and set his bottles and glasses in order, “about modern progress an’ the
elevatin’ influences of eddication, an’ sich, but I’ll be everlastingly
hornswaggled if it don’t appear to me that young folks nowadays is sure
a degenerate lot. I don’t mean boys, for there can’t nobody tell what a
boy’s goin’ to turn out to be. I’ve seen reg’lar milksops that went to
Sunday school an’ wore neckties, or, mebbe, played with their sisters up
to the time they was seventeen or eighteen, turn all of a suddin like,
an’ develop into rip-roaring good citizens that could take their own
part in anything that came along from a poker party to a political
meetin’, an’ was a right down credit to the community. An’ similar I’ve
seen right lively youngsters o’ fifteen an’ sixteen, that was full o’
ginger and gave every promise o’ bein’ husky citizens, take to foppish
ways by the time they was twenty, an’ go around smokin’ cigarettes. No,
there ain’t no tellin’ about boys.
“What I mean,” continued the old man, as he came around to his favourite
seat by the window, “is the no-’count ways that the younger men of
to-day seem to be fallin’ into. Why, talkin’ about cigarettes, there’s
grown men smokes ’em now, just as shameless as if they was smokin’
honest tobacco in a pipe. An’ I don’t mean dagos and creoles an’ sich,
but full-grown men. An’ what with temp’rance societies, an’ the women
tryin’ to vote an’ gettin’ the men to uphold ’em in it, the country
seems to be a-goin’ hell to breakfast cross lots an’ sideways.
“You don’t see none o’ the old style o’ men scarcely. Forty year ago men
was different. They wasn’t afraid to drink four fingers to once o’ good
liquor, an’ a word meant a blow an’ a blow meant a shot. Consequences
was men was careful what they said, an’ was a heap sight more polite.
An’ they played a man’s game o’ poker in them days. Nowadays they tell
me the women is playin’ it, an’ it’s got to be a reg’lar parlour
amusement.
“Sam Nichols was in here only the other night an’ somebody ast him to
take a hand in a little game that was goin’ on in the back room, an’ he
laughed an’ says: ‘No, I ain’t a-playin’ poker anywheres now ’ceptin’ at
home. My wife, she’s learned the game an’ some o’ the neighbours comes
in with their wives, an’ we plays ten-cent limit. You have all the fun
o’ poker an’ it don’t cost nothin’ to speak of.’ An’ Sam, he used to be
one o’ the stiffest players in Arkansas City.
“Just naturally, I was disgusted for fair. ‘Yes, Sam,’ I says, ‘you can
have all the fun o’ poker if you leave out all there is in the game that
makes it worth playin’. Certainly you can. An’ you could have all the
fun of eatin’, too, if you was to take all your teeth out an’ gum it on
a piece o’ sponge. But you wouldn’t get no nourishment out of it, I
reckon. An’ similar, I’d like to know what sort o’ nutriment for a grown
man there is in a ten-cent limit game. You sure make me sick.’”
The old man smoked in silence for a few minutes after he had got all
this out and then began to chuckle. “It wasn’t no ten-cent limit game
they was playin’ in here the night Park Halloway made his big haul,” he
said, still chuckling. “That was a grown man’s game. The boys had been a
little short o’ money for three or four weeks, an’ had got to playin’ a
table stakes game among themselves. You see there hadn’t been no
strangers in town since Three-finger Pete an’ his pal come in an’ done
up the crowd with some marked cards they’d had sent here ahead of ’em.
“That was the slickest trick that was ever played on this community.
Didn’t you never hear of it? Why that was told all up an’ down the river
for years an’ years. It ’peared that Three-fingered Pete was special
sore on Arkansas City for doin’ him up bad the first time he come here,
an’ he swore he’d get even. So he waits a long time an’ he gets in with
a feller that dealt in cards wholesale. That feller was afterward shot,
but we never caught Pete.
“Well, Pete managed to get a line on everybody in Arkansas City that
bought an’ sold cards. There was only three stores where they kept ’em,
an’ this feller that I’m tellin’ about sold to all three. Well, Pete, he
fixed up a set o’ marks entirely original an’ clever enough to fool the
devil himself, an’ for three whole years he marked every pack that came
to Arkansas City, so’s to be sure that no other kind o’ cards would be
in use in the town when he come. He was a good stayer, Pete was, an’ he
played a long game on this.
“After he was plumb certain that there wasn’t no old stock left over in
town, he drifted in one day, an’ his pal followed next day. They was too
slick to come together, or to let on that they knowed each other. Well,
just naturally, when every pack o’ cards in town was marked, an’ only
two men knowed it, and both o’ them had been practisin’ on readin’ them
marks till they knowed the backs as well as they did the fronts, them
two men took away all the available cash capital there was in Arkansas
City. It was a rich haul, an’ everybody ’lowed that Pete was entitled to
great credit for the way he worked it, though just naturally we was all
pretty sore when we found it out, which we didn’t till Pete an’ the
other feller had got away to Mexico.
“Well, as I was sayin’, the boys was a-gettin’ on the best way they
could after that cyclone, an’ playin’ mumbletypeg amongst themselves
with their odd change till some more strangers would come along an’ give
’em a chance to git their money back. An’ it had been goin’ on that way
for some weeks when it come that night I was tellin’ of, that Park
Halloway made his big play.
“It was a dispensation o’ Providence, sure enough, that sent three
cotton factors up f’m New Orleans just at that time. They was comin’ up
to dicker with some o’ the planters for the next crop, there havin’ been
some difficulty in the market that had got a lot o’ planters
dissatisfied, and these new factors had all sorts o’ money with ’em.
They was stoppin’ over in Arkansas City to make some inquiries, an’ just
naturally they set into a little game while they was a-waitin’ for the
next boat.
“Jim Farley an’ Dick Hackett had been playin’ with ’em for about a hour
when Halloway come in, an’ naturally they had accumulated some wealth,
so that the game was pretty healthy. It was table stakes, but there
wasn’t one o’ the five that didn’t have over a hundred in front of him,
so when Halloway come in an’ ast if he c’d have a hand we was some
surprised. He’d been as near broke as anybody in town since Pete’s raid,
an’ it didn’t seem likely that he had money enough to set in with.
“So when he ast to set in, Hackett looked up a little doubtful an’ says,
‘Why, cert’nly, Park, but we’re playin’ table stakes,’ an’ he looked
around at the money then in sight as much as to say, ‘That sort o’ lets
you out, don’t it?’
“But Halloway, he grinned an’ says, ‘That’s the on’y game where I could
get a show for my money, I reckon,’ an’ he sets down an’ flashes a
five-dollar bill as sassy as you please. ‘I’ll make it as quick play as
I can,’ he says, still grinnin’, an’ they all laughed an’ pushed him
over five white chips.
“Well, it was his age an’ he antes a white chip as the others had been
doin’ an’ let his cards lay face down till they’d all come in. Then,
still without lookin’ at his cards, he made his ante good an’ shoved up
the other three. One o’ the factors sat next an’ he saw. Then Hackett
raised it five on the side, Halloway havin’, o’ course, a show for his
money. The other two factors, Davis and Allen their names was, they was
lookin’ for trouble, so they come in, an’ Farley, settin’ next, h’isted
it ten dollars.
“Course, Halloway hadn’t nothin’ to say, an’ Smith, the first factor, he
laid down. So did Hackett an’ Davis, but Allen come back with ten more,
an’ Farley called it. Then Davis showed an ace high straight an’ Farley
a small flush. Halloway waited till they was through, an’ then he
turned his cards over. They was a ten full on sixes.
“That sort o’ gave him a footin’ in the game, for he had, o’ course,
thirty dollars instead o’ five, an’ while Hackett was ten dollars out,
Farley had won thirty dollars. The strangers was flush, anyhow, an’ they
wasn’t a mite disturbed.
“It was Halloway’s deal next, an’ when it come his turn to see the ante
he threw his cards away without lookin’ at ’em. ‘I’ll bet the next
hand,’ he says, ‘same as I did the last, an’ I’d ruther not do it on my
own deal.’ So they played that hand without him, an’ Hackett won it,
with about forty dollars in the pot.
“Sure enough, in the next deal, Halloway shoved his thirty dollars in
the pot without looking at his hand. Just naturally nobody thought he’d
win again, so they bet as if he wasn’t in the game. Smith an’ Farley
laid down, but Hackett an’ Davis raised back an’ forth till Hackett
called for a show for his money. Allen stood one raise, but laid down on
the second.
“Then came another surprise. Davis had three queens, Hackett had three
kings, an’ Halloway had three aces. He won ninety dollars on that deal,
an’ Hackett won something like a hundred an’ fifty.
“When the cards was dealt next time there was a jack-pot, for they was
a-playin’ with a buck an’ Hackett had it. They made it a five-dollar
jack, an’ Davis an’ Allen an’ Farley passed. That brung it up to
Halloway an’ he opened it for twenty-five dollars. Smith an’ Hackett
come in, Davis raised it fifty, Allen an’ Farley come in, an’ Halloway
shoved up all he had which was forty dollars more. An’ once more they
all come in. I don’t remember that I ever see anything just like it
afore, but each man of the six drawed one card an’ not one of ’em
bettered his hand. Davis was raisin’ on a four straight flush, king
high, an’, of course, wanted to play it as hard as he could, but the
others was drawin’ to four straights an’ four flushes exceptin’
Halloway, an’ he had aces up.
“Then he was in the game with all four feet, for he’d won more’n seven
hundred dollars off’n his V-spot in three deals. We was all struck, but
Park on’y grinned an’ says, quiet like, ‘’Pears as though I’d struck my
gait, don’t it?’ which it sure did.
That warn’t the end of it, though, for on the next deal, Allen having
the age, an’ Farley comin’ in, Halloway simply made good with his little
two dollars, waitin’, as it appeared, for somebody else to raise. It was
good play, too, for when it come Smith’s turn he raised it ten dollars.
The others all come in, an’ Halloway raised it twenty-five. This kind o’
staggered ’em, an’ Hackett an’ Farley, knowin’ Halloway as well as they
did, laid down, but the strangers all thought he was bluffin’ on the
stren’th of his run o’ luck, an’ all three of ’em made good. Allen drew
three cards to a pair of aces. Halloway drew one, holdin’ a kicker to
three sevens, Smith drew two to three jacks, an’ Davis, who was dealing,
drew one to a four flush.
Allen got his third ace. Halloway got his fourth seven. Smith didn’t
better, an’ Davis filled his flush, so if ever the Lord was good to a
man, He cert’nly was good to Halloway. It was his first bet, Farley
havin’ passed out, an’ he put up fifty dollars. Smith came in, figgerin’
that some one else’d raise, which Davis did for fifty dollars more.
Allen studied on his three aces for awhile an’ then come in. I don’t
know what sort of poker he thought he was playin’, but I reckon he
thought Halloway an’ Davis was both bluffin’. Just naturally Halloway
come back with a hundred more, an’ Smith an’ Allen laid down, Davis
callin’. That made seven hundred and ten dollars in the pot, of which
four hundred and seventy-three dollars went to his profit an’ loss
account, makin’ his winnin’s up to this time one thousand one hundred
and eighty-eight dollars, which was doin’ well for a five-dollar bill in
four pots.
By this time the others was all proper astonished, an’ Davis showed a
little temper. He’d been hit pretty hard three times an’ was aggravated,
but Halloway never said nothin’. On’y just set there an’ grinned, an’
once more the lightnin’ struck in the same place. It was a short game
an’ a tol’able warm one.
The next deal was Davis’s, an’ as Halloway had the first say he come in
without lookin’ at his cards. The next two men come in, an’ Davis raised
it fifty. That showed, o’ course, that he was lookin’ for fight, for
there wa’n’t but seven dollars in the pot up to then, an’ nobody had
showed any stren’th. Allen an’ Farley looked over their cards pretty
careful, an’ findin’ no encouragement they dropped.
Then Halloway picked up his cards an’ skint ’em down slow. The luck was
still with him, for he had four treys. He was a cool player, though, an’
pretended to be studyin’ the cards, while he was really studyin’ how to
play Davis good and hard again. He knowed it was no good to think about
the others, for they wouldn’t be likely to stand Davis’s raise, let
alone his, if he should raise back. So he thought awhile an’ then raised
it a hundred.
That made Davis madder’n ever. ‘You can’t bluff me that way,’ he says,
very nasty, an’ as the other two laid down, he come back with two
hundred more. Then, o’ course, Halloway had him. He looked more serious
than ever for awhile, and finally he says, ‘Well, I reckon I’ll draw one
card,’ shovin’ up his two hundred as he spoke.
He let the card lay as it was dealt to him, an’ Davis, havin’ a pat
flush, o’ course, drew none. Halloway looked at him for a minute, as if
tryin’ to study out whether he was bluffin’ or not, an’ finally says:
‘Well, I’ll bet you five hundred, anyway.’
‘An’ I’ll raise you a thousand,’ said Davis, with some sort o’ French
swearin’ that I reckon he must ha’ brought f’m New Orleans, f’r I never
heerd anything like it around here.
Halloway grinned again, an’ he says: ‘I’m sorry I can’t see your
thousand, but I’ll call for a show for what I have, an’ I reckon my
cards is good.’ An’ he showed down his four treys.
Well, that broke up the game. Davis was too mad to play any more, an’
his pals see that it was foolish for them to stack up against any such
luck as Halloway was settin’ in. But it was a monstrous good game while
it lasted. I never seen five dollars grow to two thousand three hundred
and eighty-six quite so quick, afore nor since.”
XVI
HIS QUEER SYSTEM
“‘Tain’t a matter of record,” said old man Greenhut, with a reminiscent
look in his eye, “that any stranger has ever come to Arkansas City with
any notion o’ doin’ up the town what got away with the proposition an’
any consid’able remnant o’ the wad he had with him when he arrove. The
citizens o’ this town is mostly capable men, what is well qualified to
drink red liquor straight an’ set into ’most any sort of a game without
drawin’ weepons, ’less there’s some provocations, an’ when it comes to
draw-poker it’s universally acknowledged up an’ down the river that
there ain’t no superior game played anywhere. The galoot that comes here
with a notion in his nut o’ makin’ a everlastin’ fortune out o’ such
hands as a merciful Providence may allow him to hold in two or three
nights’ play is gen’ly considered to be runnin’ in great luck if he gets
out o’ town without havin’ a subscription took up for his benefit about
the time the next boat ties up.
There has been a good many times, true enough, when things looked
doubtful. Players has come that had new wrinkles in the way o’ holdin’
out, or stackin’ the cards, or some new system o’ play that puzzled the
boys for awhile. An’ there’s been some come that sure knowed the game
an’ played it almighty skilful. But none of ’em, as I said, ever reely
got away with the proposition.
There was one feller, though, that showed up here about six years ago,
that come monstrous near breakin’ the record. That is to say, if he’d
have understood the first principles o’ poker he’d ha’ busted the town
wide open, an’ the mortifyin’ thing about it was ’twas poker he was
playin’. That is, ’twas called poker, an’ he sure did win, but the way
he played it was one o’ the seven wonders o’ the world. We talked about
it quite some, after he left, an’ the unanimous verdict was that if he
ha’ knowed what he was doin’ an’ how to do it, he’d ha’ just
everlastin’ly skint the entire crowd out o’ what money there was,
instead o’ comin’ out consid’able ahead, an’ him not knowin’ just how he
done it or what he’d done. It sure were bewilderin’, an’ well cal’lated
to make a man lose his faith in Providence, ’thout he was one that stuck
to his religion spite of anything.
The puzzlin’ thing about it were that the feller seemed to be playin’
poker all the time, an’ the rest o’ the party was playin’ it for all
they knew, but he were either playin’ on a system that was entirely
unbeknownst to everybody in this part o’ the world, or else he were that
outrageous ignorant o’ first principles as would disgrace a half-grown
boy. An’ yet he won! Some of ’em was inclined to think at first that it
were a new system, an’ there was a good deal o’ speculation on how it
would work, played constant, but nobody had the nerve to try it, seein’
it were plumb contrary to all science as poker is understood, an’ they
couldn’t get up that child-like confidence in heaven’s mercy that would
lead ’em to look for over-whelmin’ luck in the matter o’ cards at the
critical moments o’ the game.
The way of it was this. He just landed from the boat one day an’ walked
up the levee a bit, lookin’ round, an’ sayin’ nothin’ to nobody. There
didn’t seem to be no reason for anybody to pay attention to him, an’
consequent nobody did, for he wa’n’t a man that looked like a sport, nor
yet a business man. Just ’peared to have got out f’m somewheres an’
didn’t know his way back. After he looked round a spell, he sort o’
drifted in to the hotel an’ wrote his name, absent-minded like, on the
register, an’ said ‘Yes’ when the proprietor ast him if he wanted a
room. Then he just sat round for a day or two, sayin’ nothin’ to nobody
all the time. Didn’t appear to have ambition enough to eat his meals,
for he’d wait till everybody else was most through ’fore he’d go into
the dinin’-room. An’ even when he took a drink, which wa’n’t often, he
did it all alone without seemin’ to take no interest in it.
“‘Long about the third day he began takin’ short walks, an’ bimeby he
got as far as to come in here an’ look ’round. Seein’ the bar, he called
for some red liquor an’ drank it, an’ then seein’ a chair he sot down.
There hadn’t been much doin’ for a week or two, an’ I says to Jake
Winterbottom that it mought be a good idea to start a game o’ poker.
‘This here stranger,’ I says, ‘don’t look as if he knowed one card from
another, but ’tain’t likely he’s quite as simple as he looks, an’
mebbe,’ I says, ‘you might get him into the game. Don’t make it too
stiff right away,’ I says, ’an’ who knows but you might get a small
stake out of him? ’Tain’t very promisin’,’ I says, ‘but some men is like
crooked cattle. There’s more meat on ’em than they looks.’
Well, Jake, he didn’t think there was nothin’ doin’. He looked the
stranger over an’ sort o’ turned up his nose, but things was quiet, an’
finally he says: ‘I don’t reckon he’s got fifty dollars in the world,
an’ if we win that we’ll only have to chip in an’ send him away. There
ain’t the makings of a citizen into him, no way I can figure it, an’ we
don’t want him settin’ around for ever. But we might take a shy at it,
just to pass the time.’
“So him an’ Sam Blaisdell an’ George Bascom kind o’ got together an’
played a few hands, thinkin’ the stranger might show some interest an’
propose to join the game, but he never stirred. Just sot still an’
chawed his tobacco, like he didn’t give a cuss for nothin’. So finally
Bascom he spoke up an’ says: ‘This is pretty slow playin’ three-handed.
We’d oughter have somebody else in the game,’ an’ they waited a minute
to see if that would catch him, but he never even looked round. So
Winterbottom says: ‘Wouldn’t you like to play?’ an’ the stranger he
says: ‘Yes,’ just the same absent-minded-like way he’d spoke to the
hotel proprietor, an’ he went over an’ sot in. I sold him ten dollars’
o’ chips, an’ they dealt him cards. It were a table stakes game, an’
each man had put up ten.
“The stranger, he talked like a Yankee an’ looked like a Frenchman, but
his name on the hotel register was Dennis McCarthy, an’ for all the
interest he showed in the cards after he got ’em he might have been a
Chinee. He just put up when it come his turn, an’ drawed cards every
time, but he never made a bet till his ten was all gone, an’ then he
bought ten more as calm an’ collected as a knot-hole in a board fence.
“Well, we played along, if you can call it playing poker, just like that
until his third ten-spot was gone, an’ he bought ten more worth o’
chips. Then he caught a hand that seemed to interest him some, for he
studied it a long time after Bascom had bet ten on his cards before he
said anything. Then he said, ‘I call,’ an’ shoved a ten-dollar bill into
the pot. They showed down an’ the stranger had a pair o’ queens. Bascom,
he had three sevens, so he raked the pot, o’ course, for Winterbottom
an’ Blaisdell had passed out.
“Well, that there McCarthy, if his name was McCarthy, just sat there and
called every bet that was made after that for three-quarters of an hour.
I never see such a thing before nor since. ’Peared like he’d on’y just
found out that he could call, an’ he’d been playin’ along afore that on
the idee that all the other feller had to do to win the pot was to make
a bet, an’ as if he’d got in his head that callin’ was all he was ’lowed
to do under the rules. Whatever his fool notion was, I don’t p’tend to
say, but that’s just what he did. Just called every time it come to him.
“Just naturally that looked easy, an’ I will say for the boys that they
didn’t try to play it low down on him for a good while. All they did was
to wait for a pretty strong hand an’ then bet it for what it was worth
an’ wait for a call. As there was three o’ them to one o’ him, they
naturally outheld him as a rule, but somehow or other he managed to
scoop a pot just about often enough to keep him even. He’d bought
twenty-five dollars after he lost his first fifty, so there was over a
hundred on the table. The boys wasn’t pushin’ him very hard, so they
only bet fives an’ tens, an’ once in awhile he’d show down the best hand
an’ scoop a pot. An’ bimeby we was all surprised to see he was gettin’
ahead. Still, ’twa’n’t no game to speak about. They’d all got the idee’t
he hadn’t got much of a wad, an’ they was playin’ more for the fun o’
the thing than to do him up.
“Pretty soon Blaisdell he caught a four-flush in a jack-pot an’ the
stranger he opened it. Blaisdell stayed an’ the others dropped out. They
each drawed one card an’ the stranger he bet ten. Blaisdell looked at
his draw an’ found he’d filled a ace flush, so he raised it for his
pile, which was thirty dollars, an’ the stranger called. He showed down
a full house an’ Blaisdell had to go diggin’.
“Next hand Bascom opened the jack on a pat straight, an’ the stranger he
come in an’ drawed one card. The others stayed out an’ Bascom bet his
pile, which was twenty odd, an’ the stranger he called an’ showed down a
flush, so Bascom was obliged to dig.
“Then ’twas Winterbottom’s turn, as it happened, an’ he opened it on
threes. They was playin’ a jack again on account o’ the hands showed,
an’ I’m blamed if the same thing didn’t happen. The stranger he come in
an’ drawed two cards. Winterbottom bet his pile, havin’ three queens.
The other two dropped out an’ the stranger he called an’ showed three
kings.
“It looked like a most amazin’ run o’ luck, but the stranger never
turned a hair. He did call for the drinks all round, as a sort o’
reco’nition, but he sot as calm as ever, waitin’ for his cards, an’
lookin’ as if he didn’t know what to do with ’em when they come. The
others had bought fifty apiece when they come back, so there was money
enough on the table to make it worth while, an’ the play got stronger.
First, Winterbottom he bet twenty on two pairs an’ the stranger called
on one pair. Then Bascom he bet ten on a pair o’ queens an’ the stranger
called on ace high. Then Blaisdell bet twenty-five on three jacks,
Bascom saw it on aces up, Winterbottom stayed out, havin’ nothin’, an’
the stranger called on a nine-high straight. No matter what he held he
wouldn’t raise.
“Blaisdell kind o’ got huffy this time, an’ seein’ the stranger was
still pretty well to the good, he began cussin’ a little an’ proposed
to take off the limit. The others said they was willin’, an’ they ast
McCarthy if he was, an’ he said ‘Yes.’ Blamed if it didn’t ’pear like
‘yes’ was ’most the only word he knowed in the language.