had in front of him in the next three pots, callin’ on the most
ridiculousest hands you ever see, but he stayed right along in for the
next deal, so they knowed he must have more money in his clothes. It
were his first say, Bascom havin’ the age, an’ he dug out two silver
dollars an’ come in, the ante bein’ a dollar. The others stayed, an’
McCarthy drawed three cards. When it come to the bettin’, he bet a
dollar, an’ Winterbottom put up fifty, havin’ filled a flush. Blaisdell
dropped out an’ Bascom raised it fifty. McCarthy never said a word, but
he pulled out his wallet an’ fished up a hundred-dollar bill.
Winterbottom raised it fifty an’ Bascom raised it fifty more, an’ the
stranger laid down another hundred.
“It looked like his finish there, for sure, for o’ course nobody thought
he had much of a hand, an’ the boys thought all they had to do was to
keep raisin’. They knowed he’d keep callin’, for he hadn’t done nothin’
else for nigh an hour, an’ all they had to do was to keep up the
crisscross an’ whipsaw him out of his pile. ’Twa’n’t certain whether
Bascom or Winterbottom would win, but one of ’em was sure to, an’ the
money would stay right here.
“Well, they kep’ it up for five minutes, I reckon, till Bascom come to
the end of his wad. He on’y had six or seven hundred in his clothes an’
Winterbottom wasn’t much stronger. It didn’t look worth while for Bascom
to send for more money, for the stranger’s pocketbook was empty an’ he’d
fished out his last hundred from one of his pockets, so Bascom just made
good when Winterbottom raised, an’ the stranger got his chance to call,
nobody supposin’ that he had more’n perhaps three of a kind, an’ likely
not that, he havin’ called on every hand he held whether ’twas good for
anything or not.
“It were a fatal mistake, an’ Bascom seen it as soon as he’d done it,
for the stranger dug again an’ flashed up a thousand-dollar bill. ’Stead
o’ raisin’ Winterbottom, as any other player on earth would ha’ done, he
just done his fool act over again an’ called. Then he showed down four
deuces an’ scooped in the pot as cool as if ’twas eight dollars instead
of a little over two thousand.
“Bascom sort o’ gasped, for he seen what a mistake he’d made, but
Winterbottom, he realized that somethin’ had to be did quick, an’ he
reached out with one hand for the money. ‘You never got them deuces
honest,’ he says, pullin’ his gun, o’ course, as he spoke. He knowed it
meant fight, but he wasn’t lookin’ no more than any of us for the kind
of a fight that came.
“McCarthy, he was quicker than chain-lightnin’, an’ reachin’ over with
one hand he grabbed Winterbottom’s gun while he put the money in his
pocket with the other. Then, with a queer sort o’ a twist, he wrenched
the gun out o’ Winterbottom’s hand and threw it plumb through the
[Illustration: “‘WITH ONE HAND HE GRABBED WINTERBOTTOM’S GUN WHILE HE
PUT THE MONEY IN HIS POCKET WITH THE OTHER.’”]
window. We was all standin’ ready to see that Winterbottom had fair
play, not considerin’ it etiquette to interfere unless he should get the
worst of it, but, Lord bless you, he hadn’t no show at all. The stranger
he just rose out of his chair an’ give a leap like a buckin’ bronco
clean over the table. He come down with both heels on Winterbottom’s
chest, an’ Winterbottom was out of it. Blaisdell an’ Bascom both drawed
on the instant, but ’twa’n’t no use. That stranger was all over the room
at once, swattin’ Bascom behind the ear with his fist an’ kickin’
Blaisdell under the chin at the same time. I didn’t think it was worth
while to take a hand myself, seein’ how things was goin’, an’ bein’ some
in years, so I stepped behind the bar an’ waited.
“Well, them three men tried for a minit or so to get up, but they
couldn’t. McCarthy was on top o’ the whole of ’em as fast as they moved,
an’ he had ’em all whipped in less time than it takes to tell it. I
heerd afterward that he’d lived in Paris some, an’ had learned some
outrageous foreign way o’ boxin’ with his feet that no Christian c’d
ever stand up against. They all give in after a little, an’ I didn’t
blame ’em, havin’ seen for myself what the stranger c’d do.
“Well, that was the end of it. The stranger he walked out after the
scrimmage was over, lookin’ as cool as ever. He looked back when he got
to the door an’ says, ‘Good night. See you again.’ But we never did. He
left town the next mornin’ on an early boat. I’ve often thought, though,
that it were a merciful dispensation that he didn’t know enough poker to
raise instead o’ callin’.”
XVII
AN EXTRA ACE
“Speakin’ by an’ large,” said old man Greenhut, as he bit off the end of
a fresh cigar and settled himself in his favourite seat at the window,
“there ain’t no question but what the game o’ draw-poker is about as
nigh perfect as anything that was ever devised by the mind o’ man, an’
developed by the constant study o’ countless generations. They say there
ain’t no record o’ poker bein’ played in former ages, an’ that faro was
played hundreds of thousands of years ago, when a feller named Faro was
King of Egypt, but it stands to reason there ain’t no truth in that.
Like enough faro is a old game. I ain’t a-sayin’ nothin’ against faro.
It suits them that likes it, but it’s gamblin’, an’ naturally it belongs
to the heathen that started it.
“But poker’s teetotally different. No such system as that of draw-poker
ever growed up in a night like Jonah’s gourd, nor it wa’n’t put together
by no single set o’ fellers. Stands to reason it’s the crownin’
development of all the civilization the world ever seen. An’ it don’t
seem likely, now that the straight an’ the straight flush has been
discovered, an’ universally recognized, that there’s ever goin’ to be no
changes into the game. It’s perfect as it is, an’ there ain’t no chanst
o’ makin’ it any more perfect.
“An’ yet there is times when even the best players is obliged to rely on
outside influences to help ’em out o’ some great emergency o’ the game.
That ain’t no fault o’ the game, for as I said, the game is all right,
but it goes to show that a man as relies on on’y one thing is goin’ to
get left when he stacks up against some feller that relies on the same
thing an’ has something else up his sleeve besides. An’ that there
somethin’ else is got to be more’n a knowledge o’ cards.
“O’ course if a man reely understands the game as he’d oughter, an’ can
handle the cards so’s to give himself what he needs in the draw when it
comes to a desprit struggle between him an’ the other feller, an’ can
read the backs o’ the cards well enough to have a good general idee o’
what the other feller is holdin’, why he can worry along under ordinary
circumstances so’s he can hold his own most o’ the time, an’ make enough
over from time to time to pay his livin’ expenses. But that’s all a part
o’ draw-poker, same as it’s a part o’ the game not to be found out when
you’re obliged to change the natural order o’ the cards. There is folks
that has prejudices against them things, an’ if a man is clumsy enough
to get found out, why, o’ course he’s goin’ to get hisself in more or
less trouble, but I maintain so long as they’re done slick enough to not
be seen, they are as legitimate as anything else in draw-poker. That’s
the way Arkansas City has come to have the reputation it has. There’s
some o’ the slickest players on the river right there in that town, an’
nobody has ever caught ’em usin’ marked cards, or holdin’ out, or
dealin’ out o’ the middle or off’n the bottom of the deck.
“But what I mean about outside influences is entirely different. There
comes a time, sometimes, when a man is obliged to think quick an’ act
quick in order to keep some unscrupulous stranger from sweepin’ away all
his hard-earned winnin’s in one fell pot. At such times even a thorough
knowledge o’ poker ain’t a goin’ to save a man thouten he’s quick enough
to think an’ has sand enough to act on the instant.
“There was an instance o’ that in Arkansas City the time when Hank
Fairfax an’ his side-partner, Billy Overton, come up here from Vicksburg
to do up the town, an’ come so near doin’ it. It were a great night, an’
on’y for Sam Pearsall’s presence o’ mind an’ prompt action I reckon we’d
ha’ lost prestige right then an’ there.
“There couldn’t no one find fault with Hank an’ his partner, for they
come in like men an’ said, open an’ above board, just what they’d come
for. Hank put it kind o’ brutal, but he was fair an’ square about it. He
said: ‘We Vicksburg sports is plumb tired hearin’ about Arkansas City
poker, an’ Billy an’ I has come to give you jays a few lessons on how
the game reely ought to be played. If any of you has the sand to play up
against the real thing, now’s your time, but this ain’t no crossroads
proposition. We are out for the stuff an’ we propose to carry it back
with us.’
“Well, you know there ain’t nobody from nowhere that can let out a yawp
like that in Arkansas City without bein’ took up sudden. ’Twa’n’t eight
minutes by the clock after he’d peeped, afore him an’ Billy an’ Sam
Pearsall an’ Jake Winterbottom an’ Joe Bassett was sittin’ ’round the
table countin’ out their chips. They each put up a thousand an’ made it
a table stakes game. ‘We didn’t come here to play old maid,’ said Billy,
when somebody asked what the game should be. ‘Let’s have somethin’ worth
playin’ for,’ he says, an’ they was all agreed.
“Well, just naturally they all played right up under their collar
buttons at first, bein’ anxious to get on to one another’s play. There
hadn’t none of our boys even played with Fairfax, but they all knowed
him by reputation as one o’ the slickest players in Mississippi, an’
they wa’n’t takin’ no chances on his deal. Overton we didn’t none of us
know much about, ’ceptin’ he had the name o’ bein’ a cool hand in a
quarrel and a bad man in a fight. We knowed he played poker, course,
just as everybody does, but we hadn’t heard o’ his bein’ counted no
crack player, such as Hank would be sure to have with him, an’ we was a
little slow, too, about sizin’ him up, not knowin’ what his particular
graft might be.
“Bein’ for them reasons a trifle more cautious than usual, the boys, as
I said, was slow about startin’ in, an’ any way the cards ran small for
awhile, but all of a sudden there was somethin’ doin’ on Winterbottom’s
deal. It was a jack-pot with thirty dollars in it, an’ Hank havin’ first
say, opened it for thirty. Pearsall, he came next an’ he come in.
Bassett was the next player an’ he raised it thirty. Overton made it
thirty more and Winterbottom h’isted it fifty. Fairfax raised it a
hundred an’ Pearsall says: ‘I didn’t want to raise it the first time
round for fear o’ scarin’ some of ye out, but as long as I’ve got you
all hooked,’ he says, ‘it’ll cost ye two hundred more to draw cards.’
“Just naturally I was lookin’ for some of ’em to drop out after that
kind o’ play, but every one of ’em stayed. There wa’n’t no more raisin’
done. I reckon they all thought four hundred an’ forty dollars apiece
was enough to put up before the draw, which sure it was in a game o’
that size.
“When it come to the draw there was another surprise. Every man at the
table stood pat. Well, just naturally it were pretty thin ice to dance
on, an’ nobody seemed to know for a minute or two just how to bet,
havin’ nothin’ to guide him but his own hand and the fact that there was
four pat hands out against it.
“Fairfax, o’ course, knowed just what to do. He put up a white chip.
There was no doubt about his havin’ a chance to play later, an’ he were
easy. Pearsall studied a bit, but finally he decided to wait, too,
havin’ declared hisself before the draw, so he chipped along. Bassett
wasn’t raisin’, neither, for he knowed Pearsall’s play pretty well, an’
havin’ only a small flush he didn’t feel strong, so he chipped along.
“That brought it up to Overton again, an’ he, thinkin’, I reckon, that
it was up to him to help Fairfax along whether his own hand was good or
not, put up a hundred dollars. It were a queer bet, but I sized it up
for the beginnin’ of a seesaw in case Fairfax should want one. That
might not ha’ been what was in his mind, but I reckon ’twa’n’t far out
o’ the way.
“Winterbottom seen the raise. He were lookin’ for more developments, an’
he wa’n’t ready to play his hand very strong till he found out what was
doin’. It were extra cautious play all round, with the advantage lyin’
between Fairfax an’ Pearsall, but mostly on Pearsall’s side.
“Fairfax put up two hundred an’ I seen he were ready for a seesaw. I
don’t know what might ha’ happened if there’d been more money on the
table, but Pearsall saw his opportunity an’ grabbed it. He counted his
chips an’ findin’ six hundred in front of him, threw it all in the pot.
“Bassett throwed down his flush like a man, an’ Overton called for a
show for his pile, which wa’n’t quite big enough for a call. That put it
up to Winterbottom, an’ he skinned his hand over again, thinkin’ mighty
hard. He had a full hand an’ money enough to raise. An’ more than that,
he’d dealt the cards hisself, so he wa’n’t worried none on that account,
but finally he just made good. He said to me afterward, ‘I would ha’
raised,’ he says, ‘but I reckoned Fairfax was goin’ to raise again, an’
the others was all in, so I gave him the chance.’
“But Fairfax was as rattled as the rest of ’em was, an’ he only called.
Then it come out that there was two flushes an’ two fulls in the game,
not reckonin’ the flush that Bassett had throwed down. Winterbottom’s
flush beat Overton’s, bein’ ace high, an’ Pearsall’s ace full o’ course
beat Fairfax’s jack full.
“It were a body blow for fair. Fairfax an’ Overton seen they’d
overplayed their hands, an’ they was sore enough to make a beef about
it, on’y they knowed it were too late. There wa’n’t nothin’ to say,
’thouten they’d kicked on Jake’s dealin’, an’ they couldn’t do that
after they’d played the hand an’ lost. The on’y thing they c’d do was to
quit or put up again. They wa’n’t quittin’, so they put up another
thousand apiece an’ played along. Bassett had chips left an’ Pearsall
was on velvet.
“There wa’n’t no heavy play again right away, but luck run to the
Vicksburg fellers for awhile, so’s’t they picked up a few hundred in the
next half-hour, mostly on pots they raked in without a call. Our boys
was playin’ as careful as they was an’ was layin’ for a chanst at ’em.
“Bimeby then comes a hand where Fairfax an’ Bassett did some crisscross
business. Bassett had been playin’ close f’m the first, an’ he had
pretty near all o’ his original wad left, spite o’ what he’d lost on
that flush, so when he caught three deuces on Pearsall’s deal an’ it
were a jack-pot that had been pretty well fattened, he just opened it
for fifty without much fear o’ the consequences. All the others laid
down except Fairfax, an’ he come in on a pair of aces. He took three
cards, but Bassett only drawed one. ’Twa’n’t extry good play, for his
threes wa’n’t big enough to play ’em very strong ’thouten he was goin’
to bluff, an’ he might better ha’ drawed two cards, relyin’ on Fairfax
thinkin’ his threes was bigger’n they was, but luck was with him in the
draw ’n’ he catched the other deuce.
“Just naturally he felt good, an’ thinkin’ mebbe Fairfax might ha’
bettered an’ might raise, he throwed in a chip.
“Fairfax fumbled his cards a minute afore he picked ’em up. I don’t know
whether he were a-studyin’ or whether it were a accident, but everybody
noticed it, an’ it were lucky they did, as things turned out. But when
he did pick up his hands he smiled a bit an’ throwed two fifty in the
pot.
“That were just what Bassett were looking for, an’ he shoved all his
chips to the centre o’ the table without countin’ ’em. O’ course Fairfax
couldn’t raise no more; but he counted up, an’ findin’ it took six
hundred to call, he called.
“Bassett showed down his four deuces an’ says: ‘I reckon that’s good,’
an’ he reached for the pot, but Fairfax says, ‘Hold on. That’s a pretty
good hand, but aces’ll beat it if you have enough of ’em,’ and he showed
down four aces.
“Right there was when Sam Pearsall showed his resources. O’ course, so
fur as poker goes, that is, so fur as the reglar game goes, Fairfax won
the pot all right, but, as I was sayin’, there is things outside o’ the
reglar game that a man can rely on in a emergency if he’s quick to think
an’ quick to act, an’ Sam were always as quick as a cat.
“I don’t know how it happened that Sam had a ace o’ diamonds hid away
somewheres, but they’d changed the deck several times, an’ I reckon he
must ha’ thought it might come in handy to figger on, or somethin’ o’
that sort. Anyway, he had it, an’ it were the same pattern back as the
deck they was playin’ with. So he speaks up quick. ‘Hold on you,’ he
says. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong here. I discarded the ace o’ diamonds,’
he says, an’ reachin’ over quick, he turns the discard pile face up, an’
spreadin’ out the cards, sure enough there were the ace.
“O’ course that queered Fairfax’s hand right away. They counted the
cards, an’ sure enough there were fifty-three cards in the deck. Just
naturally Fairfax an’ Overton smelled a mice, an’ they called on me to
bring back the cards I’d gathered up every time they’d called for a new
deck, an’ I did it.
“They picked out the deck o’ the same pattern they was usin’ an’ counted
that, an’ just naturally they found fifty-one cards in it, but no ace o’
diamonds. It was clear enough where the card had come from, but the
question was how it come where it was, an’ there was no way o’ tellin’
whether the missin’ card was the one that Fairfax held in his hand, or
whether it was the one that Pearsall had showed in the discard pile.
“There wa’n’t much said. Everybody remembered how Fairfax had fumbled
his cards, but nobody cared to say nothin’ about it, for there wa’n’t
no use o’ havin’ to fight with a man like Fairfax when Overton was
along, specially as the pot had to be divided anyhow. It were a foul
deck beyond a question, and there wa’n’t no dispute when Bassett took
back his chips.
“Fairfax were mad clear through, though. He didn’t say much, but he got
up an’ reckoned he didn’t care to play no more in a game where four aces
wa’n’t good. It wa’n’t really what one would have expected from a dead
game sport such as he had the name o’ bein’, but we had the satisfaction
o’ seein’ him an’ Overton go back to Vicksburg without makin’ their
bluff good, even if they didn’t leave their money behind ’em.
“Which goes to show, as I said, that there is times when a man has to
rely on outside influences even in playin’ poker.”
XVIII
PLAYED BY THE BOOK
“There’s a powerful lot o’ people in this here world,” said old man
Greenhut, as he rinsed out a couple of whiskey-glasses and set them
away, “that seems to think they is app’inted by a all-wise Providence to
set other folks right. It don’t seem to make no difference what’s done,
or who does it, or how it’s done, they’re always ready to chip a lot of
advice into the pot, an’ tell ’em how they’d oughter done it different.
“Mostly such folks is born fools an’ don’t know no more about things in
general than a hound pup in the wilderness knows about the plan o’
salvation, but you couldn’t make one o’ ’em realize what a fool he is if
you was to cut his head open an’ try to squirt sense into it. What’s
this the Good Book says? It’s somethin’ about if you pound a fool up in
a mortar and shoot him out with the bombshells, yet will not his folly
depart from him.
“There hain’t nothin’, as I said, but what critters like them will try
to put right accordin’ to their own notions, an’ the result, so far as
I’ve ever seed it, is tol’able certain to be a mixup of the worst sort.
An’ when they gets into a game o’ poker there’s more bad blood stirred
up in a hour than good, steady play for six months’d be likely to bring
up. Sometimes it’s on’y nasty words, an’ sometimes it’s a gun-play. But
when such a critter gets hold o’ one o’ these here poker manuals such as
I seed the other day that’s just been published in the East, an’
undertakes to make a civilized community swaller his raw notions just
because some feller that never played poker on the Mississippi has had
’em printed in a book, he can just about cover the underside o’ the sky
with cobwebs o’ perplexity spun out o’ the brains o’ good men that gets
bewildered listenin’ to ’em.
“The way I come to see this here book I’m tellin’ about was through a
little game that the boys got up last week to oblige a travellin’
Easterner that stopped over for a few days to look at some plantations
up the river a bit, that was offered to a British syndicate at a figger
that wouldn’t ha’ paid more’n 100 per cent. profit to the owners if the
deal had went through. They said this here Wanderin’ Willie boy was some
sort of a big-bug in business matters when he was to home, an’ he was
travellin’ in cogs, whatever them is. Anyway, he didn’t want nobody to
know who he was, an’ he was called Mr. Hapgood when he was travellin’,
an’ the keeper that had him in charge treated him as if he was made o’
glass. Hapgood called him his valet, an’ ordered him round like he was a
hired man, an’ the keeper never made no fuss at all about it.
“Hapgood was pokin’ round town ask-in’ all sorts o’ questions of
everybody, an’ some o’ the boys referred him to me for general
information, so he come in that evenin’ an’ chinned with me for half an
hour. He bought liquor for the house two or three times, an’ somehow or
another there was quite a crowd in here after the first round. I seen
there was some o’ the crack players in the place, an’ it kind o’
reminded me o’ the popularity o’ the game here, so when Hapgood ast me,
as he did, what the leadin’ industries o’ Arkansas City was, I mentioned
draw-poker among ’em. He kind o’ laughed as if I’d said somethin’ funny,
an’ said he hadn’t been in the habit o’ thinkin’ of it as a industry,
but he’d given considerable study to the game an’ had come to the
conclusion that it was just about the real thing. I ast him if he played
it much an’ he said no, not exactly, but him an’ four or five o’ his
friends had got hold o’ this here manual, as he called it, an’ had
practised quite a lot, so’s’t he considered himself a first-class
player.
“Well, just naturally I gave him to understand that we had some players
in town that we thought was able to hold up their end against any
ordinary player, an’ that they would consider it a privilege to make up
a game most any time if they could get a first-class player to give them
points. They was always anxious to learn, I said, an’ if he would like
to get the benefit of a little practice, I thought they would arrange it
so’s’t he could have the opportunity.
“You’d ha’ thought he was a bullfrog jumpin’ for a piece o’ red flannel
if you’d ha’ seen how quick he took it up. He was more than ready, an’
the boys seein’ how eager he was kind o’ hung back to be coaxed, but old
Jake Winterbottom, he pleaded with ’em till he got Jim Blaisdell an’ Sam
Pearsall an’ Joe Bassett to set in with him an’ make a five-handed game.
“They set down at the table as they was in the habit of doin’, just
takin’ any old place that happened, an’ Hapgood he says, kind o’
surprised, ‘We’ll have to cut for choice o’ seats, won’t we?’
“The boys was more surprised than he was, and Winterbottom, he says, ‘I
don’t see no objection to that, but if anybody has any choice o’ seats
he can have it as fur as I’m concerned. I don’t see no use o’ cuttin’.’
“‘Well,’ says Hapgood, ‘the rules says we must cut for choice. You’re
goin’ to play accordin’ to the rules, ain’t you? As I understand it,
poker ought to be played strict under the rules.’
“‘You’re dead right on that, stranger,’ says Joe Bassett, givin’
Winterbottom a kick in the shins under the table. ‘You can bet this game
is goin’ to be played accordin’ to rules if I’m in it. An’ it won’t be
healthy for the man that breaks the rules.’
“So they cuts for choice o’ seats, and Pearsall cut low. That give him
the choice o’ seats, and he said he’d set where he was. Winterbottom was
next lowest man an’ he said he’d set where he was, too. He was suited
well enough. But Hapgood, he spoke up again an’ he says that won’t do.
The second lowest man must set next on the left o’ the low man, an’ the
third lowest next on his left, an’ so on.
“Winterbottom started in to cuss a little, not because he cared a cuss,
but just because he was surprised, but he got another kick in the shins,
an’ takin’ a sudden tumble to hisself, he jumped up an’ took his proper
seat. When they’d all got seated again Joe Bassett ast in a general
sort o’ way what good all that did, an’ Hapgood says, ‘Why, that’s one
o’ the laws in the International Code. You have to do it before you play
or else the game wouldn’t be regular.’
“‘That’s right,’ says Joe Bassett. ‘We must play by the rules, but,
stranger, we ain’t exactly posted on this here International Code. We
play the old Mississippi River rules, the Mississippi River bein’ the
place where the game was born an’ growed up. If there’s a International
Code we’d like to know about it, an’ if you’ll tell us all about it as
we play, we’d think it monstrous kind o’ you.’