful.

"A hundred dollars is a useful sum, but my mark's higher, and I play with men. Maybe I'll meet up with some rich tourists at the Banff hotels," he resumed, and giving the others a careless nod, went off.

"A queer fellow, but sometimes his mood is nasty," said Deering. "I felt I'd like to throw him over the rails."

"As a rule, his sort carry a gun," Stannard remarked.

Deering wiped some liquor from the table, picked up Jimmy's gla.s.s, which was on the floor, and put away the cards.