Taking Chances Part 18

"'I don't think I want any more of this, Cuthbert,' he said. 'There is now a great deal of money in the pot. It would be idle for either one of us to say that we could easily afford to lose our respective share in the pot as it stands. And yet, I don't exactly feel like calling you.

I'm too well fixed. I haven't had such a hand at poker since'--

"'That being the case,' said Cuthbert, interrupting, 'why not be a sportsman and play your string?'

"That remark nettled Lescolette just enough to hold him in indefinitely.

There was no more talk on his part.

"'Ten thousand more than you,' he said, short and sharp.

"Then the friends of the two men began to mutter.

"'This is all very fine as an exhibition of gameness,' they said, collectively, 'but there is a stopping point, or should be.'

"When there was nearly $275,000 in the pot both Cuthbert and Lescolette pulled out their notebooks and began to run over their bank accounts.

Both found that they had about tapped their supply of ready banked cash.

They wrote checks, payable to each other's order, for their respective shares of the amount in the pot, and then Cuthbert said:

"'Joe, I can't let down in this. I could never quite forgive myself if I did. Appraise my St. James land.'

"Lescolette protested. He had often visited Cuthbert at his beautiful St. James place. He protested hard. Yet he wouldn't call.

"'Appraise the St. James land, Joe,' said Cuthbert again. Lescolette declined to do it, and Cuthbert appealed to one of his friends to do it.

"'I should say your St. James plantations are worth close to $250,000,'

said this gentleman, unwillingly.

"'Very well,' said Cuthbert. 'Shall I say, Joe, that those three squares of yours on Ca.n.a.l street are worth the same amount?'

"Lescolette nodded gravely.

"'Rather more than they're worth, I should say,' he remarked.

"'Well, they'll serve. I approximate their value,' said Cuthbert, the flush back in his face again and his eyes burning like coals. 'It is now my bet, is it not? Joseph Marie, my St. James plantations, at their appraised value of $250,000, against these, your Ca.n.a.l street property, if you elect-and we'll show down.'

"Lescolette nodded.

"'Old man,' said Cuthbert, then, 'you don't think I play it low down upon you? I couldn't throw them away, you fully understand? Joe, I've got four aces!'

"'Truly?' said Lescolette, inquiringly and quietly. 'Put them down, that we may see.'

"Cuthbert, confident then that he was the winner, nervously placed his hand face up on the table. Lescolette threw down, then, amid a very intense silence, the deuce of hearts, face up. Next, he threw by the side of the deuce the trey of hearts. Then the four of hearts. Then the five of hearts. He halted then for a second. Cuthbert was as haggard looking a man as I ever saw. Lescolette threw down the six of hearts.

"Cuthbert simply said, 'All right, Joe,' walked over to the sideboard, poured out a whopping big tumblerful of brandy, gulped it down, and, with a murmured 'Good morning' (it was dawn) he walked unsteadily out.

That afternoon he made his St. James plantations over to Lescolette, notwithstanding the latter's protests. He had about $20,000 out of the wreck of his estate. He went to Honduras on a prospecting tour, found gold, and died in a Tegucigalpa hut of the fever."

GREAT LUCK AT AN INOPPORTUNE TIME.

_A Poker Game in Abilene, When Abilene Was Bad, in Which a Tenderfoot Came Near Crossing the "Divide."_

"I had so much luck in a poker game I once sat into that I've never played draw since," said a civil engineer who helped to build several of the railroads west of the Missouri. "It happened in Abilene in the summer of '70. We had then pushed the road about eight miles to the west of Abilene. You know what Abilene was in '70. Dodge City was then a camp-meeting grove compared with Abilene. The men belonging to our construction gangs were a bad enough lot to make it worth any man's while to go light on them, but they were cooing doves alongside of the batch of evil devils who had thrown the town of Abilene together in antic.i.p.ation of the building of the railroad. Before we got anywhere near Abilene there was a pretty fair-sized and comfortably-filled cemetery plotted out near the town. But when we got close enough to Abilene to make it practicable for our construction men to put in their spare time there, drinking 'sumac' whisky and playing cards, between knock-off on Sat.u.r.day afternoon and jump-in on Monday morning, Joe Geddes, the pine-box undertaker of Abilene, had more business than he could handle, working night and day.

"From the time that we got ten miles this side of Abilene until the rails were set twenty miles the other side of it, we lost construction men so fast that the road's employing agents in Leavenworth and Kansas City had trouble in filling their places. Every Monday morning there was a round-up of the dead and wounded in the whitewashed calaboose and hospital in Abilene that reminded the ex-soldier surveyors who were with me of their war experiences. The construction men got the worst of it, of course. While they were game enough men, their weapons were their fists, their knives, and sometimes their picks. But they were not up to the science of fine gun work, whereas the Abileneites, composed chiefly of left-over cowboys from the great Texas cattle-trail, whisky-dishers from the slumped Colorado mining camps, and tin-horners and desperadoes from everywhere, all knew how to pump lead like lathers spitting nails.

"Although a pretty young man at that time, I was in charge of the surveyors' gang. Most of the men in my gang were experienced, taciturn chaps. The experiences they had picked up in bad towns along other Western lines they had helped to map out had taught them the sense of steering clear of such towns and of sticking to their tents. I don't suppose that a man of my gang walked through the streets of Abilene when we brought the road there-not because they were in any sense cowardly, but because they had learned in the course of years of frontiering that trouble, and a whole lot of it, often overtakes men who are least in search of it in towns like Abilene.

"These old-timers tried to talk me out of my determination to have a look around in the town where so many of the men of the construction gangs were being killed off-for I wanted to see what thorough out-and-out bad men looked like. They told me that if I ever wanted to see my folks back East any more I'd better not do any monkeying around in Abilene. But I knew it all in those days, and so, without letting any of the men in my gang know anything about it, I slipped over to the chainmen's tents one night and roped in a couple of them to handcar me down to Abilene. When we reached the town I sent the chainmen back with the handcar, telling them to return for me in the morning.

"Abilene rather surprised me at first. I at least expected to have my hat shot off a few times in the course of an hour's rambling around, and, in fact, I was prepared to do a little impromptu dancing for the edification of Abileneites, who enjoyed toying with strangers. Nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the fellows hanging around the whisky mills and the brace faro layouts good-naturedly took me in hand and started in to give me a good time. I was a breezy young chap, you see, and able to hold my own in any public exhibition of the swelled head I unquestionably possessed at that time. Anyhow, things had not thoroughly warmed up for the night when I fell in with the gang early in the evening. It all looked so smooth and easy, and the heavy-artilleried chaps that I ran into seemed so square and peaceable that I drank a good deal more sagebrush whisky than I had any right to drink or than I had ever drank before.

"Around about midnight five of us, including Jim Cathcart, a bad man who was hanged a few years later for the murder of a Sheriff in Texas, pulled up at Toole Kingsley's 'Kansas or Bust' saloon and faro bank. The three other fellows I was with were outlawed cowboys, although I didn't know it then, and even if I had it wouldn't have made any difference in the shape I was in. Cathcart suggested a game of draw. He had probably noticed my good-sized wad of money, and I guess he reckoned on getting it. I didn't have any more sense than to agree, and, the other three chaps being willing, of course, we went up to the second floor of Kingsley's rum and faro honkatonk and waded in. When Cathcart suggested the game I noticed that a tall, broad-shouldered, very muscular-looking man, with long hair and a heavy mustache, who was standing with his back to the bar, eyed us pretty carefully, and at the time I rather wondered what he meant by it, though I forgot all about him five minutes later in the intensity of the game.

"'Intense' is not the word to describe that game of poker. I had been plugging along at the game of draw more or less ever since I was a growing lad, and after I had begun to shoulder an azimuth I had been an onlooker at some mighty queer games. But I never saw cards run the way they did that night. I was just about a fair to middling poker player; certainly nothing extra, although I was deft of hand and knew how to riffle cards in a way to bluff fellows not acquainted with my comparative inferiority as a poker player into the belief that I was some pumpkins with the pasteboards. But, second-rate player as I was, and something over two parts loaded as I was, besides, in common with my four fellow-players, the luck that I had from the very beginning of the game was positively miraculous. None of the other men had a half-skilletful of luck. It all came my way. It was embarra.s.sing for a while, but later on it became dangerous; for I was a total stranger to these four men and a good deal oilier in manners and speech than they-a thing that was likely to excite suspicion in towns like Abilene in those days, especially in the minds of men steadily losing in a game of draw.

"Every man of the four persisted in giving me such ma.s.sive hands to play against the utterly no-account hands they dished out to themselves that I didn't know what to make of it. All four of them were reasonably good poker players, but they were none of them short-carders-able to stack a deck; and I had certainly never sat into a squarer game of draw. But my own luck was absolutely magical. Pat hands were given to me about as often as pairs were served out to the other fellows. Every time this happened, and one or more of my opponents determined to find out if I was bluffing on my pats, I laid down the hands with a little fear growing within me; for after we had been playing for an hour or so I noticed all four of 'em s.n.a.t.c.hing glances at me out of the tails of their eyes.

"After I had continued whacking all four of them pretty hard on their own deals (rarely dealing myself a hand worth anything) for a couple of hours, the luck took a peculiar switch, although it stayed with me. I began to get nothing whatever on the deals of the other fellows, but on my own deals I fed myself hands that actually smelt of brimstone, they were so weird and inexplicable. One time I got four eights pat on my own deal. I drew a card to give the impression that I was either drawing to two pairs or bobbing to a straight or flush, and won a corking pot. I was given some bad looks for this. Ten minutes later, when it was my deal, I was kind enough to give myself a pat full, kings up on sevens, and, the whole four staying, I rapped them again with all my might, although the chill of fear was creeping over, in spite of the copious quant.i.ties of fiery red liquor I was getting outside of along with the others. Once the luck veered around this way, it seemed as if I never got as much as ten high when the other fellows dealt. So the only thing I could do was to drop my hands and stay out on their deals. They were quick to notice this, and it didn't improve my situation any, either.

"This extraordinary luck jumped me on my own deal only once after I had caught and played those two self-dealt pat hands for all they were worth. The result was that I was out of the game for quite a little while, none of the other men serving me with hands fit to draw to.

Meanwhile the four of them played listlessly with me out of it, for I had a good deal of the money of each, and they wanted it back. I think all four of them had fully decided in their own minds by this time that I was crooked and were only waiting for a chance to nail me.

"I had the buck when it came my turn to deal again, and so it was a jackpot. I was wishing myself well out of it, and had cold feet, if ever a man did, though I was afraid to say so with so much of my opponents'

money in my clothes. My hands probably trembled a little as I dealt that round, and even this fact probably caused them to suspect that I was monkeying with the deck and to watch me narrowly. The man on my left opened the pot for the size of it, and all stayed. When I picked up my hand and saw that I had given myself a clean, pat flush, ace on top, it made me pretty nervous, and before I stayed I did a heap of considering.

"'The best thing you can do, young fellow,' said I to myself, 'is to stay out of this jack altogether, or else throw that straight of yours face up in the center of the table, proving your squareness to these cutthroats, and let them play the jack out among themselves. If you don't do one of these things, you're going to get hurt in just about three minutes.'

"Then I considered some more. Here I had a fine and probably winning hand that I had come by perfectly on the level, and it would be rank cowardice to throw it away, and mighty poor poker, besides.

"'I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do any such thing just to convince these chaps that I'm not a thief,' was my final conclusion; and with that I made it twice the size of the pot to draw cards. They all glowered I tell you what, but they all stayed, every one of 'em. They not only stayed, but they bet and raised each other like the devil, and forced me to out-raise all of their raises every time it came around to me.

"Jim Cathcart, whose beady eyes had been blazing ever since I doubled the value of the pot to draw cards, was as bad-looking a man as I want to see when, finally, the man at my left called my last big raise. There had probably been some signals in knee-rubbing under the table, for the other two cowboys followed the lead of the first and called me in turn.

When it got around to Cathcart he slammed his bundle of greenbacks into the pile with an oath.

"'Podner,' said he, looking hard at me with his little red eyes, 'some o' your work here to-night has been so cut-an'-dried lookin' as to excite a whole lot of doubt about your bein' on the level; an' if you happen to have anythin' in that fist o' your'n this time that'll top these here three aces o' mine, then, by h.e.l.l, you havin' dealt this mess yourself, there won't be no manner o' question but that you're a d.a.m.ned proper crook.'

"Was I scared? Well, the hand just fell out of my paw, face up on the table, I was so scared! I was so paralyzed with fear that I simply couldn't move or say a word, and, what's more, I'm not a particle ashamed to own up to it. When the cards fell out of my hand Cathcart reached over and spread them out with his left hand.

"'Well, by h.e.l.l, you are a crook, ain't you?' he snapped when he saw the value of the hand that beat his own good one, and as he spoke he whipped out the big gun on the right side of his belt. I was blind with terror, and when I heard the loud report of a gun I gave it all up and figured that I was already three-quarters of the way over the Big Divide.

"When I opened my eyes a second later I saw Cathcart staring at the door, his right arm hanging limp at his side. His gun had fallen on the table without being discharged, and his left arm was in the air. So were the six arms of the other three men, and they also had their eyes glued on the door. I wheeled around to look that way myself. Standing quietly under the lintel of the door, with his two big guns covering the five of us, was the tall, broad-shouldered, long-haired man I had noticed eyeing us before we started the game of poker. The man was Wild Bill, Abilene's celebrated Marshal. The shot I had heard when I had given the whole thing up was from one of Wild Bill's unerring guns. It had pinked Cathcart in the right shoulder just in the nick of time, causing the gun with which he had intended to shoot me to fall from his hand.

"'Slope for your camp, son,' said Wild Bill to me quietly, still covering the four men. Well, for all I know, he might be covering them yet. I do know, though, that I was out of that room like a cat out of a bag, and the way I cut for our camp, over the newly-laid ties, eight miles away, was a warning to gra.s.shoppers.

"It was while I was making this little journey, hitting a high place only once in a while, that I came to the determination that for a man who could not fight shy of bull-head luck any better than I could, the game of draw poker was altogether too exciting and spirit-ruffling for health and peace of mind; and I haven't departed from that determination down to the present moment of time."