THE SHOWDOWN
Racey, walking suddenly round the corner of the Dale stable, came upon
Mr. Dale tilting a bottle toward the sky. The business end of the
bottle was inserted between Mr. Dale's lips. His Adam's apple slid
gravely up and down. He did not see Racey Dawson.
"Howdy," said the puncher.
Mr. Dale removed the bottle, whirled, and thrust the bottle behind
him.
"Oh, it's you," he said, blinking, and slowly producing the bottle.
"Huh-have one on me."
"Not to-day," refused Racey, shaking his head. "I got a misery in my
stummick. Doctor won't lemme drink any."
"Yeah?" Thus Mr. Dale with interest. Then, again proffering the
liquor, he said: "This here's fine for the misery. Better have a
snooter."
"No, I guess not."
"Well, I will," averred Mr. Dale and downed three swallows rapidly.
"Yeah," he continued, driving in the cork with the heel of his hand,
"a feller needs a drink now and then."
"Helps him stand off trouble, don't it?" Racey hazarded,
sympathetically, perceiving an opening.
"Shore does," answered Mr. Dale. "I should say so. Dunno who'd oughta
know that better'n I do. Trouble, Racey--well, say, I'm just made of
trouble I am."
"Aw, it ain't as bad as that," encouraged Racey.
"Yes, it is, too," contradicted the other. "I got more trouble on my
hands than a rat-tailed hoss tied short in fly-time. Trouble--nothing
but."
"Nothing is as bad as it looks."
"Heaps of times she's worse."
"I'm yore friend. You know me. If I can help you--"
"Nobody can help me. I dunno what to do, Racey."
"Well, you know best, I expect, but I've always found if I talk over
with somebody else anythin' that bothers me it don't seem to stick up
half so big."
Mr. Dale sank down upon one run-over heel and stared blearily off
across the flats. The bottle in his hip-pocket made a pronounced bulge
under the cloth.
"I dunno what to do, Racey," he said, looking up sidewise at Racey
where he stood in front of him, his hands in his pockets and his hat
on the back of his head. "I owe a lot of money. I dunno how I'm gonna
pay it, and I'm worried."
"Let the other feller do the worrying," suggested Racey.
"I wish I could," said Mr. Dale, drearily. "I wish I could."
"Why don't you, then?"
"He'll foreclose--they'll foreclose, I mean."
"Aw, maybe not."
"Yeah, they will. I know 'em! ---- 'em! They'd have the shirt off my
back if they could. You see, Racey, she's thisaway: I borrowed five
thousand dollars from the Marysville bank, on a mortgage, and there
they went and sold the mortgage to Lanpher of the 88 and Luke Tweezy.
And there's the rub, Racey. The bank would 'a' renewed all right, but
you can put down a bet and go the limit that Lanpher and Tweezy won't.
I done asked 'em."
"Five thousand dollars is a lot of money," said Racey, soberly. He had
been thinking that the mortgage would not have been above two thousand
at the outside. But five thousand! What in Sam Hill had old Dale
done with the money? In the next breath Dale answered the unspoken
question.
"I needed the money," he said in a low voice, his eyes lowered,
"and--and I had bad luck with it."
"Yeah, I know, the cattle dying and all."
"Cattle! What cattle?" Mr. Dale stared blankly at Racey. "Oh, them!
Hell, they didn't have nothin' to do with it, them cattle didn't. I'd
worked out a system, Racey--a system to beat roulette, and I was shore
it was all right. By Gawd, it was all right! They was nothin' wrong
with that system. But I had bad luck. I had most awful bad luck."
"And the system, I take it, didn't work?"
"It didn't--against my bad luck."
Mr. Dale again dropped his eyes, and Racey stared down at the
hump-shouldered old figure with something akin to pity in his gaze.
Certainly he was sorry for him. He was not in the least scornful
despite the fact that it did not seem possible that any sensible man
could be such a fool. A system--a system to beat roulette! And bad
luck! The drably ancient and moth-eaten story with which every
unsuccessful gambler seeks to establish an alibi.
"Whose wheel was it?" said Racey.
"Lacey's at Marysville."
"In the back room of the Sweet Dreams, huh? An' there's nothing
crooked about Lacey's wheel, either. It's as square as Lacey himself."
"Lacey's wasn't the only wheel. They was McFluke's, too."
So McFluke had a wheel, had he? This was news to Racey Dawson.
"How long has McFluke been runnin' a wheel?" inquired Racey.
"Quite a while," was the vague reply.
"A year?"
"Maybe longer. I dunno."
"Funny it never got round."
"It was a private wheel. Only for his friends. Nothin' public about
it."
"Who used to play it besides you?" persisted Racey, hanging to his
subject like a bull-pup to a tramp's trousers.
Mr. Dale wrinkled his forehead. "Besides me? Lessee now. They were Doc
Coffin, Nebraska Jones, Honey Hoke, and Punch-the-breeze Thompson."
"Nobody else?"
"Aw, Galloway and Norton and that bunch," Mr. Dale said, shamefacedly.
Racey nodded his head slowly. A crooked wheel. Of course it was
crooked. Why not? That Dale, Galloway, Norton, and a few other
gentlemen of the neighbourhood were under their wives' thumbs to such
a degree that they did not dare to gamble openly was a matter of
common knowledge. What more natural than that someone should provide
them with a private gambling place? With such cappers as Nebraska and
his gang, losers would not feel equal to making much of an outcry. It
must be a paying occupation for McFluke, Nebraska, or whoever was at
the bottom of the business.
Racey nodded again and squatted down on his heels. He picked up a
stick and squinted along its length.
"None of my business, of course," he said, casually, "but would you
mind telling me how much you lost to McFluke?"
"About seven thousand."
Racey looked up at the sky. Seven thousand dollars. The full amount of
the mortgage and two thousand more. And McFluke had it all.
"You see," said Mr. Dale, dolefully. "I began to make money after
I'd been here awhile and my health come back. Yeah, I made money all
right, all right." He pushed back his hat and scratched a grizzled
head. "I had luck," he added. "But you wasn't round here then. You'd
gone to the Bend."
"Yep, I'd gone to the Bend, damitall, and it shore seems like I'd
stayed there too long. Didn't you ever guess McFluke's wheel wasn't
straight?"
"Aw, it was so straight. Mac wouldn't cheat nobody. Yo're--yo're
mistaken, Racey."
"I am, huh? Likell I'm mistaken. I know what I'm talking about. I tell
you flat, McFluke is so crooked he could swallow a nail and spit out a
corkscrew. And he's got that wheel trained. You just bet he has. Look
under the table and see what he's doing with his feet or his knees.
My Gawd, Dale, didn't you know they make roulette wheels with a brake
like a wagon?"
"I--I've heard of 'em," Mr. Dale nodded, hesitatingly. "But I'm shore
Mac's is on the level."
"And you bet seven thousand dollars it was on the level, didn't you?"
"But--"
"But where did you come out? Do you think you ever got a show for yore
money?"
"Oh, I won a bet now and then," defended Mr. Dale.
"Small ones, shore. Naturally he has to let you win now and then to
sort of toll you along and keep you good-natured. You won now and
then, yep. But did you ever win when you had a sizable stake up?"
Mr. Dale shook his head. "No, come to think of it, I don't believe I
ever did."
"I knowed you didn't," exclaimed Racey, triumphantly. "I tell you that
wheel is crooked."
"Not so loud," cautioned Mr. Dale. "They'll hear you in the house."
"Don't they know nothing about it a-tall?" probed Racey.
"They know about the five-thousand-dollar mortgage," admitted Dale,
reluctantly.
Racey rubbed his chin. "I was here when Molly found it out."
Mr. Dale nodded miserably. He was too utterly wretched to resent
Racey's interference with his affairs. "She--she told me," he said.
"Don't they know about the other two thousand you lost to McFluke, or
what you dropped at Lacey's?"
Mr. Dale shook his head. "I never told 'em. I--I only lost fifteen or
sixteen hundred at Lacey's, anyway."
"Fifteen or sixteen hundred is a whole lot when you ain't got it,"
said the direct and brutal Racey. "Instead of seven thousand then, you
done lost eighty-five or eighty-six hundred. I swear I don't see how
you managed to lose all that and yore family not find it out."
"I kept quiet."
"I guess you did keep quiet. Gawd, yes! Lookit, Dale, I'm going to
help you out of this. But you'll have to start fresh. You've got to
go in and make a clean breast to the family about where the other
thirty-six hundred over and above the five thousand went."
Mr. Dale's jaw dropped. "I--I never even told 'em where the five
thousand went."
"Huh? I thought you said they knew about the mortgage--after Molly
found it out."
"They knew about the mortgage all right enough, but they dunno where
the money went. Yuh see, Racey, I--I done told 'em I lost it in a land
deal."
"You did! Aw right, you go right in and tell 'em the truth, all of it,
every last smidgen."
"I cuc-can't!" protested Mr. Dale. "I ain't got the heart!"
"You ain't got the nerve, you mean. You go on and tell 'em, Dale, an'
I'll fix it up for you, but I won't fix up anything for you if you
ain't gonna play square with those women from now on. And you can't
play square with 'em without you begin by telling 'em the truth."
"How you gonna help me out?" temporized Mr. Dale.
"I'm goin' to Old Salt, that's what I'm going to do. I'll fix it up
with him to lend you the money."
Mr. Dale shook his head. "He won't do it."
"Shore he'll do it. You don't think he's gonna have somebody else come
in here in yore place, do you? Not much he ain't. He'll lend you the
money and glad to."
"I done already asked him, an' he wouldn't."
"'You asked him, and he wouldn't?'" repeated Racey, stupidly. "When
did you ask him?"
"About two months ago--soon as ever I found out I wouldn't be able to
pay off the mortgage."
"And he wouldn't lend it to you? I don't understand it, damfi do. It
ain't reasonable. Lookit here, did you tell him what you wanted it
for? Did you tell him about the mortgage?"
"Non-no," said Mr. Dale in a still, small voice. "I didn't."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I was afraid he'd take advantage of me. I was afraid he'd fix
it so as to take my ranch away from me if he knowed how bad and what
for I needed it."
"But ain't that exactly what the Marysville bank could 'a' done if it
wanted?" demanded Racey, aghast at the Dale obtuseness.
"Yeah, but I had hopes of standing off the bank, and--"
"But you ain't got any hope of standing off Lanpher and Tweezy. Nary a
hope. Now lookit, Old Salt is yore only chance round here. Of course,
he'd fix it to take away yore ranch if he could. That's his business.
And it's yore business to see he don't. An' it's my business to help
you see he don't. Suppose now I go to Old Salt and get him to lend you
the money on a mortgage, say a ten-year mortgage?"
"But I got one mortgage on the place now. He'd never take a second
mortgage."
"Naw, naw, that ain't gonna be the way of it a-tall. It will be fixed
so's Old Salt's mortgage won't go into effect till the first one's
paid off."
"But then till the first one is paid off--maybe it will be three-four
days--Old Salt's five thousand will be unsecured."
"It won't be unsecured. It won't go out of Saltoun's hands. He'll pay
off the mortgage himself."
"Do you think you can get a easy rate from Old Salt?" asked Dale, the
light of a new hope dawning in his faded old eyes. "It's a awful tax
on a feller paying the full legal rate."
"We'll have to take what we can get, but I'll do my best to tone it
down. Sometimes a man will take less if he has another object in view
besides the interest. And you bet Old Salt will have a plenty big
object in view in keeping out Lanpher and Tweezy. Money ain't tight
now, anyway. I'll do the best I can for you. Don't you fret. You go on
in now and square up with the women and I'll slide out to the Bar S
instanter."
Mr. Dale, the poor old man, laid a hand on Racey's strong young
forearm. "I'll tell 'em," he said. "I'll tell 'em. You--you fix it up
with Old Salt."
Abruptly he turned away and hobbled hurriedly around the corner of the
barn.