ACE-IN-THE-HOLE
On the outskirts of Dawson, city of the tents and log buildings, Brent
pitched his own tent, paid off his Indian canoeman, and within the hour
was sucked into the mad maelstrom of carousal that characterized the
early days of the big gold camp.
It was the city of men gone mad. The saloon was the center of
activity--and saloons there were aplenty; Dick Stoell's Place, which was
"the big game" of Dawson; "The Nugget" of uproarious fame; Cuter
Malone's "Klondike Palace," where, nightly, revel raged to the _n_th
power--where bearded men and scarlet women gave over to debauch
magnificent in its wild abandon; and many others, each with its wheels
of chance, its cards, its music, and its women.
And into the whirl of it Carter Brent plunged with a zest born of youth
and of muscles iron-hard from the gruelling trail. And into it he fitted
as though to the manner born. No invisible lines of demarkation divided
the bars of Dawson as they had divided Kelliher's bar. Millionaires in
blanket coats and mukluks rubbed shoulders with penniless watery-eyed
squaw-men. Sourdoughs who spilled coarse gold from the mouths of sacks,
misfit _chechakos_, and painted women, danced, and sang, and cursed, and
gambled, the short nights through.
The remnant of Brent's thousand dollars was but a drop in the bucket,
and he was glad when it was gone three days after his arrival. Not that
he particularly wanted to be "broke." But in the spending of it, men had
taken his measure--the bills and the coined gold had branded him as a
man from the "outside," a _chechako_--a tenderfoot.
An hour after he had tossed his last yellow disk upon the bar in payment
for a round of drinks he had hired out to Camillo Bill Waters to sluice
gravel at an ounce a day. An ounce was sixteen dollars. Thereafter for
the space of a month he was seen no more in Dawson.
Then one day he returned. He presented a slip of paper signed by Camillo
Bill to the bartender at Stoell's and received therefor thirty ounces of
gold--raw gold, in dust and nuggets. He bought a round of drinks
glorying in the fact that at last he, too, was spending coarse gold. He
bet ten ounces on an Indian foot race, and won. More drinks, and an hour
later he bet his pile on a seven, a ten-spot, a deuce, and a king in a
game of stud poker. Two players called the bet and he flipped over his
hole card--it was a seven-spot and again he won.
He quit the game and danced for an hour, and between dances he drank
whiskey. He got the hunch that this was his lucky day and that he could
win, but the hunch called for quick big bets, and not for long continued
play. He rode his hunch, and at Cuter Malone's wheel he tossed fifty
ounces on Number 21. The ivory ball rolled slower and slower, hesitated
on the 10 and then with a last turn settled into 21. He pocketed
twenty-eight thousand dollars with a grin. The news of the bet spread
swiftly and Brent became a man of sorts. Four times more that night he
placed big bets--and three of the times he won.
One of these plays also in a game of stud earned him the name by which
he became known in the North. With a king, and a queen, showing in his
own hand he mercilessly raised an exposed pair of Jacks. Of the six
other players in the game five dropped out. The holder of the Jacks
stayed for the last draw and checked the bet. Brent laid fifty thousand
dollars on his cards, a king, a queen, an eight spot and a four spot.
The other stared at the hand for a long time. He was a man known for his
nerve and his high play, and he knew that Brent knew this. Whispers of
the big bet had gone about the room and men and women crowded the table.
At length the other turned down his cards in token of surrender, and
with a laugh Brent turned his hole card face up. It was the Ace of
Diamonds, and an audible gasp hissed from twenty throats. Thereafter
Brent was known as Ace-In-The-Hole.
The next morning he deposited one hundred and thirty thousand dollars in
Dick Stoell's safe, and his pockets still bulged with dust. For two days
and nights he drank and danced, but not a card did he touch, nor did he
lay any bet. When questioned he answered that his hunch was not working.
The sourdoughs respected him and treated him as an equal. He spent dust
lavishly but he did not throw it away.
Then suddenly he bought an outfit and disappeared. When the first snow
flew he was back, and into Dick Stoell's safe went many sacks of raw
gold. He drank harder than ever and spent gold more freely. His fame
spread to other camps, and three men came up from Circle to relieve him
of his pile. He was gambling regularly now, and in a game of stud he
caught them at the trick by means of which they had won forty thousand
dollars from him. Many miners, among them a goodly sprinkling of old
timers, were watching the play, and many of them had already detected
the swindle, but after the custom of the country they held their peace.
Brent never batted an eye upon discovering the trick, but when a few
moments later it was repeated, things happened in Stoell's--and they
happened with the rapidity of light. One minute after the trouble
started there was an ominous silence in the room. A circle of men stood
and stared at the wreck of a table, across which sagged the body of a
man killed with his own gun. Another man with his jaw shattered lay on
the floor, and a third lay white and still across him with a wide red
mark on his forehead where a sack of gold dust had caught him fair. And
over all stood Brent with one leg jammed through the rungs of a broken
chair.
The incident placed Ace-In-The-Hole in the foremost ranks of the big men
of the North. He was regarded as the equal of such men as Old Bettles,
Camillo Bill Waters, Swiftwater Bill, and McMann. Sourdoughs sought his
acquaintance and _chechakos_ held him in awe. When the snow lay deep he
bought the best string of dogs he could find, hired an Indian musher,
and again disappeared. He was back at Christmas for a two weeks
carousal, and when he hit the trail again he carried with him several
gallons of whiskey. The sourdoughs shook their heads and exchanged
glances at this, but a man's business is his own. In July he sent his
Indian down for ten men to work his sluices and much whiskey. In
September he came down himself and he brought with him a half million in
gold.
Others had cleaned up big during the summer, and that winter saw
Dawson's highest peak of wild orgies and wild spending. Riding a hunch
when he first hit town Brent doubled and trebled his pile, and then with
Jimmie the Rough, McMann, Camillo Bill and a few others they inaugurated
such a campaign of reckless spending as the North had never seen and
never again did see.
Brent was never sober, now--and men said he never slept. He was the
youngest and by far the strongest of the spenders, the urge of the game
was in his blood, and he rode it as he rode his hunches--to the limit of
his endurance. All men liked him--open hearted, generous to the fault,
and square as a die in his dealings, he spent his money like a prince.
And where the men liked him the painted women worshipped him--but they
worshipped from afar. For despite the utmost blandishments of the most
intriguing of them, he treated all alike--even Kitty, whom men called
"The Queen of the Yukon," failed to hold him in thrall. This dancing
girl who had taken the North by storm, who was the North's darling and
beautiful plaything, whose boast it was that she had never sought any
man, fell violently in love with Brent. Men saw it and marvelled, for it
was known in the camps that she had spurned men who had laid fortunes at
her feet. It was not that he feared women, rather he sought them. He
danced with them, frolicked with them--and then promptly forgot them.
His one real passion was gambling. Any game or device whereupon big bets
could be laid found him an enthusiastic devotee. And his luck became a
byword in the North.
"Sometime your luck will change," warned the dancing girl as the two sat
one evening in the early fall at a little table in Stoell's and drank
champagne which cost Brent fifty dollars the quart. "And then you'll be
broke and----"
Brent who had been idly toying with the rings upon her fingers returned
the slender hand to the table. "It can't change. It's a part of me. As
long as I'm me, I'll be lucky. Look, I'll show you! You want to marry
me--you've told me so. Well, I don't want to marry you, or anyone
else--wouldn't know what to do with you if I did marry you. You want me
to go back on the claim--well, here's a bargain--just to show you that I
can't lose." He pulled a buckskin sack full of gold from his pocket and
held it before the girl's eyes. "See this sack. It isn't very big. It
can't cover many numbers. I'm going to stand up in this chair and toss
it onto the roulette table over there, and play every number it touches.
If I lose I lose the dust--Stoell will get that. But that isn't all I'll
lose--I'll lose myself--to you. If one of the numbers that this sack
falls on don't win, I marry you tonight, and we hit for the claim
tomorrow."
The girl stared at him, fascinated: "Do you mean that--you'll quit
gambling--and you'll sober up and--and live with me?"
Again Brent laughed: "Yes, I'll quit gambling, and sober up, and live
with you till--how does it go--till death us do part."
"Toss it!" The words of the girl came short, with a curious indrawing of
the breath, and her fingers clutched at the edge of the table till the
knuckles whitened. The men who were crowded about the wheel glanced
toward the table at the sound, and standing in his chair Brent waved
them to fall back. Then he told them of his bet--while the dancing girl
sat with parted lips, her eyes fastened upon his face. The men at the
wheel surged back to give room. The proposition caught their fancy.
Ace-In-The-Hole, prince of gamblers, was betting himself--with the odds
against him! And every man and woman in the room knew that if he lost he
would keep his word to the last letter.
Carefully measuring the distance, Brent balanced the sack in his hand,
then with a slow movement of his arm, tossed it onto the table. It
struck almost squarely in the center, covering Numbers 13, 14, 16, 17,
19, and 20. The croupier spun the wheel, and sent the ivory ball
spinning on its way. The men who had been playing, and the men from the
bar, crowded close, their eyes on the whirling wheel. Brent sat down in
his chair, lighted a cigarette, and filled the two empty champagne
glasses from the bottle. He glanced across at Kitty. She was leaning
forward with her face buried in her arms. Her shoulders were heaving
with quick, convulsive sobs. In Brent's heart rose sudden pity for this
girl. What to him had been a mere prank, a caprice of the moment, was to
her a thing of vital import. The black fox fur had fallen away from
about her neck exposing a bare shoulder that gleamed white in the light
of the swinging lamp. She looked little and helpless, and Brent felt a
desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. He leaned toward her,
half rose from his chair and then, at a sound from the table, he settled
back.
"Number 13 wins," announced the croupier, and the room was suddenly
filled with the voices of many men. The croupier scribbled a notation
upon a piece of paper and together with the sack of dust laid it upon
the table between Brent and the girl. A moment later she raised her head
and stared, dry eyed into Brent's face.
"Here, little girl," he said gently. "Forgive me. I didn't know you
really felt--that way. Here, this is all yours--take it. The bet paid
six to one. The weigher will cash this slip at the bar."
With a swift motion of her hand the girl swept sack and slip to the
floor. "Oh, I--I hope you _die_!" she cried hysterically, and gathering
her wrap about her, she sped from the room.