The Cow Puncher - Robert J. C. Stead (best reads .TXT) 📗

empty as the dusk of this strange town. He realized that he had but one friend in the world; but one, and of her he knew not so much as her address.… He began to wonder whether he really had a friend at all; whether the girl would not discard him when he was of no further use just as he had discarded his faithful old horse. Tears of loneliness and remorse gathered in his eyes, and a mist not of the twilight blurred the street lamps now glimmering from their poles. He felt that he had treated the horse very shabbily indeed. He wanted old Slop-eye back again. He suddenly wanted him with a terrific longing; wanted him more than anything else in the world. For a moment he forgot the girl, and all his homesickness centred about the beast which had been so long his companion and servant and friend.

"I'll buy him back in the mornin', I will, sure as hell," he said in a sudden gust of emotion. "We got to stick together. I didn't play fair with him, but I'll buy him back. Perhaps I can get a job for him, too, pullin' a light wagon, or somethin'."

The resolution to "play fair" with Slop-eye gradually restored his cheerfulness, and he walked slowly back to the hotel, looking in at many window displays as he went. Half shyly he paused before a window of women's wear; fine, filmy things, soft and elusive, and, he supposed, very expensive. He wondered if Reenie bought clothes like that to wear in her city home. And then he began to look for a brown sweater, and to move from window to window. And presently he found himself at his hotel.

The men's sitting room now presented a much more animated picture than when he had registered earlier in the evening. It was filled with ranchers, cowboys, and cattlemen of all degree; breeders, buyers, traders, owners and wage-earners, with a sprinkling of townspeople and others not directly engaged in some phase of the cattle business. The room was strong with smoke and language and expectoration and goodfellowship, to which the maudlin carousal of the line-up at the bar furnished appropriate accompaniment. Through the smoke he could see another room farther back, in which were a number of pool tables; loud voices and loud laughter and occasional awe-inspiring rips of profanity betokened deep interest in the game, and he allowed himself to drift in that direction. Soon he was in a group watching a gaudily dressed individual doing a sort of sleight-of-hand trick with three cards on a table.

"Smooth guy that," said some one at his side. The remark was evidently intended for Dave, and he turned toward the speaker. He was a man somewhat smaller than Dave; two or three years older; well dressed in town clothes; with a rather puffy face and a gold filled tooth from which a corner had been broken as though to accommodate the cigarette which hung there. He blew a slow double stream of smoke from his nostrils and repeated, "Smooth guy that."

"Yes," said Dave. Then, as it was apparent the stranger was inclined to be friendly, he continued, "What's the idea?"

The stranger nudged him gently. "Come out of the bunch," he said, in a low voice. When they had moved a little apart he went on, in a confidential tone: "He has a little trick with three cards that brings him in the easy coin. He's smooth as grease, but the thing's simple. Oh, it's awful simple. It's out of date with the circuses in the States—that was where I got wise to it—but it seems to get 'em here. Now you watch him for a minute," and they watched through an opening in the crowd about his table. The player held three cards; two red ones and a black. He passed them about rapidly over the table, occasionally turning his hand sideways so that the on-lookers could see the position of the cards. Then he suddenly threw them, face down, on the table, each card by itself.

"The trick is to locate the black card," Dave's companion explained. "It's easy enough if you just keep your eye on the card, but the trouble with these rubes is they name the card and then start to get out their money, and while they're fumbling for it he makes a change so quick they never see it. There's just one way to beat him. Get up close, but don't say you're going to play; just pretend you're getting interested. Then when you're dead sure of a card, crack your fist down on it. Glue yourself right to it, and get out your money with the other hand. When he sees you do that he'll try to bluff you; say you ain't in on it, but you just tell him that don't go, this is an open game and he's got to come through, and the crowd'll back you up. I stuck him one—a whole hundred first crack—and then he barred me. Watch him."

Dave watched. Saw the black card go down at one corner of the board; saw a bystander fumbling for a five dollar bill; saw the bill laid on the card; saw it turned up—and it was red.

"That is smooth," he said. "I'd 'a' sworn that was the black card."

"So it was—when you saw it," his companion explained. "But you were just like the sucker that played him. You couldn't help glancing at the jay getting out his money, and it was in that instant the trick was done. He's too quick for the eye, but that's how he does it."

Dave became interested. He saw two or three others lose fives and tens. Then his companion pinched his arm. "Watch that new guy," he whispered. "Watch him. He's wise."

A new player had approached. He stood near the table for some minutes, apparently looking on casually; then his left fist came down on one of the cards. "A hundred on this one," he said, and began thumbing out a roll with his other hand.

"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this."

"Ain't I? What do you say, fellows?" turning to the crowd. "Am I in or not?"

"Sure you're in," they exclaimed. "Sure you're in," repeated a big fellow, lounging forward. "If this guy ain't in we clean you out, see?"

"It's on me," said the dealer, with an ugly smile. "Well, if I must pay, I pay. Turn 'er up."

It was black. The dealer paid out a hundred dollars to the new player, who quickly disappeared in the crowd.

Dave had made his decision. It was plain his companion's tip was straight. There was just one way to beat this game, but it was simple enough when you knew how. He sidled close to the table, making great pretense of indifference, but watching the cards closely with his keen black eyes. The dealer showed his hand, made a few quick passes, and the black card flew out to the right. This was Dave's chance. He pounced on it with his left hand, while his other plunged into his pocket.

"Sixty dollars on this one," he cried, and there was the triumphant note in his voice of the man who knows he has beaten the other at his own game.

"You ain't playin'," said the dealer. "You ain't in on this."

"That don't go," said Dave, very quietly. "You're playin' a public game here, an' I choose to play with you, this once. Sixty dollars on this card." He was fumbling his money on the table.

"You ain't playin'," repeated the dealer. "You're a butt-in. You ain't in this game at all."

"Sure he's in," said the crowd.

"Sure he's in," repeated the big fellow who had interfered before. "He's a stranger here, but you play with him or you don't play no more in this joint, see?"

"That's hittin' me twice in the same spot, an' hittin' me hard," whined the dealer, "but you got it on me. Turn 'er up."

The card was red.

Dave looked at it stupidly. It was a moment or two before he realized that his money was gone. Then, regardless of those about, he rushed through the crowd, flinging by-standers right and left, and plunged into the night.

He walked down a street until it lost itself on the prairie; then he followed a prairie trail far into the country. The air was cold and a few drops of rain were flying in it, but he was unconscious of the weather. He was in a rage, through and through. More than once his hand went to his revolver, and he half turned on his heel to retrace his steps, but his better judgment led him on to fight it out with himself. Slop-eye was now a dream, a memory, gone—gone. Everything was gone; only his revolver and a few cents remained. He gripped the revolver again. With that he was supreme. No man in all that town of men, schooled in the ways of the West, was more than his equal while that grip lay in his palm. At the point of that muzzle he could demand his money back—and get it.

Then he laughed. Hollow and empty it sounded in the night air, but it was a laugh, and it saved his spirit. "Why, you fool," he chuckled. "You came to town for to learn somethin', didn't you? Well, you're learnin'. Sixty dollars a throw. Education comes high, don't it? But you shouldn't kick. He didn't coax you in, an' gave you every chance to back away. You butted in and got stung. Perhaps you've learned somethin' worth sixty dollars."

With these more philosophical thoughts he turned townward again, and as he tramped along his light heartedness re-asserted itself. His sense of fairness made him feel that he had no grievance against the card sharper, and in his innocence of the ways of the game it never occurred to him that the friendly stranger who had showed him how to play it, and the big fellow who insisted on his being "in", and the other player who had won a hundred dollars a few minutes before, were all partners with the sharper and probably at this moment were dividing his sixty dollars—the price of old Slop-eye—between them.

Early next morning he was awake and astir. The recollection of his loss sent a sudden pang through his morning spirits, but he tried to close his mind to it. "No use worryin' over that," he said, jingling the few coins that now represented his wealth. "That's over and gone. I traded sixty dollars for my first lesson. Maybe it was a bad trade, but anyway, I ain't goin' to squeal." He turned that thought over in his mind. It suddenly occurred to him that it expressed a principle which he might very well weave into his new life. "If I can jus' get that idea, an' live up to it," he said, "never to squeal, no matter what hits me, nor how, I guess it's worth sixty dollars." He whistled as he finished dressing, ate his breakfast cheerfully, and set out in search of employment.

CHAPTER FIVE

Almost the first person he met was the stranger who had schooled him in the gambling game the night before. He greeted Dave cordially; his voice had a soft, sedulous, almost feminine quality which Dave had not noticed in their whispered conversation in the pool room. There was something attractive about his personality; something which invited friendship and even confidence, and yet beneath these emotions Dave felt a sense of distrust, as though part of his nature rebelled against the acquaintanceship.

"That was the rottenest luck you had last night," the stranger was saying. "I never saw the beat of it. I knew you were wrong the moment you had your hand down, but I couldn't butt in then. I was hoping you'd stay and raise him next time; you might have got your money back that way."

"Oh, I