Cranford had shoved his chips in with an I. O. U. for two hundred
dollars, saying, "I'll pay that tomorrow. I feel as if I had been
pallbearer at a funeral. When a man is gloomy he shouldn't sit into any
game bigger than checkers."
Seth now drew from a pocket two packs of cards--the blue-doved cards
and a red pack; then he returned the blue cards to his pocket.
Carney viewed this performance curiously. He had been wondering intently
whether the new pack would be the same as the one with the blue doves.
The red cards carried a different design, a simple leafy scroll, and
Carney washed his mind of the whole oblique thing, mentally absolving
himself from further interest.
Seth shuffled the new cards, face up, to take out the joker; having
found it, he tore the card in two, threw it on the floor, and asked,
"Now, who's in?"
"I'll play for one hour," Shipley said, with an aggressive crispness;
"then I quit, win or lose; if that doesn't go I'll put the two hundred
on the table to Mr. Hadley's one hundred, and cut for the pot."
Curiously this only raised the boy's smile on Hadley's face, but
inflamed Seth. He turned on Shipley with a coarse raging:
"You talk like a man lookin' for trouble, mister. Why the hell don't you
sit into the game or take your little bag of marbles and run away home."
"I'm going," Carney declared noisily. "My advice to you gentlemen is to
cut out the unpleasantness, and play the game."
Somewhat sullenly Shipley checked an angry retort that had risen to
his lips, and, reaching for the rack of poker chips, started to build a
little pile in front of him.
Cranford followed Carney out, and though his shack lay in the other
direction, walked with the latter to the Gold Nugget. Cranford was in a
most depressed mood; he admitted this.
"There was something wrong about that game, Carney," he asserted. "I
knew you felt it--that's why you quit. I was to go up to Bald Rock on
the night train to make a little payment in the morning to secure some
claims, but now I don't know. I'm sore on myself for sitting in. I guess
I've got the gambling bug in me as big as a woodchuck; I'm easy when
I hear the click of poker chips. I lose two hundred there, and while,
generally, it's not more than a piker's bet on anything, just now I'm
trying to put something over in the way of a deal, and I'm runnin' kind
of close to the wind, financially. That two hundred may--hell! don't
think me a squealer, Bulldog. Good night, Bulldog."
Carney stood for ten seconds watching Cranford's back till it merged
into the blur of the night. Then he entered the hotel, almost colliding
with Jeanette Holt, who put a hand on his arm and drew him into the
dining-room to a seat at a little table.
"Where's Seth?" she asked.
"Over at the police shack."
"Poker?"
Carney nodded.
"Mr. Hadley there?"