havin’, as I said, th’ on’y copy o’ th’ Testament ther was in town.
’Course he wasn’t round in none o’ the saloons where he usually kept
hisself, an’ while they was a-lookin’ fer him, that pesky hoss thief
managed some ways or another to git away. When we did find Ike, he was
tryin’ to teach two Chinamen, that had just come to town an’ was in a
fair way to starve to death runnin’ a laundry, how to play poker.
‘Stands to reason,’ Ike says, when I as’t him how he come to do it,
‘that them unfortunate heathen wouldn’t never make day’s wages,’ he
says, ‘runnin’ no laundry here, so I was just puttin’ ’em in a way to
make an honest livin’ by showin’ ’em the principles o’ draw-poker.’ He
give ’em a fair start, too, as it happened, for he dropped seventeen
dollars in good American money in that little missionary enterprise o’
his’n. The boys said it was a judgment o’ heaven on him fer not bein’
where he’d oughter ha’ been, as he usually ain’t, besides bein’ a grave
reflection on Arkansas City in lettin’ that hoss thief git off. I fined
the feller the drinks that had business to’ve shot him as he ran, fer
not havin’ his gun ready, an’ just naturally he bought ’em in my place,
so I wasn’t none the loser, but it was a great public calamity. I’d most
rather he hadn’t got away.
“I ain’t a-sayin’ but what Ike’s natural talent fer bein’ somewheres
else was a benefit to him on one occasion. That was when Bill Briscom
was found in the road with the top of his head blowed off. We all knowed
that him an’ Ike had had a serious difficulty the day before, an’ there
was some talk o’ holdin’ Ike fer trial on suspicion, but Ike he heard
about it, just naturally, an’ he spoke up like a man: ‘I ain’t a-sayin’
but that I’d oughter ha’ killed the feller,’ he says, ’fer I caught him
cheatin’ at cards, an’ I licked him good an’ proper, an’ the galoot
swore he’d shoot me on sight, but it stands to reason,’ he says, ‘that
in order to ha’ killed him, I’d ’a’ had to be there at the time. Now I
leave it to all of you to say whether I was ever whar I’d oughter be at
the time when I was needed. You all know my weakness, gentlemen,’ he
says, ’an’ I ask you to join me in drinkin’ to the memory o’ the late
departed. He warn’t no good, but as long as he’s gone we can afford to
forgive him fer all he done.’
“Well, that settled that matter, though some o’ Briscom’s friends, for
he had some friends who said he wasn’t half-bad, an’ who kind o’ thought
Ike had ought for to own up that he shot him in a fair fight--them
friends was disposed to push the matter to a trial. But I says to ’em,
‘You can’t never convict him,’ I says. ‘Ike’s constitutional infirmity,’
I says, ‘is too well known to the community. There ain’t no jury in this
country,’ I says, ‘that’d find him guilty.’
“But that ain’t tellin’ you how he come to be called Tenspot Ike,” said
the old man, suddenly remembering what he had started to say. “That were
a most remarkable story, an’ p’ints several morals. In the first place,
it were the on’y time in his life that Ike was ever knowed to be on hand
when he was wanted, and there’s no manner o’ doubt it were the last.
Then it were the occasion of a most miraculous delivery of the credit
an’ cash capital of Arkansas City from eternal smash by means of a
casual ten-spot of clubs that Ike, by some utterly unaccountable
dispensation of Providence, happened to have in his pocket.
“The way of it was this. It was in the time o’ the spring floods, an’
the river had been up for nigh two months, an’ Arkansas City was all
afloat up to the second story, ’xcept on the levee. There were a boat
now an’ again, of course, but they’d just tie up at the levee for a few
minutes, an’ the folks that had been thinkin’ o’ comin’ ashore would
just look around for a spell, kind o’ discouraged like, and then they’d
set down on the boat again an’ go on down the river, or up, as the case
might be, an’ you couldn’t blame ’em. The railroad was washed away for
ten miles back, an’ there wasn’t no other way to git out o’ town. Just
naturally folks took the way they was sure of, there bein’ nothin’ to
stay here for. There bein’ no strangers in town, the boys played poker
among themselves pretty constant, for there wasn’t nothin’ else to do
while the river was up, an’ after the first five weeks the entire cash
capital of the place was in the possession of two men. It was a case o’
what the Good Book tells about when it says that him as has shall win,
and him that has nothin’ shall lose that which he seemeth to have. Jim
Harris and Pete Barlow won everything in sight, an’ there wasn’t another
man in town among the sporting set that had a dollar to his name.
’Course there was some of us taxpayers that didn’t play frequent, that
had money in the bank, but the sports was all flat broke ’xcept them
two. We was all looking for them to come together an’ for one of ’em to
eat the other up, but for some reason they didn’t, each bein’ more or
less afraid of the other as near as I c’d figger it. Pete an’ Ike was
good friends, but Jim Harris hated Ike like p’ison for reasons of his
own, an’ Ike like a good Christian was always lookin’ for a chance to
pile red-hot coals on him.
“Well, just then some crossroads gambler from Mississippi come along the
river lookin’ for blood. He’d raked one or two other towns clean, an’
just naturally arrove here with a wad bigger’n his head. He drifted
around the first day tryin’ to get acquainted, an’ some o’ the boys
spotted him, an’ lost no time in tellin’ our two capitalists about him
an’ his wad. Thar was some backin’ an’ fillin’, but the second day the
three come together right here in this room an’ after some talk got to
playin’ cards. The news got around an’ the room was tol’able nigh full
o’ the boys. All of ’em was pinin’ for the destruction o’ that stranger,
just for the sake of encouragin’ home talent, but there wasn’t many of
’em that cared whether Harris or Barlow’d git away with him, so long as
one of ’em should do the trick. Ike was here, o’ course. If he’d had
money enough to set into the game I s’pose he’d ha’ been in Little Rock,
but bein’ as there wasn’t no earthly probability o’ his bein’ wanted
here, he was just naturally here. But the dispensation o’ Providence is
very often mysterious an’ he turned out to be the chosen instrument o’
heaven for the salvation of Arkansas City.
“They played an’ played for six or seven hours, settin’ ’em up for the
house once in awhile by way of a kitty, but none of ’em gittin’ much
ahead. Just naturally the boys all stayed. I don’t never give ’em too
much credit when they’re broke, for fear of encouragin’ ’em in
pernicious habits, an’ they was a pretty dry lot. They was a-watchin’
the game close, an’ stood around tol’able close, but o’ course not
crowdin’ the players. Ike stood a little behind Barlow, lookin’ over his
left shoulder, but o’ course sayin’ nothin’. We didn’t s’pose he could
see what cards was held, no more than the rest of us, for all three men
was playin’ close to their chests, as was natural. It seems, though,
that Ike has eyes consid’able better’n the average hawk, an’ he was
keepin’ tabs on the game right smart.
“It come Jim Harris’s deal, an’ I noticed the stranger give a sort of a
little start as he watched the cards droppin’. Then he looked at his
hand an’ I see his face change just the least little. He seemed to
hesitate a little an’ then he reached into his pocket an’ pulled out his
gun, an’ laid it on the table alongside of his cards. ‘It’s kind of
uncomfortable settin’ on the end of it,’ he says with a little grin,
which we all understood well enough. Pete Barlow did, anyhow, for he
dropped his cards on the table almost before he had lifted them, and
flashed out his own gun. ‘That’s so. ’Tis uncomfortable,’ he says, as he
lays it on the table. Jim Harris, he warn’t far behind, an’ when he lays
out his weapon he says, ‘I might as well be in the fashion.’
“Just naturally we all understood what all that meant, but we warn’t any
of us expectin’ what followed. It were fairly amazin’. Ike reached over
in front o’ Pete Barlow an’ grabbed his pistol, sayin’ as he did so,
‘You look after your playin’, Pete. If there’s goin’ to be any shootin’
done, I’ll shoot for you.’
“Now I reckon there couldn’t be no worse break made than that, an’ I
looked to see Pete break out in a blaze o’ wrath, but I was clean
flabbergasted when he looked up pleasant an’ smiled an’ said: ‘All
right, Ike.’ I was clean flabbergasted an’ I never understood the thing
at all till Ike explained it to me afterward.
“‘You see Harris had boxed the cards,’ he says, ‘an’ the stranger seen
it. That’s why he pulled his gun. I seen that Pete had three tens an’ a
pair o’ aces, an’ I guessed the rest. Now, it was a clean plumb miracle,
but I happened to have a ten o’ clubs in my pocket o’ the same pattern
o’ cards. It was one of a pack that dropped in the water an’ I’d put it
in my pocket. I didn’t know why at the time, but now I can see it was
the will o’ heaven. I reached over an’ took the gun just for an excuse
to drop the card in Pete’s lap. He seen it an’ tumbled.’
“Well, that’s all there was to it. The stranger, he wouldn’t play the
hand, o’ course, but Harris havin’ four sevens, laid for Pete, who just
naturally stood pat an’ flashed four tens an’ an ace at the show down.
That let Harris out, an’ Pete swatted the stranger till he had to borrow
twenty to leave town with. An’ the credit of Arkansas City was saved.”
XIV
IT WAS A GREAT DEAL
“One o’ the commonest failin’s o’ poor fallen humanity is a lack o’
self-control,” said old man Greenhut, as he turned back from the door of
his tavern, out of which he had just thrown an unfortunate stranger, and
walked around to his place behind the bar rubbing and slapping his hands
together, as if to brush off some imaginary taint that might be supposed
to have attached to the stranger’s clothes.
The stranger, who didn’t seem to be in good health, and was far from
being well dressed, had shuffled in a few moments before and walked up
to the stove with a deprecatory air, saying nothing to anybody and
warming himself in an apologetic fashion as if he realized that he had
no right to the heat and good cheer that radiated from the red-hot
sides of that comfortable piece of furniture. Nobody said anything to
him, and he coughed once or twice, timidly, before he ventured to walk
over to the bar and accost the old man. “Squire,” he said, “I am
half-sick, an’ I need a glass o’ liquor powerful bad, but I hain’t got
any money. Kin you trust me for a drink? I’ll pay ye for it, honest. I
hain’t never beat a man out of a cent in my life, an’ I’ll pay, sure. I
wouldn’t ask ye for it, on’y I’m reely sick.”
The old man looked at him steadily while he was talking, but he answered
never a word. Slowly he reached under the bar and the stranger’s face
brightened up. He thought the old man was reaching for a bottle. After
hesitating a little the old man came out from behind the bar. Seizing
the unresisting stranger by the collar he rushed him violently to the
door, and half-threw and half-kicked him out. Then breaking the silence
for the first time since the stranger’s entrance, he delivered himself
of the reflections recorded above as he walked slowly back to his place.
He stood there for some minutes, evidently thinking of what he had
said, and then, business being slack for the moment, he relighted his
cigar and came out again to his favourite seat by the window.
“Self-control,” he said, presently, “is God’s best gift to man. The
fellow that kin always control himself under all circumstances is the
one that’s goin’ to win the pot. Now take that ar shiftless bum that
just come in here an’ asked me to supply his necessities at my expense.
If he’d ’a’ had any self-control he never would have allowed hisself to
be mastered by an accursed longin’ for liquor without the price of it,
an’ if I hadn’t ’a’ had my self-control right along with me, like as not
I’d ’a’ let him have it. I’ve knowed men to do just such fool things.
An’ thar he’d ’a’ been saddled with a debt that he wouldn’t never ’a’
paid, an’ I’d ’a’ been just that much out.
“I’ve often thought that the Lord must ’a’ meant the game o’ poker as a
instrument o’ savin’ grace in the way o’ cultivatin’ those virtues
’thout which a man hain’t fit to live, nor yet capable o’ gettin’ on in
the world. Now poker’ll teach a man self-control better’n almost
anything else I know. You never seen a poker player what knowed the
first principles o’ the game, givin’ way to no weaknesses.
“‘Minds me of a game I see played once on the old _River Belle_, comin’
down the river just after the spring floods o’ ’76. There wa’n’t no such
games then as there used to be before the war, or even for a few years
after. I don’t know what the reason is, but poker don’t ’pear to be
respected, now, like it used to be. ’Pears like the risin’ generation
hain’t none o’ the moral stamina that folks had when I was younger. Call
poker immoral, I’ve heard tell, just as if ’twasn’t the greatest
educator an’ highest moral training known to civilization.
“There was a good bit o’ money up in that game, for there was four o’
the nerviest men I ever knowed in it, an’ every one of ’em was out for
blood. Two of ’em, Jim Waters an’ Abe Simpson, was St. Louis sports that
always travelled together. Jim Blivins was another. He come from
Memphis, but he’d kind o’ run hisself out o’ town an’ mostly travelled
the river. ’Twarn’t that he was crooked, partic’lar. He played as fair
as most of ’em did, an’ used to say that he never stacked the cards
’thouten he had reason to think that somebody else in the game was up to
the same sort o’ deviltry. But the truth was he played too strong a game
for the Memphis crowd, an’ it got so that nobody that knowed him would
play with him, so just naturally he had to seek for new pastures an’
strange lambs. The fourth man was a feller I never seed afore, though I
come to know him well enough afterward. ’Twas George Dunning, a chap f’m
somewheres up in Iowa that had took to the river for business an’
somehow had struck up a friendship with Blivins. They was playin’
partners at the time, though I didn’t know it, an’ just naturally they
wasn’t a-shoutin’ it out from the housetops, the same bein’ the upper
deck in case of steamboats. Incidentally there was another feller in the
game. He was a cattle-dealer from Texas, Dunnigan by name, that had
just been up north sellin’ a slew o’ cattle, an’ was goin’ home with a
wad that wouldn’t fit comfortable in his inside pocket.
“The other four was just naturally intendin’ to get hold o’ that wad,
but there was some difference of opinion amongst ’em about it. Waters
an’ Simpson was reckonin’ on takin’ it back to St. Louis with ’em, an’
Blivins an’ Dunning was thinkin’ o’ gettin’ off at Memphis an’ dividin’
up there. What Dunnigan was figurin’ on I don’t know, but I reckon he
expected to draw compound interest on his money durin’ the time he was
on the boat.
“By the time we got below Cairo the game was goin’ on under a full head
o’ steam. The professionals was all well fixed for money an’ there
wasn’t no small stakes played for. Nothin’ was said about a limit,
neither, nor there warn’t no table stakes rules. It was just a case o’
bettin’ anything you damn please, an’ either layin’ down or makin’ a
bigger bluff every time the other feller peeped.
“White chips was a dollar, reds was five, an’ blues was fifty, makin’ a
tol’able stiff game even with chips, but they was a good many
hundred-dollar bills lyin’ on the table ’fore they’d been playin’ long,
an’ there was a feelin’ among them that was lookin’ on that bigger money
than that was liable to be flashed ’most any time.
“It was reely surprisin’, seein’ that the game was that sort, an’ the
men playin’ was so much in earnest, that there was nothin’ decisive-like
in the fust day’s play. You’d ha’ thought that somebody’d gone broke
within a few hours, anyhow, but whether ’twas that they wasn’t in no
hurry, seein’ they had several days ahead of ’em, or whether ’twas that
they was too much for one another, I don’t know. Anyhow, they was
a-playin’ from about four o’clock in the evenin’ till after midnight,
an’ nobody was more’n five or six hundred dollars out that fust day.
“You see they all played cautious. I’ve often noticed that when men are
playin’ in a real important game, with plenty o’ time to play in,
they’ll play a much more cautious game than they will if there’s only a
few dollars, or a few hundred in sight. Anyhow, I didn’t see no bet o’
more than five hundred pushed up while I was lookin’ on, an’ that was
most o’ the time, an’ I didn’t see that called nor raised on’y once.
Blivins put up five hundred once on three queens, an’ Dunnigan, who had
drawed one card, raised him five hundred, so Blivins just naturally laid
down, seein’ ’twas a jack-pot an’ Dunnigan hadn’t opened when he had a
chance, but had raised once before the draw, showin’ he had hopes of a
flush or a straight.
“Well, as I said, they played till about twelve o’clock an’ nobody was
hurt much. Then Dunnigan said he guessed he’d turn in, an’ nobody made
any objections, only they all seemed to understand they was to go on
with the game the next day.
“I must say that there Dunnigan was a foxy player. He laid down his
cards a good many times that second day when an ordinary man would have
played ’em, provin’ conclusive that he knowed the game. You see he was
reely better off in the game than he would have been if the other
fellers hadn’t been watchin’ one another the way they was. Ef either two
of the four had drawed out o’ the game I don’t reckon he’d ha’ lasted
more’n perhaps an hour or so, though as I said, he understood the game
well enough, but just naturally he wasn’t on to the reely subtle
refinements o’ scientific manipulation, an’ any one o’ them four could
ha’ stacked cards on him without him knowin’ it. But the p’int was that
Waters an’ Simpson was watchin’ Blivins an’ Dunning with more anxiety
than a hen gives to a brood o’ ducklin’s, and Blivins an’ Dunning was
returnin’ the compliment most amazin’ earnest like. Nary a one of ’em
dasted to deal crooked, an’ as for tryin’ to ring in marked cards, any
such trick as that would ha’ just been suicide.
“After some hours’ play the second day, though, all hands seemed to get
impatient. ’Twa’n’t that they played any less cautious, but they seemed
to be gettin’ on to one another’s play better an’ better all the time
an’ feelin’ as though they was justified in playin’ to the strength o’
their hands more’n they had. I noticed they begun callin’ one another
once in awhile, an’ a call had been ruther a scarce thing before that.
Dunnigan was caught bluffin’ most outrageous once, on a busted flush,
but nobody even smiled. Blivins had called him on two pairs, an’ he
raked in a pot of near a thousand dollars just as if nothin’ had
happened.
“All of a sudden came a most astonishin’ deal. I reckon it was honest
enough, for, as I said, they was a-watchin’ one another like cats, an’
slick as they all was, there warn’t one of ’em but knowed the others
would catch him if he tried to deal crooked. So just naturally we had to
assume it was honest, anyway, although Dunning dealt the cards, an’ he
was one o’ the best manipulators I ever see.
“What made it surprisin’ was that the cards had been a-runnin’ most
almighty slow up to that time, as they will sometimes for a long spell.
There had been a few good hands, o’ course, but there hadn’t been a
real struggle worth talkin’ about in all those hours o’ play. This
time, though, there was struggle enough to satisfy the most sanguinary.
“Dunning dealt, as I said, an’ Waters had the age. He got four hearts
with the ace and king at the head. Blivins was next player an’ he caught
three queens. Dunnigan was next an’ he found kings and eights in his
hand. Simpson was next an’ he got four spades--little ones. An’ Dunning
dealt himself four ten-spots, pat.
“That of itself was a tol’able noteworthy deal, but the draw was still
more astonishin’. They’d all come in as a matter o’ course, an Waters
had just naturally raised it a blue chip. That give Dunning a chance,
an’ he raised it a hundred dollars. I asked him a long time afterward
how ’twas he didn’t raise the first round, an’ he said he couldn’t
exactly say, on’y he had a sort o’ hunch that Waters would raise, as he
did, an’ so give him all the better show. Everybody stood this raise
also, and then they called for cards.
“Waters got his fifth heart. Blivins caught the fourth queen. Dunnigan
made a king full, an’ Simpson got nothin’. Dunning, o’ course, drew a
dummy to his four tens.
“If ever there was a kettle o’ fish that was. Blivins bet five hundred
on the go off, an’ Dunnigan raised him five hundred as a simple act o’
Christian duty, havin’ a king full against one two-card and three
one-card draws, Simpson threw down his cards, havin’ no chance to do
anything else. Dunning just naturally put up a thousand dollars more,
an’ Waters was between the devil an’ the deep blue sea.
“Just naturally he says to himself that Blivins an’ Dunning was
a-playin’ whipsaw an’ cal’latin’ to scare him out right away. Dunnigan
was the man he was after, same as the others was, an’ he reckoned he
could beat Dunnigan, but he didn’t see how he was goin’ to stand up
against the other two. Talk about your self-control. There was a man
that felt certain in his own mind that he had the winnin’ hand when he
reely had the poorest one in the game. He was low man for fair, but you
couldn’t ha’ made him think so just then. An’ ’twas sharper than a
serpent’s tooth to see the other two fellers gettin’ away with
Dunnigan’s money, as he could see they was likely to do.
“What did he do? Why, he throwed down his cards o’ course, like a good
player as he was. He knowed that, although the chances was that he had
the best hand, he was goin’ to have to play that hand so high that the
three chances against him made it poor play to back it. An’ mind you,
’twarn’t honest play he was lookin’ for, but a whipsaw game by two men
with plenty of money an’ more nerve.
“Blivins couldn’t do no less than raise it another thousand, an’ it was
up to Dunnigan to make the play of his life. He thought he was makin’ it
when he saw both raises an’ went two thousand better. I don’t know but
what I might ha’ done the same thing, but I’ve played poker now longer’n
I had then, an’ I’ve seen four of a kind out a good many times. ’Pears
to me like I’d ha’ sensed somethin’ o’ the sort when I see two good
players bettin’ like them two did, an’ one of ’em drawin’ two cards an’
the other only one.
“Anyhow, he raised, as I said, an’ then o’ course he was their cold
meat. All they had to do was to wait on one another, so Dunning he
raised an’ Blivins chipped along. Dunnigan naturally thought he had one
of ’em beat, an’ he raised again, hoping to scare the other one out. He
made his raise five thousand this time, as was entirely proper, seein’
he’d made up his mind to bet, but he was considerable surprised when
Dunning fingered his roll an’ called for a show on two thousand, which
was all he had left, an’ then Blivins makes good an’ goes him five
thousand more.
“That was a little more than poor fallen human nature could stand. Just
naturally he was certain that Blivins was bluffing, an’ havin’ more
money in his pocket than was reely good for him, he makes another bluff
hisself, havin’, as I say, parted entirely with his self-control.
“Blivins was well fixed, too, though, an’ he comes back at him again, so
Dunnigan see it was plump foolishness to raise any more, an’ he called.
I’ve heerd people criticize his play, sayin’ that he’d either oughter
laid down or raised again, but I’m free to say that I don’t agree with
’em. A king full was good enough to call on, but nothin’ short of a
straight flush was good enough to raise on against Blivins’s play,
according to my notions.
“I’ve heerd people say, too, that they didn’t believe Dunning dealt them
cards honest, but I seen the expression on his face when Blivins showed
down four queens against his four tens an’ raked the pot. If he warn’t
genuinely surprised I never see any one that was.
“That broke up the game, for the cattle-dealer didn’t want to go plumb
broke an’ he dropped out, so there wern’t no use in prolongin’ the
struggle. But if ever a man had cause to be thankful for his
self-control, Jim Waters had when he laid down his ace flush.”
XV
HE SAT IN WITH A V