The Man from the Lias River
The little burst of applause which greeted Claire’s entrance had
died out. Like the stage light that had descended upon her it had
left her with a slight feeling of embarrassment. But she understood
that the men, at least, if not the women, were in the mood to
applaud anything and everything, for it was a night of festival.
It was the first of its kind she had attended. She had known by
tradition what was expected, and had seen to it that she played
her part. So her gown was the most expensive she could import from
Seattle and the largish beaded handbag she was carrying was packed
with a roll of money of unusually large proportions.
In the brief eight months since Claire had plunged into the vortex
of the Speedway’s gaming life she had become a victim of the fever
of it all. Her original purpose had been the simple betterment
of her fortunes and those of her mother. She had desired nothing
more. For, in her heart, she had no sympathy with the reputation of
the place. The whole idea had been cold business. But by degrees
her viewpoint had changed, and the rich youth in her had gained
ascendency. The place, the life, the game, swiftly took possession
of her, and all of the dead father latent in her young soul had
stirred to an irresistible passion. The lure of that centre table
she had made hers, the rattle of the chips, the feel of the
delicate pasteboards in her nimble fingers, were all things she
had come to live for. She had learned to love it all with a real
passion.
In the process of time there had been scarcely a moment of
disillusion. Her beauty had gained her a deep place in the hearts
of the men. And the women, whatever their real feelings, bowed
before a creature whom the other sex had set on so exalted a
pedestal. Then her skill; her spirit. At the realisation of these
things even the women stood by in frank admiration, while her
amazing good fortune filled them with superlative envy.
Claire had been staunch and true to herself and her purpose.
Never once had there fallen a lapse. She eschewed the vices she
witnessed in others of her sex who haunted the place, while she
gave full run to her capacity for sheer enjoyment. Never once in
the thirsty, heated atmosphere of the place had she permitted any
beverage more harmful than a mineral water to pass her pretty lips.
She revelled in the scent of the tobacco with which men and women
filled the atmosphere. But she had not the slightest inclination
to essay the mildest of cigarettes herself. Then, too, she had
swiftly discovered herself to be possessed of an unerring instinct
in defence against the ardent and often crude advances she was
constantly encountering amongst the wild youth with which she found
herself surrounded.
She had been dubbed “The Saint” from the earliest days of her
career at the Speedway. And it was a natural enough appellation.
Her given name had suggested, and her methods had inspired. It was
the jealous minds of her own sex which had coined the designation.
And the manhood of the city had taken it up in real affection.
Before passing to her table Claire came over to the seat where
McLagan’s great figure was lounging. And her greeting of him had in
it no lessening of their old friendliness.
“Why, Ivor,” she cried, “I didn’t guess you’d be along in town.
This is real fine on a party night. And--and”--her lighting eyes
surveyed his evening suit--“say, don’t you look swell? You see, I
always sort of expect you in your tough old pea-jacket.”
The man’s plain face was alight with undisguised pleasure. He shook
his head, and his small eyes twinkled.
“Don’t just say a thing, Claire,” he said quietly. “If you knew
the way I feel I guess you’d hand me all the pity you know. I am
hating myself under a boiled shirt, but I had to be around to-night
anyway. And I’m glad. I’d have missed that dandy gown of yours
else, and the picture you’re looking. You’ve got Beacon plumb
dazzled and me well-nigh blinded.”
The girl flushed and laughed, but she left his compliment
unanswered.
“Are you going to sit in at my table?” she asked. Then with real
sincerity, “I’d be glad.”
But again McLagan shook his head.
“No, Claire,” he said reflectively. “I got other notions being here
to-night. Besides,” he added with a smile, “my bank roll isn’t
equal to better than table-stakes,’ and that’s no sort of use
when _you_ get busy. I’ll just sit around awhile. There’s Jubilee
yearning to lighten your wad. He sat right in on the jump when you
came along, and I don’t fancy he’ll squeal when you’re through with
him. No, I’m waiting on Victor Burns, and one or two boys. I can do
business here, and--I’ve pleased Max coming.”
Claire glanced round at her table and her eyes were no longer
smiling. Her table had filled with the men with whom she was
accustomed to play, and they were waiting on her pleasure.
“Why must you please Max?” she asked a little sharply. “Why is it
all of you men reckon to please Max?” Suddenly she lowered her
voice and inclined towards him. “He’s gone off to the dance hall so
I don’t mind. I’m getting to hate him like I used to hate Booker
months back. That play of his just now with his light. It sickened
me. It surely did, Ivor. And he’s getting like a tame cat. And I
hate cats. Give me a dog all the time, and a good, rough, fighting
trail husky at that.”
McLagan nodded. His eyes were smiling inscrutably.
“Don’t worry with him,” he said. “Don’t worry with any feller. Max
has his uses, which don’t need to concern you. But your boys are
looking gun-play my way.”
Claire laughed. The man was dismissing her. This big, burly, plain
creature who had persistently asked her to marry him. Just for a
moment a sense of pique disturbed her, but it passed immediately,
lost in her laugh. There was no other man in that room would have
done the same. She nodded at him and took her dismissal.
“Swell clothes hide up all sorts of things, I guess,” she cried,
as she moved away, “but it’s queer how the rough in a man can leak
through. I guess those boys at the table won’t be in such a hurry
to lose me.”
She was gone. And with her going a sense of loneliness at once
stole in on McLagan. He desired her for himself. He desired Claire
Carver above all things in the world. He could cheerfully have
driven the crowd about her table headlong. But that was the feeling
that was his at all times at the sight of the men who gathered
about her. However, he had come there with a resolve from which he
would not deviate, and, in accordance with that which lay at the
back of his mind, he had dismissed her to the game which he knew
was her passionate delight.
Victor Burns had just passed the curtained archway, and hard on his
heels was a newcomer who at once claimed all McLagan’s interest.
For a moment he observed the man while the banker strolled
leisurely over towards him. He was a broad, powerful creature in
dark clothes, with a pea-jacket tightly buttoned over his chest.
His face was clean-shaven and dark, but his eyes were of the palest
hue of blue, and as expressionless as those of a dead codfish. It
was his eyes that interested McLagan most, and Burns came up almost
before he was aware of it.
Burns laughed.
“Hello, Mac, where are the boys? Busy? You seem to be having all
sorts of a time to yourself. I’ll hail a flunkey an’ collect a
cocktail.”
McLagan edged round towards the empty chair which the banker took
possession of.
“Nothing for me, Victor,” he said brusquely. “Jubilee’s in the
game there, and the Doc’s oozed off to get a look at the dames
in the dance room. Abe’s passed back to his own booth, and young
Burt Riddell’s sitting in where his game can’t butt in on his
partner’s.” He laughed. “We’re outside it all, eh?”
“I surely am,” the banker admitted promptly as he surveyed the
crowd. “You can’t run a bank and play big money at the Speedway.
Say----”
He broke off as he caught sight of the man with the pale blue eyes
thrusting his way unceremoniously through the crowd about Claire’s
table. McLagan followed the direction of his gaze.
“Who’s that tough-looking guy?” he asked quickly.
“Cy Liskard,” the banker said. “He’s a client of mine. And he’s
full to the back teeth with dollars and dust. And,” he added
slowly, “looks like he is with liquor, too. Guess he’s out for a
time. He’ll get it if he sits into the Saint’s game. She’ll skin
him to death.”
The stranger’s movements were rough and forceful. He made no
pretence. The crowd where he joined it about Claire’s table was
at least three deep. It was composed of men in every fashion of
clothing, and women whose faces were sufficiently disguised under
paint to hide up the worst traces of aging and dissipation. He
shouldered his way through and came to a halt immediately behind
one of the players. McLagan wondered at the ease, the impunity,
with which his purpose was accomplished.
“He’s a roll of ten thousand in his hip pocket, and I can’t say how
much more. I wonder the kind of game he’s got lying back of those
dead eyes of his.”
Burns spoke reflectively, but his companion made no answer. McLagan
had bestirred himself out of his seat. He had perched himself up on
its arm, the better to view the scene. His gaze was on the stranger
and was swiftly reading the thing that must have been obvious to
any onlooker sufficiently interested. The man was clearly under the
influence of drink, but by no means drunk, and his “dead eyes,” as
Burns had called them, were fixed in a devouring stare upon the
girl at the far end of the table. It was not the game that claimed
the man. No, it was the girl, who remained utterly unconscious of
his regard, lost in the absorbing interest of the hand she was
playing.
“You know, Mac,” Burns went on, after a moment’s contemplation
of the man, “there’s faces with features that mark a man down in
a feller’s reckoning, and leave him with an opinion that he’s no
right to on the face of things. But his feeling generally proves
right in the end. That boy’s eyes leave me cold in the spine,” he
laughed. “To me they’re the eyes of a dead soul. To me, they’re the
eyes of a feller who’d better have been smothered at birth. I’d
hate----”
He broke off. Above the murmur of voices with which the room was
filled the tones of a voice jarred harshly. It was Cy Liskard, and
he was speaking to the man behind whose chair he was standing.
“I want to cut in right away,” he was saying. “Ther’s fi’ hundred
dollars for your chair, Mister. Does it go?”
McLagan had straightened up from his lounging attitude. Burns,
too, was on his feet, and both had moved nearer to the table.
Five hundred dollars offered for a “cut-in.” It was sufficiently
extravagant. And every eye of those standing around was on the
stranger who made the offer.
A few moments passed. The hand came to an end, the pot passing to
the man whom the stranger had sought to buy out. Then there came
movement, and the player’s voice made itself heard.
“Hand us the dough,” he said sharply. “You can cut right in. If
you’ve the nerve to bid five hundred for a chair, I guess you’re
more entitled to it than me.”
He rose from his place and Cy Liskard dropped into it. Then he
made his way through the smiling crowd.
“Fifteen hundred dollars for six hands leaves me at peace with the
world,” he said, as he approached McLagan and the banker. “Ain’t
that so, Mac?” he asked, with a wink.
He stood for a moment looking back at the table, and his smile of
self-satisfaction suddenly faded out of his eyes.
“I’m kind of sorry I fell for it, though,” he said, lowering his
voice. “That guy’s haf soused, and I’ve let him into _her_ table.”
“Maybe it’s just as well you did, Soo.”
Soo Tybert stared at McLagan wonderingly. He was a burly youngster,
partner in a dry goods store, and hailed from his father’s
wholesale house in Seattle.
“How so?” he asked.
McLagan shrugged.
“He meant cutting in, anyway.”
Burns smiled.
“I guess the Saint’s going to have a swell night,” he said. “Mister
Cy’ll be along in the morning to replenish his dollar reserves. Can
you beat these boys who come easy by the stuff lying around the
creeks? Haf a highball under their belts and the good air of the
hills blown out of their vitals, and they’re as ready to pass on
their stuff as an elderly, new-made widow-woman.”
But McLagan and the dry goods boy were paying no heed to the
banker’s reflections. They were talking earnestly in a low tone,
and when they had finished, Soo made a somewhat hurried departure.
“Where’s he gone?” asked Burns, when McLagan returned to his side.
“To hunt up Max.”
“Why?” The banker’s keen eyes had sobered, and a sharp look of
doubt accompanied his interrogation.
McLagan indicated the table at which Claire presided.
“What d’you know of Cy Liskard?” he asked, curtly.
“Not a thing. He’s a customer at the bank, that’s all. He’s on pay
dirt and hit it good.”
“Where?”
“Don’t know.”
Burns shrugged. But the look in his friend’s eyes interested him.
“There’ll be trouble before the night’s out. I’m going to stop
around.”
McLagan’s words came sharply, but in a tone only meant for the
banker’s ears. There was a curious hard set to his plain face,
and his small eyes were coldly bright. Victor Burns held him in
deep regard, and his understanding of him was the understanding of
years of intimate association. He had long since probed McLagan’s
interest in Claire Carver, and made his estimate of it. And now, as
he observed the man’s hard-set look, he realised something of the
depths to which he was stirred.
“You don’t need to worry,” he said quietly. “There’s no man around
here to-night crazy enough to play tough--not to-night.”
McLagan’s reply came with cold conviction.
“Ordinarily, I’d say you’re right, Victor. But ther’s mischief back
of that feller’s eyes. He paid five hundred to cut in. Why? For a
hand at poker? Not on your life. I’m going to get in and watch the
game.”
* * * * *
McLagan was far too familiar with the poker games played at the
Speedway to concern himself with the bigness of the game he was
looking on at. It mattered little enough to him the relative
value of the heavy red, white and blue chips. Their value might be
twenty-five, fifty and one hundred calculated in cents or dollars.
It made no impression whatsoever upon his imagination, but the
skill of the players was a never-failing source of interest. The
human psychology in the game was fascinating beyond words.
To him the young girl, who seemed literally to have given up her
life to the lure of the game, was the epitome of all that was
demanded of human nature in the play. Her beautiful face smiled
or remained serious as mood inclined her. But no change in it
was wrought or influenced by the progress of the game. Her mood
seemed at all times buoyant, and her flashes of inspiration came
and passed without a moment of apparent effort or hesitation. In
three hands she had her opponent’s measure with an instinct and
observation that were unerring, while she played her own hand
with the baffling inconsequence which only a beautiful woman
could achieve. The values of every hand, estimated through her
understanding of her opponent’s methods, were instinctive knowledge
to her, and she played on the instant at all times, while her skill
in the draw proclaimed her utter and complete mistress of the game.
A hand had been dealt since Cy Liskard had sat in and the ante had
remained unchallenged. Now a jack-pot was being dealt for. Claire’s
smile was good to watch, and a light of deep absorption was shining
behind her beautiful eyes. She dealt the hand, and sat waiting for
the opening or passing of the jack-pot.
Jubilee shook his head and closed his cards up. The next man
refused. Cy Liskard picked up some chips and counted them.
“I’m opening for ‘fifty,’” he said, while his curious eyes levelled
themselves at the dealer. “Guess that calls a hundred.”
The hush was profound. The onlookers foresaw a big gamble if all
the table came in. Then again, it might be a crude bluff on the
part of this man who was almost a stranger to them.
McLagan was observing the man with almost cat-like watchfulness.
Victor Burns was smiling interestedly, wondering the while how long
his customer would last in the hands of these skilled and merciless
gamblers. To him there was, there could be, no doubt as to the end.
This man would stand no chance. He would stand no more chance than
a lamb in the midst of a wolf pack.
Of the six players at the table Jubilee alone refused to come in.
He threw his cards in and sat back while Claire began to deal for
the draw. The betting started at fifty dollars, and the spectators’
interest deepened, for, after the draw, all but Claire and the man
who had opened the pot threw in their hands.
Claire’s instant response to the stranger was a raise to five
hundred dollars.
It was the sort of thing expected of her, and interest deepened. Cy
Liskard had drawn two cards, and the smiling dealer had matched his
draw. There could be no indication as to what either of the players
held beyond the fact that the man had opened the pot.
Cy’s response was slower in coming. He glanced at his cards and
closed them instantly. Then, in a moment, he raised the girl’s bet
by one hundred dollars.
McLagan never for an instant withdrew his gaze from the man, for
it was the man who interested him. It seemed to him the dead eyes
had somehow come to life under the purpose driving him, and he
was endeavouring to read and grasp that purpose. To McLagan it was
a face masking completely every sign of emotion, but he felt that
emotion was burning deeply behind the lustreless eyes, and somehow
the conviction of lurking evil was irresistible.
Victor Burns, like all the rest around the table, had eyes only
for the beautiful woman, with her graceful figure a-shimmer with
the twinkling beads of her gown, and with her wealth of vivid hair
under her modish hat framing a face which he was never tired of
gazing upon.
Claire smiled her prompt reply, her lips parting and revealing a
row of perfect teeth as she “saw” the bet and raised it another
five hundred. The challenge was thrilling and on the instant every
eye focussed on the man at the end of the table.
He raised his strange eyes and gazed hardly into those of the girl,
and as he passed his chips into the centre of the table, McLagan
drew a deep breath.
“Curse it, ther’s your fi’ hundred, an’ another on top of it. Will
you see it?”
“Surely. And raise it.” Claire’s retort came in tones of smiling,
unruffled calm. “It’ll cost you a thousand more.”
The man laughed. But the laugh was harsh and unconvincing in its
lack of mirth.
“I like it in thousands,” he cried, as the girl’s chips were slid
into place to swell the pot. “There’s your thousand and another.
Well?”
There was a shuffling of feet amongst the spectators and several
coughed. It was an expression of the wave of excitement surging.
“Perfectly well.”
The girl matched his bet and raised it another hundred. And the man
laughed again with a further challenge.
“It’ll cost you another thousand!” he cried, and his tone was
exulting.
Victor Burns found himself holding his breath while he waited for
the girl’s move. Just for one instant her eyes flashed out of their
usual calm. There was real excitement in them now. And he wondered
if at last she had been caught out of her depth.
“And more,” she said. And her voice was perfectly steady. “One
thousand more.”
Her chips had become exhausted and she thrust forward a roll of
bills. Then she sat waiting for the man to come again.
It was the supreme moment when the test of nerve was at its highest
pitch. The onlookers understood. Big game as they were used to
witnessing at this centre table, it was the first time they had
looked on with stakes rising by a thousand dollars at a bet. The
question in every mind was the same. The man was obviously a gold
man with a pouch full of dust. What was its limit? How far would he
go under the influence of the surroundings and the liquor he had
obviously consumed?
Cy Liskard clutched his cards and laughed harshly.
“Come again,” he shouted. “There’s your thousand an’ another.”
He literally flung the bills on the table, for he, too, had
exhausted his chips. “Ther’s nigh fifteen thousand in the pot. Can
you see it an’ raise it? Raise it--if you’ve the grit.”
“Sure, I will,” Claire replied with just a suspicion of sharpness
in her tone for all her smile. “Come again, Mister man. Let’s see
your colour. You haven’t the stuff in you to raise that. It’ll cost
you fifteen hundred.”
The girl’s breath came quickly for all her self-control. There was
challenge in her tone, a woman’s taunting. But to McLagan, who
knew her every mood, there was more. In his mind he questioned her
nerve if the man came back at her, and he edged his way nearer, and
his instinct was to support and strengthen her in the weakness he
fancied she was beginning to betray.
He reached her side, and her opponent was forgotten. Just for one
instant her pretty eyes flashed a smiling upward glance into his
plain face, and a wave of relief surged through his anxious mind.
Her eyes were full of the confident courage he had feared for.
“It’s good enough!”
Cy Liskard threw his cards on the table face downward.
“It’s yours, my lady. I’m done.”
A gasp of astonishment came from the onlookers. The man’s defeat,
his weakness, left them amazed. Then, as Claire reached out and
collected the pool, short and sharp came Jubilee’s challenge.
“Your ‘openers,’ Mister!”
Cy Liskard turned his unsmiling eyes on the man. His gaze was cold
for all the harshness of his response.
“What the hell!” he cried.
Then he reached towards his cards and sought to turn them. In doing
so he displayed all five. Perhaps it was intentional--perhaps, in
a fury of resentment at the challenge in his defeat, the thing was
inadvertent. Whatever it was, the revelation was complete and a
gasp of amazement greeted his action.
He had thrown in _four aces_!
A chorus of derision followed. There was laughter. There were
epithets of undisguised contempt for the play that could yield
four aces so tamely. Even Claire smiled her contempt at her late
opponent while she thrust her own cards deeply into the remainder
of the pack. There was only the straight flush to have beaten that
hand, and the man had parted with something like eight thousand
dollars.
The comments of the onlookers remained unheeded. The man’s dead
eyes were on the woman opposite him. He seemed oblivious to all but
the smiling contempt in her eyes.
“Say, ain’t you satisfied?” he demanded, a curious note underlying
the harshness of his tone.
Claire laughed derisively.
“Sure I am,” she cried. “I’m always satisfied with easy money.
Guess I’m ready to take all that’s coming, even from a feller who’s
fool enough to throw in four aces. The deal’s with you, Jubilee.”
She turned to her grinning neighbour, who was shuffling the cards,
but the man at the end of the table was not yet done with.
“Say,” he cried again, and his tone matched the frigidity of his
soulless eyes. “Ain’t ther’ no change comin’? I handed you better
than eight thousand dollars. Guess you didn’t win that pool. I
passed it you. You didn’t bluff me a thing. Eight thousand couldn’t
scare a feller with my wad. No, sir. You’re queen of this layout,
and I don’t seem to yearn for any lesser dame. You got eight
thousand a present. An’ ther’s fi’ thousand more fer a dance. Guess
that’s what you’re here for, ain’t it? Here’s the stuff. I’m out to
buy. It’s right up to you. Well?”
The coldness of it was icy. The brutal purpose consummate. The man
was in liquor, but it was no drunken proposal. It was considered
and confident.
A hot flush swept over the girl’s beautiful cheeks. It dyed her
fine brows right up to the roots of her no less vivid hair. Then
she smiled, and her eyes glittered. She shook her head.
“You’re drunk or crazy,” she said. “I don’t know where you come
from. I don’t even know your name. But I guess you best get back to
the dirt you scratch your gold out of. It’s the only place for men
like you.”
Claire spoke quietly, but there was that in her words and tone
that was indescribable in its utter contempt. Cy Liskard withdrew
the bunch of money he was grasping with a jerk. He stood up. And
his cold gaze passed swiftly over the crowd of faces watching the
scene. Then his eyes came to rest again on the beautiful creature
he so obviously coveted, and dull fury looked out of them.
“You b----!”
But the filthy epithet was smothered. A man’s great fist crashed it
back into the foul throat that had inspired it. Cy Liskard reeled.
He fell backwards against the chair from which he had arisen. And
when he recovered himself he was looking into the muzzle of a heavy
automatic pistol with the fierce, narrow eyes of Ivor McLagan
behind the weapon.
“You swine! Beat it! Beat it right out of here or I’ll send you
plumb to the hell you belong to! Push up your hands, darn you! Push
’em up, an’ beat it!”
But the man made no attempt to obey. His pale eyes stared back
into the fury burning in the engineer’s. His hands remained by his
sides.
Those looking on realised the thing about to happen. There was
movement and scurrying as those in other parts of the room
scrambled out of the line of fire. This stranger man was looking on
death, calmly and without yielding. Another moment and----
But in that moment an amazing thing happened. It almost seemed
as if by magic the room had become peopled by a small army of
ghostly, white-robed figures. They came in a sort of wave through
the curtained archway through which Claire, earlier in the evening,
had made her triumphal entry. And they swept down upon the gold man
from behind in the voiceless fashion of avenging spectres.
It was all over in a moment. Cy Liskard was engulfed in the
white wave that rushed upon him. There was a moment of confused,
voiceless struggle. Then the white-hooded spectres had vanished
as they had come and McLagan returned his heavy weapon to the
hip-pocket of the evening clothes he so cordially detested.
Cy Liskard had been spirited away by the white-clad Aurora men, and
almost on the instant the momentarily interrupted game was resumed
amidst a chorus of laughter and eager comment. Nothing would be
allowed to interfere with the Speedway’s routine. Even matters of
life and death were of no real concern comparable with the success
of Max’s annual festival.