A GAME OF CRIBBAGE
The Indians of the Yukon are a gentle folk, else that early morning
raid of the sourdoughs had produced a war. Pouring through the door of
the Golden North Saloon the men, shouting and laughing, dispersed in
every direction, and in twos and threes invaded the habitations of the
Indians, who had not yet crawled from between their blankets. For eight
o’clock in the morning in December is not yet dawn on the Yukon.
Few of the men could speak or understand the Indian tongue, and few
of the Indians could understand English. Vociferous explanations were
as futile as were the half-hearted, wondering protests of the Indians
as their children were seized, wrapped warmly in the first blanket or
robe that came to hand, and carried screaming and fighting out into the
sub-Arctic night. Only slightly reassured by the laughter and evident
good intentions of the invaders, the parents hastily arrayed themselves
in their outer garb and followed as rapidly as they could, being guided
through the darkness by the howls and screeches of their kidnapped
offspring.
A stoic your Indian unquestionably is under adversity, and much of
his life is lived under adverse conditions, but the stoicism does not
begin at the cradle, or more appropriately, at the moss bag, nor yet
does it begin in early youth, as the men of the Yukon learned, when
they unceremoniously dumped their squirming, squalling burdens upon the
dance hall floor. And the dancing girls learned it also, as in vain
they tried to quiet the little savages, and to bring about some sort
of order from the chaos of blankets and robes and screaming babies and
fighting children. In fact, they even added their bit to the general
din: “O-w-ow! You little devil! Look out, girls! They bite like a
malamute pup!”
It was Horse Face Joe that finally solved the problem, as seating
himself at the piano, he struck up a rollicking air that stilled most
of the voices in wonder, and drowned those it did not still--Horse
Face, and the arrival of the Indian parents, who quickly reclaimed
blankets and offspring, and huddling at the farther end of the room,
listened to the music in dumb fascination.
It was nearly ten o’clock when the last cabin had been searched and
the last protesting child deposited upon the floor. Gordon, with his
wife and little girl, occupied seats of honor near the piano, and Burr
MacShane, through an interpreter, who had been discovered among the
Indians, stepped onto the floor and endeavored to explain what it was
all about. Then Horse Face Joe struck up an old melody, someone started
the words, half familiar, half forgotten, others joined in, and before
they knew it every white man and woman in the hall was singing as they
had never sung before. Louder and louder swelled the mighty volume of
sound until it overrolled and drowned the voice of the piano. Reaching
swiftly down, MacShane picked up little Lou Gordon and stood her upon
the top of the instrument. Men and girls naturally gravitated toward
the music and soon Horse Face Joe and his beloved piano with the little
girl standing on its top like a queen looking down with shining eyes
into the upturned faces of her subjects, were the centre of a close
standing group.
“Give us another!” came the demand from a dozen throats, as the last
strains trailed into silence. And Horse Face did give them another, and
many others. Never was the like seen north of sixty, a hundred men and
women close crowded about the piano singing at the top of their lungs,
and at the far end of the room the silent, half-frightened Indians--and
the dance hall floor between. While overtowering all presided the
great Christmas tree, majestic in its sweep of dark green branches,
resplendent in its outlandish and grotesquely painted images, its
brilliant hued dolls, its long festoons of gleaming red cranberries,
and its blazing candles whose yellow flames wavered and flickered in
the billowing waves of sound.
The last song was sung. The last crashing note was sounded upon the
piano, and with one accord, laughing and jesting among themselves
the men and the girls made descent upon the tree, and amid shouts and
laughter began to distribute presents from its bountiful branches. With
his own hands MacShane picked out the most beautiful doll with its
dress of flaming red silk, and its cap of blue, and its tiny mukluks
of yellow, and the biggest bag of candy and carried them to little Lou
Gordon, who, with eyes round with delight, viewed the proceedings from
her point of vantage on top of the piano. Not a child, even to the
tiniest baby but what received its present and its box of candy, nor
were the older Indians forgotten, for when MacShane and McCarty saw
the influx of parents that followed in the wake of their protesting
offspring, they quietly slipped out and made further purchases at the
store, with the result that every man received a gift of tobacco, and
every woman a small package of sugar or tea.
Twelve o’clock struck and the children’s celebration was over. The
Indians were herded from the room, and just as Horse Face Joe sank
wearily upon his piano stool to strike up a lively dance tune, MacShane
stayed him with a wave of his hand. Advancing to his side he demanded
his gold sack into which from his own he shook a liberal portion of
dust, then, with Horse Face’s sack in hand, he passed around among the
men, and when he returned it to its owner it was bulging with dust and
coarse gold. It was Horse Face Joe’s great Christmas--and his last.
He mumbled awkward words of thanks, and struck into a galloping waltz
as men sought their partners and hurried onto the floor. That dance
was never finished. The music lagged slower and slower to the end in a
low rumble of protesting chords as the body of Horse Face Joe sagged
forward upon the keyboard in a deep sleep.
They carried him to his room, and one of the girls took his place.
Hours later he awoke, and with his bulging pouch made a beeline for the
bar. As it had been Horse Face Joe’s inspired night, so also was it his
swan song. Never again did his fingers sweep the keys of a piano for
with the proceeds of his bulging Christmas sack, he stuck steadfastly
at the bar. Night and day for six days he remained gloriously drunk,
and upon New Year’s night, which was Dawson’s coldest night that
winter, he was picked up half buried in the snow on Front Street--a
rigid corpse of ice.
Christmas night the same group of cronies foregathered at the
forward end of the bar, Bettles, Camillo Bill, Moosehide Charlie,
Ace-In-The-Hole, and Old Man Gordon, and with them was MacShane.
“What was it you started in to say last night, MacShane?” asked Camillo
Bill, “About a man’s bein’ able to make his everlastin’ stake right
here without ever puttin’ a pick into the gravel?”
“Sure he could,” answered MacShane, with conviction. “I could clean up
a million here in this camp within the next two years, an’ never touch
a pick or a pan, or chop a stick of cordwood. Anyone of us could do
it, but I doubt if anyone of us will--I know I won’t. It’s simple as A
B C spells cat. Take town lots, for instance, right here on the flat.
Have you stopped to figure what’s goin’ to happen next spring, an’ next
fall? The news of this strike has already hit the outside, and in the
spring there’ll be the doggondest stampede into the Yukon that anyone
ever saw. Fifty thousand men will come boilin’ in here crazy for gold.
They’ve got to be fed an’ housed. Lots that you can buy now for a few
dollars will go to thousands. Buy lots, that’s one way. Buy flour an’
sugar, an’ bacon. Ship a sawmill in here an’ go to loggin’. Lumber will
bring anything a man’s mind to ask for it next summer. Buy a steamboat
an’ run between here an’ White Horse. This stampede’s comin’ down the
river. Go up to Lindermann an’ build polin’ boats, an’ buy up all the
canoes in sight. An’ when you get that done, buy claims an’ sell ’em to
the _chechakos_.
“I’m tellin’ you a man can clean up ten dollars for every dollar he
puts in, an’ turn his money over a dozen times in a year. The chances
are here, plenty of ’em, an’ someone is goin’ to cash ’em in, but
I doubt if it will be any of us. Trouble with us fellows, we ain’t
business men--we’re gamblers, or we wouldn’t be here. I know how it is
with me, always wantin’ to see what’s just beyond. I’d rather make a
new strike on some crick that no one had ever prospected than stay here
an’ work the richest claim on Bonanza, or Gold Bottom, or Eldorado.
Go to it, now! I’ve told you how. An’ likewise I’ve told you that
there ain’t a man here that will turn real estater, or storekeeper,
or logger, or steamboat man. We’re prospectors, that’s what we
are--gamblers. An’ speakin’ of gamblin’ how about a game of stud?”
“Give us a drink,” demanded Ace-In-The-Hole of the bartender, “A drink,
and a deck of cards.”
The men drank, and as Old Man Gordon set down his glass, he regarded
the others with a frown. He had imbibed rather freely during the
afternoon and early evening, and the strong liquor had loosened his
tongue: “Ye’ll not get me to risk gude gold on the flip of a card!” he
exclaimed, with asperity. “Ye’re onregenerate sons of Belial! Ye waste
ye’re substance wi’ riotous livin’ an’ harlots, agin the command of the
Gude Book, an’ I’ll have none of it!”
“Give it to him, Gordon!” laughed Camillo Bill.
“Tell him where to head in!” cried Bettles.
“He’s a sinful man, ain’t he, Gordon?” encouraged Moosehide Charlie, “I
bet he ain’t got no soul left to speak of!”
“Who be ye, to be passin’ judgment on a man’s soul?” cried Gordon,
turning on the speaker, to the huge delight of the others. “Ye’re all
tarred wi’ the same brush, as the Gude Book says. One of ye is no
better than the others, if as gude! Ye’re empty sepulchres full o’
dead men’s bones! Ye’re rushin’ hell-bent fer destruction! Ye’re a
generation of vipers!”
Ace-In-The-Hole turned gravely to the bartender: “Don’t give him any
more to drink,” he warned, “He’s seein’ snakes!”
“An’ who could see aught else, lookin’ at the likes of ye?” retorted
the old man, “Snakes an’ serpents ye are, layin’ in wait to sting the
unwary wi’ the turn of a card!”
“You’re a gambler yourself,” grinned MacShane, “Or you wouldn’t be
here. You’re bettin’ your life against the gold you expect to take out
of the gravel.”
“Wise ye are, Burr MacShane, in the ways of the trail, an’ a man ’tis
gude to know. But ye’re philosophy is but the babble of a child. ’Tis
no gamble--the gold ye take out of the gravel. ’Tis fairly earnt by
the sweat of the brow, an’ by the work of the brain. Ye’re poker is a
gamble, pure an’ simple. The pot ye rake in is not come by by the sweat
of ye’re brow, nor is it earnt by the work of ye’re brain. ’Tis luckily
won by the foolish turn of a card.”
“I’ve dealt till I sweat,” retorted MacShane, “An’ I’ve sure worked my
brains overtime tryin’ to dope out whether to call, or raise, or throw
’em away.”
“Blither, an’ blather!” cried the old man, thoroughly roused, now, to
his subject. “Give us a drink, barkeep, till I blast through the bed
rock that these skulls are made of, an’ see if there’s a bit of a
brain below!” He turned again to MacShane, “Poker is a gamblin’ game,
d’ye hear!”
“I’ve had an inklin’ that such was the case,” grinned MacShane.
“Ye’ve admitted it, then? There’s hope for ye, which is more than I
thought. Bein’ a gamblin’ game, it’s riotous livin’ for to play it, as
the Gude Book states plain. It’s a gamblin’ game because ye’ve got to
have the cards to win. The cards is got in the luck of the deal, an’ no
amount of work ye can do, or thinkin’ ye can do will change the fall of
the cards.”
“Then, if a man’s got brains enough, an’ is slick enough with his hands
to deal crooked, that’s all right?” cut in Moosehide, “I s’pose then,
he earns what he gets?”
Gordon favored him with a withering glance of scorn: “That’s plain
thievery,” he roared, “an’ lower in the scale even than gamblin’.
Poker’s gamblin’, because if ye ain’t got the cards ye can’t win,”
repeated Gordon, with conviction. “Cribbage, now, is different. In
cribbage the best man wins. Ye’ve got to put brains into cribbage, an’
if ye win, ye’ve earnt what ye win by the work of ye’re brain.”
“Poker’s gamblin’, but cribbage ain’t,” laughed MacShane, “Is that
right, Gordon?”
“That’s right, an’ gamblin’s an onchristian pastime, but it ain’t
onchristian to earn gold by the honest work of the brain.”
“You’re crazy as hell! If you don’t get the cards in cribbage you
can’t win any more than you can in poker!”
“Crazy as hell, am I?” cried Gordon, exasperated to the point of
smiting the bar with his fist, “An’ if ye don’t get the cards ye can’t
win! Young man, if ye played cribbage, I’d bet ye a thousan’ I can beat
ye, come the cards as they will! It’s brains wins in cribbage, not
cards.”
“Well, I play cribbage a little. I’ll take you up.”
“Come on, then!” cried Gordon, “Just the two of us. Give us the cards.
I ain’t a swearin’ man, an’ I would not swear at any man of my own
word, but, Damn ye! as the feller says, I’ll make a Christian of ye, if
I have to play cards to do it!”
The two seated themselves at a table, and the others crowded close,
bent on watching every play of the game. “Old Man Gordon’s playin’
cards, an’ he’s bet a thousand,” the word passed from lip to lip and
others joined the group, until the table was rimmed with spectators,
for never before had any man seen Gordon touch a card.
The game was finished and MacShane won. “What did I tell you?” he said,
“I got the best cards, so I won.”
Gordon scribbled the amount of the bet upon a leaf from a small note
book, tore out the leaf and tossed it across the table: “Ye had no
better cards,” retorted the old man, “Ye outplayed me! Ye only beat me
by two points, an’ ’twas my own fault. I should known better than pair
ye’re nine spot, on the second deal, I might have known ye had the
third. Come on, play again--two thousan’ this time!”
MacShane shuffled the cards without a word, offered the deck for the
cut, and the second game began. This game, also, MacShane won. And
again he called attention to the fact that it was because he had held
the better cards. But the old man refused to admit it.
“’Twas my own bad playin’ done it!” he retorted, gruffly, “I ruint a
sure ten hand to hold for a possible twenty-four, an’ I didn’t get
the turn so I only counted four. Ye beat me by five points. If I’d
played my sure ten, I’d have won by a point. We’ll play again.” Pausing
abruptly, he produced his note book and tearing another leaf from it,
passed it across the table. Then he consulted a penciled memorandum.
“Ye’ve won three thousan’,” he said. “I’ve still got five hundred in
dust in McCarty’s safe, an’ about two hundred in my pocket. We’ll play
for seven hundred. I owe no man, an’ I’ll not go in debt.”
MacShane leaned back in his chair and shook his head: “Why can’t you be
reasonable, Gordon? The cards are runnin’ against you. Anyone can see
that. I don’t want your dust.”
The old man glared wrath fully across the table: “An’ why don’t ye want
my dust? Ain’t my dust as gude as any man’s? Come, play! ’Tis my deal,
an’ ye won’t be quittin’ wi’out giving me a chance to win back what
ye’ve won from me!”
MacShane shrugged: “Deal,” he said, tersely, and picked up the cards as
they fell.
MacShane won, this time by a wide margin, and Gordon tossed his gold
sack onto the table, and with it an order on McCarty for the last of
his gold in the safe. Then, fixing MacShane with an angry glare, he
leaned half across the table: “I’ll play ye for the claim!” he cried.
“What’ll ye put against it?”
“Not one damned cent!” cried MacShane. “I’m done.”
“Ye’d win a man’s dust an’ not give him a chance to get it back?”
taunted the old man. “’Tis not what I expected from a man that’s known
as the best man in the North! Put up ten thousan’ against the claim.
It’s worth more than that, from top indications. An’ we’ll play for
it.” There was dead silence among the spectators that rimmed the table
as they watched with breathless interest the two who faced each other
across the board.
It was not the size of the stakes that interested them, for in the
early Dawson days, before the inrush of the _chechakos_ and tin-horns,
big games were the order, and thousands of dollars in dust and markers
passed almost nightly over McCarty’s tables. The interest was in the
fact that Old Man Gordon was playing, and that in a sudden abandon
of profligacy he was risking all he owned upon a game of cards. For,
not a man among them but had listened to the old man’s oft repeated
tirades against the vice of gambling. The interest lay in this, but
to even a greater extent, it lay in MacShane. For the unwritten law
of the Yukon was plain, needing no interpretation of court to make
it understood. If a man sat in a game of cards he stated no limit of
liability. “Table stakes” and “limit” games were unknown. A player
stood to lose all he possessed. He must not bet beyond the limit of his
property without the consent of the other players. And should a pot in
which he was interested be forced beyond the value of his property, he
could call for so much of the pot as had accumulated up to that point,
all subsequent bets being considered as between the other players only.
Also, in all fairness, the law decreed that a man should be given the
chance to win back what he had lost. The practice of “making a killing”
and quitting a game was brought in by the tin-horns, with their “table
stakes” and “limit” games.
Old Man Gordon was demanding to be allowed to win back his loss. And
breathlessly the onlookers watched MacShane, for not a man among them
would have had the nerve to refuse to play. Yet, every man among them
knew that MacShane did not want to win the old man’s claim. It was up
to MacShane. The law was plain, and no man would have blamed him had he
played and won. But MacShane, veriest sourdough of them all, chose to
disregard the law, and the fact that men knew him for what he was gave
approval to his decision.
“This game is over, Gordon,” he stated, quietly. “I’m quitting.” And
with the words, he pushed back from the table and stood up.
The old man leaped to his feet and faced him, shaking with rage: “Ye’re
a quitter! The great Burr MacShane is a quitter! Bah! Ye’ve be’n a big
man hereabouts, an’ throughout pretty much all the North--but it took
Old Man Gordon to find ye out! Hereabout, men know ye now for what ye
are! Ye’ve won thirty-seven hundred in gude gold from me--but ye’ve
lost more than I have, Burr MacShane! I bid ye Gude Night!”
MacShane listened to the tirade without a word, and when the door
closed behind the old man, he strolled to the bar and presented his
slips. McCarty weighed out the dust, which was in several small sacks.
MacShane gathered up the sacks, added the one Gordon had tossed across
the table, and slipped them into his pocket.
Over a round of drinks, Moosehide Charlie voiced the general opinion of
the camp: “You done right, MacShane. There’s no fool like an old fool.
You done it for his own good--but, at that, there ain’t many of us
would have wanted it to do.”
Later, MacShane called Camillo Bill and Moosehide to one side: “Where’s
this claim of Gordon’s,” he asked casually.
“It’s up the river a little ways, on a crick that runs in from the
north.”
“Does he live there?”
“No, he’s got a cabin here in camp. He’s got a little shack on the
claim where he stays part of the time.”
“I want you boys to come with me.”
“Where to?” asked Moosehide, quickly.
“To Gordon’s claim.” A moment of constrained silence greeted the
announcement, during which Camillo Bill regarded the speaker with
steady gaze. The more mercurial Moosehide, shifting his weight from one
foot to the other, was the first to speak:
“What for?” he asked.
“Just want to look it over,” answered MacShane.
“Well, talkin’ about me I’m too busy,” retorted Moosehide. “I got you
wrong, a while back, an’ I guess there’s lots of others did, too. You
kin save yerself that trip, though. There’s plenty of us here that will
take Old Man Gordon’s word that his claim’s worth ten thousan’. If you
want to give him a run fer his money tomorrow I guess he’ll be able to
stack up the dust agin yourn.” And so saying, he turned abruptly away.
MacShane listened in silence, not a muscle of his face changing, and
when Moosehide had mingled with the crowd, he turned to Camillo Bill:
“How about you?” he asked, in a voice that gave no hint of anger.
Now the first thought that leaped into Camillo Bill’s head at
MacShane’s words was the same thought that Moosehide Charlie had
expressed. But whether it was because he was slower to jump at
conclusions or because the thought could not be made to tally with
his own estimate of MacShane, which was, he knew, the estimate of the
North, is immaterial. Camillo Bill withheld judgment.
“What do you say?” insisted MacShane, with just a trace of impatience
in his tone.
“Let’s go,” answered Camillo, bluntly, and together the two passed out
the door.