“Well, you mustn’t talk of running away then. There are no ghosts after you, are there?”
The moonlight was sifting through the loose strands of her gleaming hair as she sat there bareheaded at his side, and the strength of his life reached out to her, and the deep yearning of his lonely soul. He knew that he wanted that woman out of all the world full of women whom he had seen and known–and passed. He knew that he wanted her with such strong need that from that day none other could come across the mirror of his heart and dim her image out of it.
Simply money would not win a woman like her; no slope-headed son of a ham factory could come along and carry her off without any recommendation but his cash. She had lived through that kind of lure, and she was there on his own level because she wanted to work out her clean life in her own clean way. The thought warmed him. Here was a girl, he reflected, with a piece of steel in her backbone; a girl that would take the world’s lashings like a white elm in a storm, to spring resiliently back to stately poise after the turmoil had passed. Trouble would not break her; sorrow would only make her fineness finer. There was a girl to stand up beside a man!
He had not thought of it before–perhaps he had been too melancholy and bitter over his failure to take by storm the community where he had tried to make his start–but he believed that he realized that moment what he had needed all along. If, amid the contempt and indifference of the successful, he’d had some incentive besides his own ambition to struggle for all this time, some splendid, strong-handed woman to stand up in his gloom like the Goddess of Liberty offering an ultimate reward to the poor devils who have won their way to her feet across the bitter seas from hopeless lands, he might have stuck to it back there and won in the end.
“That’s what I’ve needed,” said he aloud, rising abruptly.
She looked up at him quickly.
“I’ve needed somebody’s sympathy, somebody’s sarcasm, somebody’s soft hand–which could be correctional on occasion–and somebody’s heart-interest all along,” he declared, standing before her dramatically and flinging out his hands in the strong feeling of his declaration. “I’ve been lonely; I’ve been morose. I’ve needed a woman like you!”
Without sign of perturbation or offense, Agnes rose and laid her hand gently upon his arm.
“I think, Dr. Slavens,” she suggested, “we’d better be going back to camp.”
They walked the mile back to camp with few words between them. The blatant noises of Comanche grew as they drew nearer.
The dance was still in progress; the others had not returned to camp.
“Do you care to sit out here and wait for them?” he asked as they stopped before the tent.
“I think I’ll go to bed,” she answered. “I’m tired.”
“I’ll stand sentry,” he offered.
She thanked him, and started to go in. At the door she paused, went back to him, and placed her hand in her soothing, placid way upon his arm again.
“You’ll fight out the good fight here,” said she, “for this is a country that’s got breathing-room in it.”
She looked up into his face a bit wistfully, he thought, as if there were more in her heart than she had spoken. “You’ll win here–I know you’ll win.”
He reached out to put his arm about her, drawn by the same warm attraction that had pulled the words from him at the riverside. The action was that of a man reaching out to lean his weary weight upon some familiar object, and there was something of old habit in it, as if he had been doing it always.
But she did not stay. He folded only moonlight, in which there is little substance for a strong man, even in Wyoming. Dr. Slavens sighed as the tent-flap dropped behind her.
“Yes; that’s what I’ve needed all the time,” said he.
He sat outside with his pipe, which never had seemed so sweet. But, for all of its solace, he was disturbed by the thought that perhaps he had made a blunder which had placed him in a false light with Miss Horton–only he thought of her as Agnes, just as if he had the right. For there were only occasions on which Dr. Slavens admitted himself to be a fizzle in the big fireworks of the world. That was a charge which he sometimes laid to himself in mortification of spirit, or as a flagellant to spur him along the hard road. He had not meant to let it slip him aloud over there by the river, because he didn’t believe it at all–at least not in that high-hoping hour.
So he sat there in the moonlight before the tent, the noises of the town swelling louder and louder as the night grew older, his big frame doubled into the stingy lap of a canvas chair, his knees almost as high as his chin. But it was comfortable, and his tobacco was as pleasant to his senses as the distillation of youthful dreams.
He had not attained the automobile stage of prosperity and arrogance, certainly. But that was somewhere ahead; he should come to it in time. Out of the smoke of his pipe that dreamy night he could see it. Perhaps he might be a little gray at the temples when he came to it, and a little lined at the mouth, but there would be more need of it then than now, because his legs would tire more easily.
But Agnes had taken that foolishly blurted statement for truth. So it was his job henceforward to prove to Agnes that he was not bankrupt in courage. And he meant to do it he vowed, even if he had to get a tent and hang out his shingle in Comanche. That would take nerve unquestionably, for there were five doctors in the place already, none of them making enough to buy stamps to write back home for money.
Already, he said, he was out of the rut of his despondency; already the rust was knocked off his back, and the eagerness to crowd up to the starting-line was on him as fresh again as on the day when he had walked away from all competitors in the examination for a license before the state board.
At midnight the others came back from the dance and broke the trend of his smoke-born dreams. Midnight was the hour when respectable Comanche put out its lights and went to bed. Not to sleep in every case, perhaps, for the din was at crescendo pitch by then; but, at any event, to deprive the iniquitous of the moral support of looking on their debaucheries and sins.
Dr. Slavens was in no mood for his sagging canvas cot, for his new enthusiasm was bounding through him as if he had been given an intravenous injection of nitroglycerin. There was Wyoming before him, all white and virginal and fresh, a big place for a big deed. Certainly, said Dr. Slavens. Just as if made to order for his needs.
So he would look around a bit before turning in, with his high-stepping humor over him, and that spot on his arm, where her hand had lain, still aglow with her mysterious fire.
* * *
CHAPTER IV
THE FLAT-GAME MAN
The noises of the tented town swelled in picturesque chorus as Dr. Slavens walked toward them, rising and trailing off into the night until they wore themselves out in the echoless plain.
He heard the far-away roll and rumble of voices coming from the gambling-tents; the high-tenor invitation of the barkers outside questionable shows; the bawl of street-gamblers, who had all manner of devices, from ring-pitching to shell-games on folding tables, which they could pick up in a twinkling and run away with when their dupes began to threaten and rough them up; the clear soprano of the singer, who wore long skirts and sang chaste songs, in the vaudeville tent down by the station.
And above all, mingled with all–always, everywhere–the brattle of cornet and trombone, the whang of piano, the wail of violin, the tinkle of the noble harp, an aristocrat in base company, weeping its own downfall.
All of the flaring scene appeared to the doctor to be extremely artificial. It was a stage set for the allurement of the unsophisticated, who saw in this strained and overdone imitation of the old West the romance of their expectations. If they hadn’t found it there thousands of them would have been disappointed, perhaps disillusioned with a healthful jolt. All the reality about it was its viciousness, and that was unquestionable.
It looked as if gambling crooks from everywhere had collected at Comanche, and as if th
e most openly and notoriously crooked of them all was the bony, dry-faced man with a white spot over the sight of his left eye, who conducted a dice-game in the front part of the chief amusement-place of the town. This was a combination variety theater and saloon, where free “living pictures” were posed for the entertainment of those who drank beer at the tables at twenty-five cents a glass.
Of the living pictures there were three, all of them in green garments, which hung loosely upon flaccid thighs. Sometimes they posed alone, as representations of more or less clothed statuary; sometimes they grouped, with feet thrust out, heads thrown back, arms lifted in stiff postures, as gladiators, martyrs, and spring songs. Always, whether living or dead, they were most sad and tattered, famished and lean pictures, and their efforts were received with small applause. They were too thin to be very wicked; so it appeared, at least.
Dr. Slavens stopped in the wide-spreading door of this place to watch the shifting life within. Near him sat a young Comanche Indian, his hair done up in two braids, which he wore over his shoulders in front. He had an eagle feather in his hat and a new red handkerchief around his neck, and he looked as wistful as a young Indian ever did outside a poem or a picture-film. He was the unwelcome guest, whom no one might treat, to whom no one might sell.
That was one of the first things strangers in Comanche learned: one must not give an Indian a drink of liquor, no matter how thirsty he looked. And, although there was not a saloon-keeper in the place who would have considered a moment before stooping to rob a dead man, there was not one who would have sold an Indian a bottle of beer. Such is the fear, if not respect, that brave old Uncle Sam is able to inspire.
But brave old Sam had left the bars down between his wards and the gamblers’ tables. It is so everywhere. The Indian may not drink, but he may play “army game” and all the others where crooked dice, crooked cards, and crooked men are to be found. Perhaps, thought the doctor, the young man with the eagle feather–which did not make him at all invisible, whatever his own faith in its virtues might have been–had played his money on the one-eyed man’s game, and was hanging around to see whether retributive justice, in the form of some more fortunate player, would, in the end, clean the old rascal out.
The one-eyed man was assisted by a large gang of cappers, a gang which appeared to be in the employ of the gamblers’ trust of Comanche. The doctor had seen them night after night first at one game, then at another, betting with freedom and carelessness which were the envy of the suckers packed forty deep around them. At the one-eyed man’s game just then they were coming and going in a variety which gave a color of genuine patronage. That was an admirable arrangement, doubtless due to the one-eyed man’s sagacity, which the doctor had noted the night before. For the game had its fascination for him, not because the fire of it was in his veins, but because it was such an out-and-out skin game that it was marvelous how fools enough could be found, even in a gathering like that, to keep it going.
The living pictures had just passed off the stage, and it was the one-eyed man’s inning. He rattled his dice in the box, throwing his quick glance over the crowd, which seemed reluctant to quit the beer-tables for his board. Art was the subject which the gambler took up as he poured out his dice and left them lying on the board. He seemed so absorbed in art for the moment that he did not see a few small bets which were laid down. He leaned over confidentially and talked into the eyes of the crowd.
“Art, gentlemen, is a fine thing for the human race,” said he. “You have just saw an elegant exhibition of art, and who is there in this crowd that don’t feel a better man for what he saw?”
He looked around, as if inviting a challenge. None came. He resumed:
“Art in all its branches is a elegant fine thing, gentlemen. It raises a man up, and it elevates him, and it makes him feel like a millionaire. If I only had a dime, as the man said, I’d spend it for a box of cigareets just to git the chromo-card. That’s what I think of art, gentlemen, and that’s how crazy I am over it.
“Now, if anybody here wants to bet me I ain’t got two eyes, I ain’t a goin’ to take him up, for I know I ain’t, gentlemen, and I’ve knowed it for thirty years. But if anybody wants to bet me I can’t throw twenty-seven––”
This was the one-eyed man’s game. He stood inside the curve of a crescent-shaped table, which struck him almost under the arms, his back to the wall of the tent. Players could surround him, almost; still, nobody could get behind him. In that direction there always was a way out. He stood there offering odds of five to one to anybody who wanted to bet him that he couldn’t himself, with his own hand and his own dice, throw twenty-seven. Any other number coming out of the box, the one-eyed man lost.
Examine the dice, gents; examine the box. If any gent had any doubts at all about the dice being straight, all he had to do was to examine them. There they lay, gents, honestly and openly on the table before the one-eyed man, his bony hand hovering over them caressingly.
Gents examined them freely. Nearly every player who put money down–secure in that egotistical valuation of one’s own shrewdness which is the sure-thing-man’s bank and goldmine and mint–rolled the dice, weighed them, eyed them sharply. Then they bet against the one-eyed man–and lost.
That is, they lost if he wanted them to lose. There were victims who looked promising for a fat sacrifice who had to be tolled and primed and led on gently up to the block. At the right time the one-eyed man trimmed them, and he trimmed them down to the short bones.
His little boost for art finished–for the living pictures were art in which he had a proprietary interest, and he could afford to talk for it once in a while–the one-eyed man cast his glance over his table and saw the small bets. By some singular fortune all of the bettors won. They pocketed their winnings with grins as they pushed out among the gathering crowd.
Men began to pack thickly around the gambler’s crescent table, craning over shoulders to see what was going on. He was making a great Wild-West show of money, with a large revolver lying beside it at his elbow. Seeing that the young man who had carried June Reed off to the dance so intrepidly had made his way forward and was betting on the game, Dr. Slavens pushed up to the table and stood near.
The young fellow did not bear himself with the air of a capper, but rather with that of one who had licked a little poison and was drunk on the taste. He had won two small bets, and he was out for more.
There were no chips, no counters except cash. Of that the young man appeared to have plenty. He held a cheerful little wad of it in his hand, so that no time might be lost in taking advantage of the great opportunity to beat a man at his own game.
The display of so much money on both sides held the crowd in silent charm. The young man was the only player, although the one-eyed man urged others to come on and share the fortunes of his sweating patron, whose face was afire with the excitement of easy money, and whose reason had evaporated under the heat.
“At every roll of the dice my young friend adds to his pile,” said the gambler. “He’s got a head, gents, and he knows how to use it. Look at ’im, gents, gittin’ richer at every roll of the dice! You might as well have a share in all this here money and wealth, and you would be sharin’ it if you had the nerve of my young friend.”
The one-eyed man turned the dice out and lost again. There was a little movement of the crowd, a little audible intaking of breath, a little crowding forward, like that of cattle massed in a pen.
The suckers never did seem to get it through their heads, thought the doctor as he beheld their dumb excitement with growing contempt, that the one-eyed man switched the dice on them just as often as he pleased between the table and the box, by a trick which was his one accomplishment and sole capital. Without that deftness of hand the one-eyed man might have remained a bartender, and a very sloppy and indifferent one at that; but with it he was the king-pin of the gamblers’ trust in Comanche, and his graft was the best in the town.
“There it goes, gents!”
he said, shaking his long, hound-shaped head with doleful expression of face. “The tide of luck’s turned ag’in’ me. You can see that as plain as water in a pan, but they ain’t one of you got the nerve to step up and help my young friend trim me.
“You fellers know what you make me think of? Well, you make me think of a lot of little boys with ten cents to spend on Fourth of July. You stand around with your fingers in your mouth, afraid you’ll see somethin’ you like better if you let loose of your little old dime, and you hang on to it till the fun’s all over and the ice-cream’s all gone.
“But my young friend here–Now, now!” he remonstrated as the highly excited young man took up his winnings, added them to the money which he held in reserve in his left hand, and placed the whole amount upon the table. “Now you’re a comin’ it purty strong! Go easy, young feller, and give a old man with only one eye and a game leg a chance. But you won’t do it; I can see that in the cast of your eye; you’re bound to clean me out at one smack; that’s what you’re bound to do.”
The one-eyed man shook the dicebox very carefully, as if mixing some rare prescription. Then he stopped shaking and held his hand over the mouth of the box, as if he expected the cubes might jump up and join in his ruination while his head was turned.
“Now, look-a here!” said he, addressing them generally. “I’ve traveled this wide world over ever since I was a tender child, as the man said, and I never seen a chance like this to skin a feller slide by without more’n one lone man havin’ sense enough and nerve enough to git in on it.
“Do I see any more of your money, gents, before I roll the dice? Do I see any more of your money of the ream and dominion of Uncle Sam, with the eagle a spreadin’ his legs, with his toes full of arrers, and his mouth wide open a hollerin’ de-fiance and destruction ag’in’ his innimies on land and sea, wheresomever they may be, as the feller said?
Claim Number One Page 4
