A LITTLE GAME OF POKER.
"Well, Ned, how do our fellow-passengers strike you? This is a pretty
hard crowd, isn't it?" asked Chance, as his eyes wandered over the mob
of men of every nationality, who were jostling one another on board the
steamer _Umatilla_, ten minutes after she had left Victoria for New
Westminster.
"Yes, they look pretty tough, most of them," assented Corbett; "but a
three-weeks' beard, a patch in the seat of your pants, and a coat of
sun-tan, will bring you down to the same level, Steve. Civilized man
reverts naturally to barbarism as soon as he escapes from the tailor and
the hair-dresser."
"That's what, sonny! And I believe the only difference between a white
man and a siwash, is that one has had more sun and less soap than the
other."
"Oh, hang it, no! I draw the line there," cried Corbett. "But look,
there go the gamblers already;" and Ned pointed to a little group which
had gathered together aft, the leading spirit amongst them appearing to
be a dark, overdressed person, who was inviting everybody at the top of
his voice to "Chip in and take a drink."
"They don't mean to lose much time, do they?" remarked Chance. "And, by
the way, do you see that the 'mammoth hustler,' our own colonel, is
among them?"
"And seems to know every rascal in the gang," muttered Corbett.
"Come and look on, Ned, and don't growl. You don't expect a real-estate
agent to be a saint, do you?" remonstrated Chance.
"Not I. I don't care a cent for cards. You go if you like. I'll just
loaf and look at the scenery."
"As you please. I don't take much stock in scenery unless I have painted
it myself, and even that sours on me sometimes;" and with this frank and
quaintly expressed confession, Steve Chance turned and pushed his way
through the crowd to a place behind Cruickshank, who welcomed him
effusively, and introduced him to his friends.
Ned saw the artist gulp down what looked like a doctor's prescription,
and light up a huge black cigar, and then turning his back upon the
noisy expectorating crowd, he leant upon the bulwarks and forgot all
about it.
Before his eyes stretched a vast field of blue water; blue water without
a ripple upon it, save such as the steamer made, or the diving "cultus"
duck, which the boat almost ran down, before the bird woke and saw its
danger. Here and there on this blue field were groups of islands, wooded
to the water's edge, and inhabited only by the breeding ducks and a few
deer. As yet no one owned these islands, and, except for an occasional
fishing Indian, no one had ever set foot on most of them. Everything
spoke of rest and dreamful ease. What birds there were, were silent and
asleep, rocked only in their slumbers by the swell from the passing
boat, or else following in her wake on gliding wings which scarcely
seemed to stir. There was no wind to fret the sea, or stir an idle sail.
Nature was asleep in the spring sunlight, her calm contrasting strangely
with the noise, and passion, and unrest on board the tiny boat which was
puffing and churning its way through the still waters of the straits.
As for Ned, his ears were as deaf to the oaths and noise behind him as
his eyes were blind to the calm beauty beneath them. His eyes were wide
open, but his mind was not looking through them. As a matter of fact Ned
Corbett, the real Ned Corbett, was just then day-dreaming somewhere on
the banks of the Severn.
"Can you spare me a light, sir?"
This was the first sound that broke in upon his dreams, and Ned felt
instinctively in his waistcoat pocket, and handed the intruder the
matches which he found there.
"Thank you. I was fairly clemmed for a smoke."
"_Clemmed_" for a smoke! It was odd, but the dialect was the dialect of
Ned's dream still, and as he looked at the speaker, a broad burly
fellow, who evidently had made up his mind to have a chat, a pouch of
tobacco was thrust out to him with the words: "Won't you take a fill
yourself. It's pretty good baccy, and it ought to be. I had it sent to
me all the way from the Wyle Cop."
"The Wyle Cop!" ejaculated Ned. "I thought there was only one Wyle Cop.
Where do you come from, then?"
The stranger's face broadened into an honest grin.
"What part do I come from? Surely you ought to guess. Dunno yo' know a
Shropshire mon, when yo' sees un?" he added, dropping into his native
dialect, and holding out to Corbett a hand too broad to get a good grip
of, and as hard as gun-metal.
Ned took the proffered hand eagerly. The sound of the home dialect
stirred every chord in his heart.
"How did you know I was Shropshire?" he asked, laughing.
"How did I know? Well, I heard your friend call you Corbett, and that
and your yellow head and blue eyes were enough for me. But say," he
continued, resuming the Yankee twang which he had acquired in many a
western mining camp, "if that young man over there is any account to
you, you'd better go and see after him. They'll skin him clean in
another half hour unless he owns the Bank of England."
Corbett's eyes involuntarily followed those of his newly-found friend,
and he started as they rested upon Steve Chance, who now sat nervously
chewing at the end of an unlit cigar in the middle of the poker players.
"Your friend ain't a bad player, but he ain't old enough for that
crowd," remarked Roberts; and so saying he pushed a way for himself and
his brother Salopian through the crowd to the back of Chance's chair.
Except for the addition of Chance, and another youngish man who appeared
to be at least half-drunk, the party of poker players was the same which
sat down to play when the _Umatilla_ left the Victoria wharf.
Cruickshank faced Chance, and the same noisy dark fellow, who had been
anxious to assuage everyone's thirst in the morning, appeared to be
still ready to stand drinks and cigars. But the little crowd was quieter
than it had been in the morning. The players had settled down to
business.
"How deuced like Cruickshank that fellow is!" whispered Corbett to
Roberts.
"Which?" answered his friend. "There are two Cruickshanks playing--Dan
and Bub."
"But is the colonel any relation to the other?"
"I do not know which you call the colonel: never heard him called by
that name before; but that's Bub" (pointing to the ringleader of the
party), "and that's Dan" (pointing to the colonel). "Some say they are
brothers, some say they are cousins. Anyway, I know _one_ is a
scoundrel."
"The deuce you do. Which of them?" But his inquiries were cut short and
his attention diverted by the action of a new-comer, who just then
pushed past him with a curt, "'Scuse _me_, sir."
"Let him through," whispered Roberts. "I tipped him the wink, and if you
let him alone he'll fix them."
Ned was mystified, but did as he was bid. Indeed it was too late to
attempt to do otherwise, for the last-joined in that little crowd, a
withered gray man, whose features looked as if they had been hardened by
a hundred years of rough usage, had quietly forced his way to the front
until he had reached a seat at Steve Chance's elbow. It was noticeable
that though the crowd was by no means tolerant of others who tried to
usurp a front place amongst them, it gave way by common consent to the
new-comer, who was moreover specially honoured with a nod and a smile
from each of the Cruickshanks.
Steve only seemed inclined to resent the old man's familiarity, and for
any effect it had he might as well have hidden his resentment.
"Pretty new to this coast, ain't you, sir?" remarked Mr. Rampike, after
he had watched the game in silence for some minutes.
"Yes, I've only been out from the East a year," replied Steve shortly,
as he examined his hand.
"Bin losing quite a bit, haven't you?" persisted his tormentor. Steve
growled out that he _had_ lost "some," and turned his back on old
Rampike with an emphatic rudeness which would have silenced most men.
"'Scuse me, sir, one moment," remarked Rampike utterly unabashed, and
half rising to inspect Steve's hand over his shoulder.
A glance seemed to satisfy him.
"Who cut those cards?" he sung out.
"Dan Cruickshank," answered a voice from the crowd.
"Who dole those cards?" he persisted.
"Bub Cruickshank," replied the voice.
"Then, young man, you pass;" and without stirring a muscle of his face
he coolly took from the astounded Steve four queens, and threw them upon
the table.
For a moment Steve sat open-mouthed, utterly astounded by his adviser's
impudence, and when he tried to rise and give vent to his feelings,
Corbett's heavy hand was on his shoulder and kept him down.
Meanwhile an angry growl rose from the gamblers, but it was drowned at
once in the laugh of the crowd, as without a sign of feeling of any
kind, or a single comment, old Rampike slowly pulled from a pocket under
his coat-tails an old, strangely-fashioned six-shooter, which he began
to overhaul in the casual distrait manner of one who takes a mild
interest in some weapon of a remote antiquity.
One by one, as the old hard-fist played with his ugly toy, those who
objected to his intervention found that they had business elsewhere, so
that when at last he let down the hammer, and replaced his "gun" under
his coat-tails, Steve and the two Shropshiremen alone remained near him.
Glancing round for a moment, the old man came as near smiling as a man
could with features such as his, and then recovering himself he turned
to Steve and remarked:
"This ain't no concern of mine, mister, but my pardner there, Roberts, I
guess he takes some stock in you and he called me, so you'll 'scuse my
interfering, but ef you should happen to play agen with California
bilks, you mout sometimes go your pile on a poor hand, but pass four
aces, quicker nor lightning, if Bub Cruickshank deals 'em," with which
piece of advice the old man retired again into his shell, becoming, as
far as one could judge, an absolutely silent machine for the chewing of
tobacco.
Chance, now that he had had time to pull himself together, would gladly
have had a talk with his ally; but old Rampike would have none of him,
and Corbett, in obedience to a sign from Roberts, put his arm through
his friend's and carried him off to another part of the ship.
"Let the old man alone," remarked Roberts, "talking isn't in his line.
That is my share of the business. I sing and he fiddles."
"All right, as you please; but I say, Mr. Roberts," said Chance, "what
in thunder did your partner mean by making me throw down four queens?"
"Mean! why, that Bub Cruickshank had four kings or better. You don't
suppose that those chaps are here for their health, do you?"
"Here for their health?"
"Well, you don't suppose that they have come all the way to British
Columbia to play poker on the square?"
"Then who are the Cruickshanks?" demanded Chance.
"That is more than I know. Bub Cruickshank is just about as low-down a
gambler as there is on the coast; not a chap who pays up and stands
drinks when he is bust, like the count and that lot."
"And is the colonel his brother?"
"Some say he is, some say he isn't. But I never knew him regularly on
the gambling racket before, though he won a pile of money up at Williams
Creek last fall.
"Then you have been in Cariboo," Corbett remarked.
"In Cariboo? Rather! I was there when Williams Creek was found, and for
all that had to sing my way out with a splinter in my hand, and not a
nickel in my pocket."
"How do you mean 'sing your way out?'"
"I mean just what I say. My hand went back on me and swelled, so that I
couldn't work, and I just had to sing for my grub as I went along. Old
Rampike had a fiddle and used to play, and I used to make up the songs
and sing 'em. Perhaps you've heard the 'Old pack mule.' It's a great
favourite at the mines:
"Ted staked and lost the usual way,
But his loss he took quite cool;
He was near the mines, and he'd start next day
Riding on his old pack mule."
"Riding, riding, riding on his old pack mule," sang Chance.
"Oh, you know it, do you? Seems to me it suits your case pretty well.
Well, _I_ made that;" and so saying the poet protruded his portly bosom
three inches further into space, with the air of one who had done well
by his fellow-men and knew it.
"Are you coming up to Cariboo this spring?" asked Corbett.
"No, we haven't dust enough to pay our way so far, more's the pity."
"Why not come with us? I'll find the dollars if you'll lend a hand with
our pack-train," suggested Corbett.
"Well, I don't know, perhaps I might do worse; and as to that, if you
are taking a pack-train along I daresay I could pretty nearly earn my
grub packing. But I must talk it over with Rampike."
"All right, do you fix it your own way," put in Chance; "but mind, if
you feel at all like coming, there need be no difficulty about the
dollars either for you or your partner. I am pretty heavily in your debt
anyway."
"Not a bit of it. Those bilks owe us something perhaps, and if they get
a chance they won't forget to pay their score. But I guess they'll
hardly care to tackle Rampike, or me either for the matter of that;" and
whistling merrily his favourite tune, "Riding, riding, riding on the old
pack mule," the Cariboo poet went below for refreshment.