The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (historical books to read TXT) 📗

“All my winnings against this girl,” went on Hough, relentlessly. Scorn and a taunting dare and an insidious persuasion mingled with the passion of his offer. He knew how to inflame. Durade, as a gambler, was a weakling in the grasp of a giant. “Come!... Do you accept?”

Durade’s body leaped, as if an irresistible current had been shot into it.

“Si, Senor!” he cried, with power and joy in his voice. In that moment, no doubt the greatest in his life of gambling, he unconsciously went back to the use of his mother tongue.

Actuated by one impulse, Hough and Durade sat down at the table. The others crowded around. Fresno lurched close, with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“I was onto Hough,” he said to his nearest ally. “It’s the girl he’s after!”

The gamblers cut the cards for who should deal. Hough won. For him victory seemed to exist in the suspense of the very silence, in the charged atmosphere of the room. He began to shuffle the cards. His hands were white, shapely, perfect, like a woman’s, and yet not beautiful. The spirit, the power, the ruthless nature in them had no relation to beauty. How marvelously swift they moved—too swift for the gaze to follow. And the incomparable dexterity with which he manipulated the cards gave forth the suggestion as to what he could do with them. In those gleaming hands, in the flying cards, in the whole intenseness of the gambler there showed the power and the intent to win. The crooked Durade had met his match, a match who toyed with him. If there were an element of chance in this short game it was that of the uncertainty of life, not of Durade’s chance to win. He had no chance. No eye, no hand could have justly detected Hough in the slightest deviation from honesty. Yet all about the man in that tense moment proved what a gambler really was.

Durade called in a whisper for two cards, and he received them with trembling fingers. Terrible hope and exultation transformed his face.

“I’ll take three,” said Hough, calmly. With deliberate care and slowness, in strange contrast to his former motions, he took, one by one, three cards from the deck. Then he looked at them, and just as calmly dropped all his cards, face up, on the table, disclosing what he knew to be an unbeatable hand.

Durade stared. A thick cry escaped him.

Swiftly Hough rose. “Durade, I have won.” Then he turned to his friends. “Gentlemen, please pocket this gold.”

With that he stepped to Allie’s door. He saw her peering out. “Come, Miss Lee,” he said.

Allie stepped out, trembling and unsteady on her feet.

The Spaniard now seemed compelled to look up from the gold Hough’s comrades were pocketing. When he saw Allie another slow and remarkable transformation came over him. At first he started slightly at Hough’s hand on Allie’s arm. The radiance of his strange passion for gold, that had put a leaping glory into his haggard face, faded into a dark and mounting surprise. A blaze burned away the shadows. His eyes betrayed an unsupportable sense of loss and the spirit that repudiated it. For a single instant he was magnificent—and perhaps in that instant race and blood spoke; then, with bewildering suddenness, surely with the suddenness of a memory, he became a black, dripping-faced victim of unutterable and unquenchable hate.

Allie recoiled in the divination that Durade saw her mother in her. No memory, no love, no gold, no wager, could ever thwart the Spaniard.

“Senor, you tricked me!” he whispered.

“I beat you at your own game,” said Hough. “My friends and your men heard the stake—saw the game.”

“Senor, I would not—bet—that girl—for any stake!”

“You have LOST her... Let me warn you, Durade. Be careful, once in your life!... You’re welcome to what gold is left there.”

Durade shoved back the gold so fiercely that he upset the table, and its contents jangled on the floor. The spill and the crash of a scattered fortune released Durade’s men from their motionless suspense. They began to pick up the coins.

The Spaniard was halted by the gleam of a derringer in Hough’s hand. Hissing like a snake, Durade stood still, momentarily held back by a fear that quickly gave place to insane rage.

“Shoot him!” said Ancliffe, with a coolness which proved his foresight.

One of Hough’s friends swung a cane, smashing a lamp; then with like swift action he broke the other lamp, instantly plunging the room into darkness. This appeared to be the signal for Durade’s men to break loose into a mad scramble for the gold. Durade began to scream and rush forward.

Allie felt herself drawn backward, along the wall, through her door. It was not so dark in there. She distinguished Hough and Ancliffe. The latter closed the door. Hough whispered to Allie, though the din in the other room made such caution needless.

“Can we get out this way?” he asked.

“There’s a window,” replied Allie.

“Ancliffe, open it and get her out. I’ll stop Durade if he comes in. Hurry!”

While the Englishman opened the window Hough stood in front of the door with both arms extended. Allie could just see his tall form in the pale gloom. Pandemonium had begun in the other room, with Durade screaming for lights, and his men yelling and fighting for the gold, and Hough’s friends struggling to get out. But they did not follow Hough into this room and evidently must have thought he had escaped through the other door.

“Come,” said Ancliffe, touching Allie.

He helped her get out, and followed laboriously. Then he softly called to Hough. The gambler let himself down swiftly and noiselessly.

“Now what?” he muttered.

They appeared to be in a narrow alley between a house of boards and a house of canvas. Excited voices sounded inside this canvas structure and evidently alarmed Hough, for with a motion he enjoined silence and led Allie through the dark passage out into a gloomy square surrounded by low, dark structures. Ancliffe followed close behind.

The night was dark, with no stars showing. A cool wind blew in Allie’s face, refreshing her after her long confinement. Hough began groping forward. This square had a rough board floor and a skeleton framework. It had been a house of canvas. Some of the partitions were still standing.

“Look for a door—any place to get out,” whispered Hough to Ancliffe, as they came to the opposite side of this square space. Hough, with Allie close at his heels, went to the right while Ancliffe went to the left. Hough went so far, then muttering, drew Allie back again to the point whence they had started. Ancliffe was there.

“No place! All boarded up tight,” he whispered.

“Same on this side. We’ll have to—”

“Listen!” exclaimed Ancliffe, holding up his hand.

There appeared