THE END OF THE GAME
Unconscious that the stage had thus been set for a great life drama, a
drama in which, through strange circumstances, I was destined to play
my part, amid stirring scenes of Indian war, and in surroundings that
would test my courage and manhood to the utter-most; yet, although I
heard it not, the hour had already struck, and I stood on the brink of
a tragedy beyond my power to avert.
I left the others still seated about the table, and returned alone to
the outer deck. I had no plans for the evening, and retain now only
slight recollection as to the happenings of the next few hours, which I
passed quietly smoking in the darkened pilot house, conversing
occasionally with Thockmorton, who clung to the wheel, carefully
guiding his struggling boat through the night-draped waters. The skill
with which he found passage through the enshrouding gloom, guided by
signs invisible to my eyes, aided only by a fellow busily casting a
lead line in the bows, and chanting the depth of water, was amazing.
Seemingly every flitting shadow brought its message, every faint
glimmer of starlight pointed the way to safety.
It must have been nearly midnight before I finally wearied of this, and
decided to seek a few hours' rest below, descending the short ladder,
and walking forward along the open deck for one last glance ahead.
Some time the next day we were to be in St. Louis, and this expectation
served to brighten my thoughts. It was a dark night, but with a clear
sky, the myriad of stars overhead reflecting their lights along the
river surface, and bringing into bold relief the dense shadows of the
shores on either side. The boat, using barely enough power to afford
steering way, swept majestically down stream, borne by the force of the
current, which veered from bank to bank. We were moving scarcely
swifter than from eight to ten miles an hour, and the monotonous voice
of the man casting the lead line arose continuous through the brooding
silence. The only other perceptible sounds were the exhaust of the
steam pipes and the splash of running water. Thockmorton had told me
we were already approaching the mouth of the Illinois, and I lingered
against the rail, straining my eyes through the gloom hoping to gain a
distant glimpse of that beautiful stream. We were skirting the eastern
shore, the wooded bank rising almost as high as our smokestack, and
completely shutting off all view of the horizon.
As I stood there, gripping the rail, half fearful lest we strike, the
furnace doors below were suddenly flung open for a fresh feeding of the
fire, and the red glare of the fire lit up the scene. Close in against
the shore nestled a flatboat, evidently tied up for the night, and I
had a swift glimpse as we shot by of a startled man waving his arms,
and behind him a wildly barking dog. An instant more and the vision
had vanished as quickly as it had appeared; even the dog's sharp bark
dying away in the distance. The furnace doors banged shut, and all was
again darkness and silence.
I turned back along the deserted deck, only pausing a moment to glance
carelessly in through the front windows of the main cabin. The forward
portion was wrapped in darkness, and unoccupied, but beyond, toward the
rear of the long salon, a considerable group of men were gathered
closely about a small table, above which a swinging lamp burned
brightly, the rays of light illuminating the various faces. I
recognized several, and they were apparently a deeply interested group,
for, even at that distance, I could plainly note the excitement stamped
upon their countenances, and the nervousness with which they moved
about seeking clearer view. There were so many closely wedged together
as to obstruct my vision of what was occurring, yet I felt no doubt but
that they watched a game of cards; a desperate struggle of chance,
involving no small sum to account for such intense feeling on the part
of mere onlookers. Gambling was no novelty on the great river in those
days, gambling for high stakes, and surely no ordinary game, involving
a small sum, would ever arouse the depth of interest displayed by these
men. Some instinct told me that the chief players would be Kirby and
Beaucaire, and, with quickening pulse, I opened the cabin door and
entered.
No one noted my approach, or so much as glanced up, the attention of
the crowd riveted upon the players. There were four holding cards--the
Judge, Kirby, Carver, and McAfee; but I judged at a glance that the
latter two were merely in the game as a pretense, the betting having
already gone far beyond the limit of their resources. Without a
thought as to the cards they held, my eyes sought the faces of the two
chief players, and then visioned the stakes displayed on the table
before them. McAfee and Carter were clearly enough out of it, their
cards still gripped in their fingers, as they leaned breathlessly
forward to observe more closely the play. The Judge sat upright, his
attitude strained, staring down at his hand, his face white, and eyes
burning feverishly. That he had been drinking heavily was evident, but
Kirby fronted him in apparent cold indifference, his feelings
completely masked, with the cards he held bunched in his hands, and
entirely concealed from view. No twitch of an eyelash, no quiver of a
muscle revealed his knowledge; his expressionless face might have been
carved out of stone. Between the two rested a stack of gold coin, a
roll of crushed bills, and a legal paper of some kind, the exact nature
of which I could not determine. I leaned forward, but could only
perceive that it bore the official stamp of some recording office--a
deed, perhaps, to some of the remaining acres of Beaucaire. It was
evident that a fortune already rested on that table, awaiting the flip
of a card. The silence, the breathless attention, convinced me that
the crisis had been reached--it was the Judge's move; he must cover the
last bet, or throw down his hand a loser.
Perspiration beaded his forehead, and he crunched the cards savagely in
his hands. His glance swept past the crowd, as though he saw nothing
of their faces.
"Another drink, Sam," he called, the voice trembling. He tossed down
the glass of liquor as though it were so much water, but made no other
effort to speak. You could hear the strained breathing of the men.
"Well," said Kirby sneeringly, his cold gaze surveying his motionless
opponent. "You seem to be taking your time. Do you cover my bet?"
Someone laughed nervously, and a voice sang out over my shoulder, "You
might as well go the whole hog, Judge. The niggers won't be no good
without the land ter work 'em on. Fling 'em into the pot---they're as
good as money."
Beaucaire looked up, red-eyed, into the impassive countenance opposite.
His lips twitched, yet managed to make words issue between them.
"How about that, Kirby?" he asked hoarsely. "Will you accept a bill of
sale?"
Kirby grinned, shuffling his hand carelessly.
"Why not? 'twon't be the first time I've played for niggers. They are
worth so much gold down the river. What have you got?"
"I can't tell that offhand," sullenly. "About twenty field hands."
"And house servants?"
"Three or four."
The gambler's lips set more tightly, a dull gleam creeping into his
eyes.
"See here, Beaucaire," he hissed sharply. "This is my game and I play
square and never squeal. I know about what you've got, for I've looked
them over; thought we might get down to this sometime. I can make a
pretty fair guess as to what your niggers are worth. That's why I just
raised you ten thousand, and put up the money. Now, if you think this
is a bluff, call me."
"What do you mean?"
"That I will accept your niggers as covering my bet."
"The field hands?"
Kirby smiled broadly.
"The whole bunch--field hands and house servants. Most of them are
old; I doubt if all together they will bring that amount, but I'll take
the risk. Throw in a blanket bill of sale, and we'll turn up our
cards. If you won't do that, the pile is mine as it stands."
Beaucaire again wet his lips, staring at the uncovered cards in his
hands. He could not lose; with what he held no combination was
possible which could beat him. Yet, in spite of this knowledge, the
cold, sneering confidence of Kirby, brought with it a strange fear.
The man was a professional gambler. What gave him such recklessness?
Why should he be so eager to risk such a sum on an inferior hand?
McAfee, sitting next him, leaned over, managed to gain swift glimpse at
what he held, and eagerly whispered to him a word of encouragement.
The Judge straightened up in his chair, grasped a filled glass some one
had placed at his elbow, and gulped down the contents. The whispered
words, coupled with the fiery liquor, gave him fresh courage.
"By God, Kirby! I'll do it!" he blurted out. "You can't bluff me on
the hand I've got. Give me a sheet of paper, somebody--yes, that will
do."
He scrawled a half-dozen lines, fairly digging the pen into the sheet
in his fierce eagerness, and then signed the document, flinging the
paper across toward Kirby.
"There, you blood-sucker," he cried insolently. "Is that all right?
Will that do?"
The imperturbable gambler read it over slowly, carefully deciphering
each word, his thin lips tightly compressed.
"You might add the words, 'This includes every chattel slave legally
belonging to me,'" he said grimly.
"That is practically what I did say."
"Then you can certainly have no objection to putting it in the exact
words I choose," calmly. "I intend to have what is coming to me if I
win, and I know the law."
Beaucaire angrily wrote in the required extra line.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Let McAfee there sign it as a witness, and then toss it over into the
pile." He smiled, showing a line of white teeth beneath his moustache.
"Nice little pot, gentlemen--the Judge must hold some cards to take a
chance like that," the words uttered with a sneer. "Fours, at least,
or maybe he has had the luck to pick a straight flush."
Beaucaire's face reddened, and his eyes grew hard.
"That's my business," he said tersely. "Sign it, McAfee, and I'll call
this crowing cockerel. You young fool, I played poker before you were
born. There now, Kirby, I've covered your bet."
"Perhaps you would prefer to raise it?"
"You hell-hound--no! That is my limit, and you know it. Don't crawl
now, or do any more bluffing. Show your hand--I've called you."
Kirby sat absolutely motionless, his cards lying face down upon the
table, the white fingers of one hand resting lightly upon them, the
other arm concealed. He never once removed his gaze from Beaucaire's
face, and his expression did not change, except for the almost
insulting sneer on his lips. The silence was profound, the deeply
interested men leaning forward, even holding their breath in intense
eagerness. Each realized that a fortune lay on the table; knew that
the old Judge had madly staked his all on the value of those five
unseen cards gripped in his fingers. Again, as though to bolster up
his shaken courage, he stared at the face of each, then lifted his
blood-shot eyes to the impassive face opposite.
"Beaucaire drew two kayards," whispered an excited voice near me.
"Hell! so did Kirby." replied another. "They're both of 'em old hands."
The sharp exhaust of a distant steam pipe below punctuated the silence,
and several glanced about apprehensively. As this noise ceased
Beaucaire lost all control over his nerves.
"Come on, play your hand," he demanded, "or I'll throw my cards in your
face."
The insinuating sneer on Kirby's lips changed into the semblance of a
smile. Slowly, deliberately, never once glancing down at the face of
his cards, he turned them up one by one with his white fingers, his
challenging eyes on the Judge; but the others saw what was revealed---a
ten spot, a knave, a queen, a king, and an ace.
"Good God! a straight flush!" someone yelled excitedly. "Damned if I
ever saw one before!"
For an instant Beaucaire never moved, never uttered a sound. He seemed
to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, and to have lost the power of
speech. Then from nerveless hands his own cards fell face downward,
still unrevealed, upon the table. The next moment he was on his feet,
the chair in which he had been seated flung crashing behind him on the
deck.
"You thief!" he roared, "You dirty, low-down thief; I held four
aces--where did you get the fifth one?"
Kirby did not so much as move, nor betray even by change of expression
his sense of the situation. Perhaps he anticipated just such an
explosion, and was fully prepared to meet it. One hand still rested
easily on the table, the other remaining hidden.
"So you claim to have held four aces," he said coldly. "Where are
they?"
McAfee swept the discarded hand face upward, and the crowd bending
forward to look saw four aces, and a king.
"That was the Judge's hand," he declared soberly. "I saw it myself
before he called you, and told him to stay."
Kirby laughed, an ugly laugh showing his white teeth.
"The hell, you did? Thought you knew a good poker hand, I reckon.
Well, you see I knew a better one, and it strikes me I am the one to
ask questions," he sneered. "Look here, you men; I held one ace from
the shuffle. Now what I want to know is, where Beaucaire ever got his
four? Pleasant little trick of you two--only this time it failed to
work."
Beaucaire uttered one mad oath, and I endeavored to grasp him, but
missed my clutch. The force of his lurching body as he sprang forward
upturned the table, the stakes jingling to the deck, but Kirby reached
his feet in time to avoid the shock. His hand which had been hidden
shot out suddenly, the fingers grasping a revolver, but he did not
fire. Before the Judge had gone half the distance, he stopped, reeled
suddenly, clutching at his throat, and plunged sideways. His body
struck the upturned table, and McAfee and I grasped him, lowering the
stricken man gently to the floor.