MASTERY RECOGNIZED
There was, considering the latest price of wheat, a somewhat
astonishing attendance in the long room of the hotel at the railroad
settlement one Saturday evening. A big stove in the midst of it
diffused a stuffy and almost unnecessary heat, gaudy nickelled lamps
an uncertain brilliancy, and the place was filled with the drifting
smoke of indifferent tobacco. Oleographs, barbaric in colour and
drawing, hung about the roughly-boarded walls, and any critical
stranger would have found the saloon comfortless and tawdry.
It was, however, filled that night with bronzed-faced men who expected
nothing better. Most of them wore jackets of soft black leather or
embroidered deerskin, and the jean trousers and long boots of not a
few apparently stood in need of repairing, though the sprinkling of
more conventional apparel and paler faces showed that the storekeepers
of the settlement had been drawn together, as well as the prairie
farmers who had driven in to buy provisions or take up their mail.
There was, however, but little laughter, and their voices were low,
for boisterousness and assertion are not generally met with on the
silent prairie. Indeed, the attitude of some of the men was mildly
deprecatory, as though they felt that in assisting in what was going
forward they were doing an unusual thing. Still, the eyes of all were
turned toward the table where a man, who differed widely in appearance
from most of them, dealt out the cards.
He wore city clothes, and a white shirt with a fine diamond in the
front of it, while there was a keen intentness behind the
half-ironical smile in his somewhat colourless face. The whiteness of
his long, nervous fingers and the quickness of his gestures would also
have stamped him as a being of different order from the slowly-spoken
prairie farmers, while the slenderness of the little pile of coins in
front of him testified that his endeavours to tempt them to
speculation on games of chance had met with no very marked success as
yet. Gambling for stakes of moment is not a popular amusement in that
country, where the soil demands his best from every man in return for
the scanty dollars it yields him, but the gamester had chosen his time
well, and the men who had borne the dreary solitude of winter in
outlying farms, and now only saw another adverse season opening before
them, were for once in the mood to clutch at any excitement that would
relieve the monotony of their toilsome lives.
A few were betting small sums with an apparent lack of interest which
did not in the least deceive the dealer, and when he handed a few
dollars out he laughed a little as he turned to the bar-keeper.
"Set them up again. I want a drink to pass the time," he said. "I'll
play you at anything you like to put a name to, boys, if this game
don't suit you, but you'll have to give me the chance of making my
hotel bill. In my country I've seen folks livelier at a funeral."
The glasses were handed round, but when the gambler reached out
towards the silver at his side, a big bronzed-skinned rancher stopped
him.
"No," he drawled. "We're not sticking you for a locomotive tank, and
this comes out of my treasury. I'll call you three dollars and take my
chances on the draw."
"Well," said the dealer, "that's a little more encouraging. Anybody
wanting to make it better?"
A young lad in elaborately-embroidered deerskin with a flushed face
leaned upon the table. "Show you how we play cards in the old
country," he said. "I'll make it thirty--for a beginning."
There was a momentary silence, for the lad had staked heavily and lost
of late, but one or two more bets were made. Then the cards were
turned up, and the lad smiled fatuously as he took up his winnings.
"Now, I'll let you see," he said. "This time we'll make it fifty."
He won twice more in succession, and the men closed in about the
table, while, for the dealer knew when to strike, the glasses went
round again, and in the growing interest nobody quite noticed who paid
for the refreshment. Then, while the dollars began to trickle in, the
lad flung a bill for a hundred down.
"Go on," he said a trifle huskily. "To-night you can't beat me!"
Once more he won, and just then two men came quietly into the room.
One of them signed to the hotel-keeper.
"What's going on? The boys seem kind of keen," he said.
The other man laughed a little. "Ferris has struck a streak of luck,
but I wouldn't be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne. He
has had as much as he can carry already, and I don't want anybody
broke up in my house. The boys can look out for themselves, but the
Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn't know
when to stop."
Witham glanced at his companion, who nodded. "The young fool," he
said.
They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his
winnings again, and Witham laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.
"Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show," he said.
"You seem to have done tolerably well, and it's usually wise to stop
while the chances are going with you."
The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence in his
half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been
famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his
appearance. His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its
inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men,
who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one
who in the strenuous early days would have worn the woolly crown.
"Were you addressing me?" he asked.
"I was," said Witham quietly. "I was, in fact, inviting you to share
our refreshment. You see we have just come in."
"Then," said the lad, "it was condemnable impertinence. Since you have
taken this fellow up, couldn't you teach him that it's bad taste to
thrust his company upon people who don't want it, Dane?"
Witham said nothing, but drew Dane, who flushed a trifle, aside, and
when they sat down the latter smiled dryly.
"You have taken on a big contract, Courthorne. How are you going to
get the young ass out?" he said.
"Well," said Witham, "it would gratify me to take him by the neck, but
as I don't know that it would please the Colonel if I made a public
spectacle of one of his retainers, I fancy I'll have to tackle the
gambler. I don't know him, but as he comes from across the frontier
it's more than likely he has heard of me. There are advantages in
having a record like mine, you see."
"It would, of course, be a kindness to the lad's people--but the young
fool is scarcely worth it, and it's not your affair," said Dane
reflectively.
Witham guessed the drift of the speech, but he could respect a
confidence, and laughed a little. "It's not often I have done any one
a good turn, and the novelty has its attractions."
Dane did not appear contented with this explanation, but he asked
nothing further, and the two sat watching the men about the table, who
were evidently growing eager.
"That's two hundred the kid has let go," said somebody.
There was a murmur of excited voices, and one rose hoarse and a trifle
shaky in the consonants above the rest.
"Show you how a gentleman can stand up, boys. Throw them out again.
Two hundred this time on the game!"
There was silence and the rustle of shuffled cards; then once more the
voices went up. "Against him! Better let up before he takes your farm.
Oh, let him face it and show his grit--the man who slings round his
hundreds can afford to lose!"
The lad's face showed a trifle paler through the drifting smoke,
though a good many of the cigars had gone out now, and once more there
was the stillness of expectancy through which a strained voice rose.
"Going to get it all back. I'll stake you four hundred."
Witham rose and moved forward quietly, with Dane behind him, and then
stood still where he could see the table. He had also very observant
eyes, and was free from the excitement of those who had a risk on the
game. Still, when the cards were dealt, it was the gambler's face he
watched. For a brief space nobody moved, and then the lad flung down
his cards and stood up with a greyness in his cheeks and his hands
shaking.
"You've got all my dollars now," he said. "Still, I'll play you for
doubles if you'll take my paper."
The gambler nodded, and flung down a big pile of bills. "I guess I'll
trust you. Mine are here."
The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any
stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the
lad who stood tensely still, while Witham watched the face of the man
at the table in front of him. For a moment he saw a flicker of triumph
in his eyes, and that decided him. Again, one by one, the cards went
down, and then, when everybody waited in strained expectancy, the lad
seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned.
"You can let up," he said hoarsely. "I've gone down!"
Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest
stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it
said, "Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one."
In an instant the gambler's hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was
a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard, brown fingers closed
upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw
Witham leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted over
beneath him, and the cards were on the gambler's knees, while, as the
two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of
one of them.
It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and
trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not
regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he
had not the opportunity, for in another moment Witham's right hand
closed upon his wrist, and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to
extricate it. He was a muscular man, with doubtless a sufficiency of
nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for
eight long years. Before another few seconds had passed he was
wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane
picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle
of bills Witham handed him.
"Now," said the latter, "I want to do the square thing. If you'll let
us strip you and turn out your pockets, we'll see you get any winnings
you're entitled to when we've straightened up the cards."
The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he
would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the
frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of
detection among the Canadian farmers. He probably knew they would not
wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation
it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold
his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of
what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to
Witham.
"And who the ---- are you?" he asked.
Witham smiled grimly. "I guess you have heard of me. Anyway, there are
a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne. Quite
sure I know a straight game when I see it!"
The man's resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the
necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he
laughed as he swept his glance round at the angry faces turned upon
him.
"If you don't there's nobody does," he said. "Still, as you've got my
pistol and 'most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a
partner out of this."
There was an ominous murmur, and the lad's face showed livid with fury
and humiliation, but Witham turned quietly to the hotel-keeper.
"You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him
there," he said. "Dane, give him the bills. The rest of you had better
sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you'll get whatever
the fellow has upon him divided amongst you. Then, because I ask you,
and you'd have had nothing but for me, you'll put him in his wagon
and turn him out quietly upon the prairie."
"That's sense, and we don't want no circus here," said somebody.
A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that
one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more draconic
measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to. Then
Witham reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who
made the last attempt to rouse his companions.
"Let them alone, Ferris, and come along. You'll get most of what you
lost back to-morrow, and we're going to take you home," he said.
Ferris turned upon him, hoarse with passion, flushed in face, and
swaying a trifle on his feet, while Witham noticed that he drew one
arm back.
"Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?" he asked. "Keep your
distance. I'm going to stay here, and, if I'd have had my way, we'd
have kicked you out of Silverdale."
Witham dropped his hand, but next moment the ornament of a
distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at
Dane.
"We've had enough of this fooling, and he'll be grateful to me
to-morrow," he said.
Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room,
and with Dane's assistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which
he was flung, almost speechless with indignation.
"Now," said Dane quietly, "you've given us a good deal more trouble
than you're worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again, I'll
break your head for you. Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from
you."
In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track, and
were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie. Above them
the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances
of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that
disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness. Dane drew in a great
breath of the cool night air and laughed quietly.
"It's a good deal more wholesome here in several ways," said he. "If
you're wise, you'll let up on card-playing and hanging round the
settlement, Ferris, and stick to farming. Even if you lose almost as
many dollars over it, it will pay you considerably better. Now that's
all I'm going to tell you, but I know what I'm speaking of, because
I've had my fling--and it's costing me more than I care to figure out
still. You, however, can pull up, because by this time you have no
doubt found out a good deal, if you're not all a fool. Curiosity's at
the bottom of half our youthful follies, isn't it, Courthorne? We want
to know what the things forbidden actually taste like."
"Well," said Witham dryly, "I don't quite know. You see, I had very
little money in the old country, and still less leisure here to spend
either on that kind of experimenting. Where to get enough to eat was
the one problem that worried me."
Dane turned a trifle sharply. "We are, I fancy, tolerably good
friends. Isn't it a little unnecessary for you to adopt that tone with
me?"
Witham laughed, but made no answer, and their companion said nothing
at all. Either the night wind had a drowsy effect on him or he was
moodily resentful, for it was not until Witham pulled up before the
homestead whose lands he farmed indifferently under Barrington's
supervision that he opened his mouth.
"You have got off very cheaply to-night, and if you're wise you'll let
that kind of thing alone in future," said Witham quietly.
The lad stepped down from the wagon and then stood still. "I resent
advice from you as much as I do your uncalled-for insolence an hour or
two ago," he said. "To lie low until honest men got used to him would
be considerably more becoming to a man like you."
"Well," said Witham, stung into forgetfulness, "I'm not going to
offend in that fashion again, and you can go to the devil in the way
that most pleases you. In fact, I only pulled you out of the pit
to-night because a lady, who apparently takes a quite unwarranted
interest in you, asked me to."
Ferris stared up at him, and his face showed almost livid through the
luminous night.
"She asked you to!" he said. "By the Lord, I'll make you sorry for
this."
Witham said nothing, but shook the reins, and when the wagon lurched
forward Dane looked at him.
"I didn't know that before," he said.
"Well," said Witham dryly, "if I hadn't lost my temper with the lad
you wouldn't have done now."
Dane smiled. "You miss the point of it. Our engaging friend made
himself the laughing-stock of the colony by favouring Maud Barrington
with his attentions when he came out. In fact, I fancy the lady, in
desperation, had to turn her uncle loose on him before he could be
made to understand that they were not appreciated. I'd keep your eye
on him, Courthorne, for the little beast has shown himself abominably
vindictive occasionally, though I have a notion he's scarcely to be
held accountable. It's a case of too pure a strain and consanguinity.
Two branches of the family--marriage between land and money, you see."
"It will be my heel if he gets in my way," said Witham grimly.
It was late when they reached his homestead where Dane was to stay the
night, and when they went in a youthful figure in uniform rose up in
the big log-walled hall. For a moment Witham's heart almost stood
still, and then, holding himself in hand by a strenuous effort, he
moved forward and stood where the light of a lamp did not shine quite
fully upon him. He knew that uniform, and he had also seen the lad who
wore it once or twice before, at an outpost six hundred miles away
across the prairie. He knew the risk he took was great, but it was
evident to him that if his identity escaped detection at first sight,
use would do the rest, and while he had worn a short pointed beard on
the Western prairie, he was cleanly-shaven now.
The lad stood quite still a moment staring at him, and Witham
returning his gaze steadily felt his pulses throb.
"Well, trooper, what has brought you here?" he said.
"Homestead visitation, sir," said the lad, who had a pleasant English
voice. "Mr. Courthorne, I presume--accept my regrets if I stared too
hard at you--but for a moment you reminded me of a man I knew. They've
changed us round lately, and I'm from the Alberta Squadron just sent
in to this district. It was late when I rode in, and your people were
kind enough to put me up."
Witham laughed. "I have been taken for another man before. Would you
like anything to drink, or a smoke before you turn in, trooper?"
"No, sir," said the lad. "If you'll sign my docket to show I've been
here, I'll get some sleep. I've sixty miles to ride to-morrow."
Witham did as he was asked, and the trooper withdrew, while when they
sat down to a last cigar it seemed to Dane that his companion's face
was graver than usual.
"Did you notice the lad's astonishment when you came in?" he asked.
"He looked very much as if he had seen a ghost."
Witham smiled. "I believe he fancied he had. There was a man in the
district he came from whom some folks considered resembled me. In
reality, I was by no means like him, and he's dead now."
"Likenesses are curious things, and it's stranger still how folks
alter," said Dane. "Now, they've a photograph at Barrington's of you
as a boy, and while there is a resemblance in the face, nobody with
any discernment would have fancied that lad would grow into a man like
you. Still, that's of no great moment, and I want to know just how you
spotted the gambler. I had a tolerably expensive tuition in most games
of chance in my callow days, and haven't forgotten completely what I
was taught then, but though I watched the game I saw nothing that led
me to suspect crooked play."
Witham laughed. "I watched his face, and what I saw there decided me
to try a bluff, but it was not until he turned the table over I knew I
was right."
"Well," said Dane dryly, "you don't need your nerves toning up. With
only a suspicion to go upon, it was a tolerably risky game. Still, of
course, you had advantages."
"I have played a more risky one, but I don't know that I have cause to
be very grateful for anything I acquired in the past," said Witham
with a curious smile.
Dane stood up and flung his cigar away. "It's time I was asleep," he
said. "Still, since our talk has turned in this direction, I want to
tell you that, as you have doubtless seen, there is something about
you that puzzles me occasionally. I don't ask your confidence until
you are ready to give it me--but if ever you want anybody to stand
behind you in a difficulty, you'll find me rather more than willing."
He went out, and Witham sat still very grave in face for at least
another hour.