The dice clattered across the table and were swept up by the hand of
the man behind the table before Pierre could note them. Sick at heart,
he began to turn away, as he saw that hand reach out and gather in the
coins of the other two bettors. It went out a third time and laid
another fifty-cent piece upon his. The heart of Pierre bounded up to
his throat.
Again the dice rolled, and this time he saw distinctly two fives turn
up. Two dollars in silver were dropped upon his, and still he let the
money lie. Again, again, and again the dice rolled. And now there were
pieces of gold among the silver that covered the square of the five.
The other two looked askance at him, and the owner of the game
growled: "Gimme room for the coins, stranger, will you?"
Pierre picked up his winnings. In his left hand he held them, and the
coins brimmed his cupped palm. With the free hand he placed his new
wagers. But he lost now.
"I cannot win forever," thought Pierre, and redoubled his bets in an
effort to regain the lost ground.
Still his little fortune dwindled, till the sweat came out on his
forehead and the blood that had flushed his face ran back and left him
pale with dread. And at last there remained only one gold piece. He
hesitated, holding it poised for the wager, while the owner of the
game rattled the dice loudly and looked up at the coin with
hungry eyes.
Once more Pierre closed his eyes and laid his wager, while his empty
left hand slipped again inside his shirt and touched the metal of the
cross, and once more when he opened his eyes the hand of the gambler
was going out to lay a second coin over his.
"It is the cross!" thought Pierre. "It is the cross which brings me
luck."
The dice rattled out. He won. Again, and still he won. The gambler
wiped his forehead and looked up anxiously. For these were wagers in
gold, and the doubling stakes were running high. About Pierre a crowd
had grown--a dozen cattlemen who watched the growing heap of gold with
silent fascination. Then they began to make wagers of their own, and
there were faint whispers of wrath and astonishment as the dice
clicked out and each time the winnings of Pierre doubled.
Suddenly the dealer stopped and held up his left hand as a warning.
With his right, very slowly, inch by inch lest anyone should suspect
him of a gunplay, he drew out a heavy forty-five and laid it on the
table with the belt of cartridges. "Three years she's been on my hip
through thick and thin, stranger. Three years she's shot close an'
true. There ain't a butt in the world that hugs your hand tighter.
There ain't a cylinder that spins easier. Shoot? Lad, even a kid like
you could be a killer with that six-gun. What will you lay ag'in' it?"
And his red-stained eyes glanced covetously at the yellow heap of
Pierre's money.
"How much?" said Pierre eagerly. "Is there enough on the table to buy
the gun?"
"Buy?" said the other fiercely. "There ain't enough coin west of the
Rockies to buy that gun. D'you think I'm yaller enough to sell my six?
No, but I'll risk it in a fair bet. There ain't no disgrace in that;
eh, pals?"
There was a chorus of low grunts of assent.
"All right," said Pierre. "That pile against the gun."
"All of it?"
"All."
"Look here, kid, if you're tryin' to play a charity game with me--"
"Charity?"
The frank surprise of that look disarmed the other. He swept up the
dice-box, and shook it furiously, while his lips stirred. It was as if
he murmured an incantation for success. The dice rolled out, winking
in the light, spun over, and the owner of the gun stood with both
hands braced against the edge of the table, and stared hopelessly down.
A moment before his pockets had sagged with a precious weight, and
there had been a significant drag of the belt over his right hip. Now
both burdens were gone.
He looked up with a short laugh.
"I'm dry. Who'll stake me to a drink?"
Pierre scooped up a dozen pieces of the gold.
"Here."
The other drew back. "You're very welcome to it. Here's more, if
you'll have it."
"The coin I've lost to you? Take back a gamblin' debt?"
"Easy there," said one of the men. "Don't you see the kid's green?
Here's a five-spot."
The loser accepted the coin as carelessly as if he were conferring a
favor by taking it, cast another scowl in the direction of Pierre, and
went out toward the bar. Pierre, very hot in the face, pocketed his
winnings and belted on the gun. It hung low on his thigh, just in easy
gripping distance of his hand, and he fingered the butt with a smile.
"The kid's feelin' most a man," remarked a sarcastic voice. "Say, kid,
why don't you try your luck with Mac Hurley? He's almost through with
poor old Cochrane."
Following the direction of the pointing finger, Pierre saw one of
those mute tragedies of the gambling hall. Cochrane, an old cattleman
whose carefully trimmed, pointed white beard and slender, tapering
fingers set him apart from the others in the room, was rather far gone
with liquor. He was still stiffly erect in his chair, and would be
till the very moment consciousness left him, but his eyes were misty,
and when he spoke his lips moved slowly, as though numbed by cold.
Beside him stood a tall, black bottle with a little whisky glass to
flank it. He made his bets with apparent carelessness, but with a real
and deepening gloom. Once or twice he glanced up sharply as though
reckoning his losses, though it seemed to Pierre le Rouge almost like
an appeal.
And what appeal could affect Mac Hurley? There was no color in the
man, either body or soul. No emotion could show in those pale, small
eyes or change the color of the flabby cheeks. If his hands had been
cut off, he might have seemed some sodden victim of a drug habit, but
the hands saved him.
They seemed to belong to another body--beautiful, swift, and strong,
and grafted by some foul mischance onto this rotten hulk. Very white
they were, and long, with a nervous uneasiness in every motion,
continually hovering around the cards with little touches which were
almost caresses.
"It ain't a game," said the man who had first pointed out the group to
Pierre, "it's just a slaughter. Cochrane's too far gone to see
straight. Look at that deal now! A kid could see that he's crooking
the cards!"
It was blackjack, and Hurley, as usual, was dealing. He dealt with one
hand, flipping the cards out with a snap of the wrist, the fingers
working rapidly over the pack. Now and then he glanced over to the
crowd, as if to enjoy their admiration of his skill. He was showing it
now, not so much by the deftness of his cheating as by the openness
with which he exposed his tricks.
As the stranger remarked to Pierre, a child could have discovered that
the cards were being dealt at will from the top and the bottom of the
pack, but the gambler was enjoying himself by keeping his game just
open enough to be apparent to every other man in the room--just covert
enough to deceive the drink-misted brain of Cochrane. And the pale,
swinish eyes twinkled as they stared across the dull sorrow of the old
man. There was an ominous sound from Pierre: "Do you let a thing like
that happen in this country?" he asked fiercely.
The other turned to him with a sneer.
"_Let_ it happen? Who'll stop him? Say, partner, you ain't meanin' to
say that you don't know who Hurley is?"
"I don't need telling. I can see."
"What you can't see means a lot more than what you can. I've been in
the same room when Hurley worked his gun once. It wasn't any killin',
but it was the prettiest bit of cheatin' I ever seen. But even if
Hurley wasn't enough, what about Carl Diaz?"
He glared his triumph at Pierre, but the latter was too puzzled to
quail, and too stirred by the pale, gloomy face of Cochrane to turn
toward the other.
"What of Diaz?"
"Look here, boy. You're a kid, all right, but you ain't that young.
D'you mean to say that you ain't heard of Carlos Diaz?"
It came back to Pierre then, for even into the snowbound seclusion of
the north country the shadow of the name of Diaz had gone. He could
not remember just what they were, but he seemed to recollect grim
tales through which that name figured.
The other went on: "But if you ain't ever seen him before, look him
over now. They's some says he's faster on the draw than Bob McGurk,
but, of course, that's stretchin' him out a size too much. What's the
matter, kid; you've met McGurk?"
"No, but I'm going to."
"Might even be carried to him, eh--feet first?"
Pierre turned and laid a hand on the shoulder of the other.
"Don't talk like that," he said gently. "I don't like it."
The other reached up to snatch the hand from his shoulder, but he
stayed his arm.
He said after an uncomfortable moment of that silent staring: "Well,
partner, there ain't a hell of a lot to get sore over, is there? You
don't figure you're a mate for McGurk, do you?"
He seemed oddly relieved when the eyes of Pierre moved away from him
and returned to the figure of Carlos Diaz. The Mexican was a perfect
model for a painting of a melodramatic villain. He had waxed and
twirled the end of his black mustache so that it thrust out a little
spur on either side of his long face. His habitual expression was a
scowl; his habitual position was with a cigarette in the fingers of
his left hand, and his right hand resting on his hip. He sat in a
chair directly behind that of Hurley, and Pierre's new-found
acquaintance explained: "He's the bodyguard for Hurley. Maybe there's
some who could down Hurley in a straight gunfight; maybe there's one
or two like McGurk that could down Diaz--damn his yellow hide--but
there ain't no one can buck the two of 'em. It ain't in reason. So
they play the game together. Hurley works the cards and Diaz covers up
the retreat. Can't beat that, can you?"
Pierre le Rouge slipped his left hand once more inside his shirt until
the fingers touched the cross.
"Nevertheless, that game has to stop."
"Who'll--say, kid, are you stringin' me, or are you drunk? Look me in
the eye!"