WHEN RICHES FLY
The Mint was Gunsight's only gambling house. It had a bar, of course,
and a Mexican string band that played from eight o'clock on; besides a
roulette wheel, a crap table, two faro layouts, and monte for the
Mexicans. But the afternoon was dull and the faro dealer was idly
shuffling a double stack of chips when Rimrock brushed in through the
door. Half an hour afterwards the place was crowded and all the games
were running big. Such is the force of example--especially when you
win.
Rimrock threw his bill on the table, bought a stack of white chips,
placed it on the queen and told the dealer to turn 'em. The queen won
and Rimrock took his chips and played as the spirit moved. He won
more, for the house was unlucky from the start, and soon others began
to ride his bets. If he bet on the seven, eager hands reached over his
shoulder and placed more chips on the seven. Petty winners drifted off
to try their luck at monte, the sports took a flier at roulette; and as
the gambling spirit, so subtly fed, began to rise to a fever, Rimrock
Jones, the cause of all this heat, bet more and more--and still won.
It was at the height of the excitement when, with half of the checks in
the rack in front of him, Rimrock was losing and winning by turns, that
the bull-like rumble of L. W. Lockhart came drifting in to him above
the clamor of the crowd.
"Why don't you quit, you fool?" the deep voice demanded. "Cash in and
quit--you've got your stake!"
Rimrock made a gesture of absent-minded impatience and watched the slow
turn of the cards. Not even the dealer or the hawk-eyed lookout was
more intently absorbed in the game. He knew every card that had been
played and he bet where the odds were best. Every so often a long,
yellow hand reached past him and laid a bet by his stake. It was the
hand of a Chinaman, those most passionate of faro players, and at such
times, seeing it follow his luck, the face of Rimrock lightened up with
the semblance of a smile. He called the last turn and they paused for
the drinks, while the dealer mopped his brow.
"Where's Ike?" he demanded. "Well, somebody call him--he's hiding out,
asleep, upstairs."
"Yes, wake him up!" shouted Rimrock boastfully. "Tell him Rimrock
Jones is here."
"Aw, pull out, you sucker!" blared L. W. in his ear, but Rimrock only
shoved out his bets.
"Ten on the ace," droned the anxious dealer, "the jack is coppered.
All down?"
He held up his hand and as the betting ceased he slowly pushed out the
two cards.
"Tray loses, ace wins!" he announced and Rimrock won again.
Then he straightened up purposefully and looked about as he sorted his
winnings into piles.
"The whole works on the queen," he said to the dealer and a hush fell
upon the crowd.
"Where's Ike?" shrilled the dealer, but the boss was not to be found
and he dealt, unwillingly, for a queen. But the fear was on him and
his thin hands trembled; for Ike Bray was not the type of your
frozen-faced gambler--he expected his dealers to win. The dealer
shoved them out, and an oath slipped past his lips.
"Queen wins," he quavered, "the bank is broke." And he turned the box
on its side.
A shout went up--the glad yell of the multitude--and Rimrock rose up
grinning.
"Who said to pull out?" he demanded arrogantly, looking about for the
glowering L. W. "Huh, huh!" he chuckled, "quit your luck when you're
winning? Quit your luck and your luck will quit you--the drinks for
the house, barkeep!"
He was standing at the bar, stuffing money into his pockets, when Ike
Bray, the proprietor, appeared. Rimrock turned, all smiles, as he
heard his voice on the stairs and lolled back against the bar. More
than once in the past Bray had taken his roll but now it was his turn
to laugh.
"Lemme see," he remarked as he felt Bray's eyes upon him, "I wonder how
much I win."
He drew out the bills from his faded overalls and began laboriously to
count them out into his hat.
Ike Bray stopped and looked at him, a little, twisted man with his hair
still rumpled from the bed.
"Where's that dealer?" he shrilled in his high, complaining voice.
"I'll kill the danged piker--that bank ain't broke yet--I got a big
roll, right here!"
He waved it in the air and came limping forward until he stood facing
Rimrock Jones.
"You think you broke me, do you?" he demanded insolently as Rimrock
looked up from his count.
"You can see for yourself," answered Rimrock contentedly, and held out
his well-filled hat.
"You're a piker!" yelled Bray. "You don't dare to come back at me.
I'll play you one turn win or lose--for your pile!"
A hundred voices rang out at once, giving Rimrock all kinds of advice,
but L. W.'s rose above them all.
"Don't you do it!" he roared. "He'll clean you, for a certainty!" But
Rimrock's blue eyes were aflame.
"All right, Mr. Man," he answered on the instant, and went over and sat
down in his chair. "But bring me a new pack and shuffle 'em clean, and
I'll do the cutting myself."
"Ahhr!" snarled Bray, who was in villainous humor, as he hurled himself
into his place. "Y'needn't make no cracks--I'm on the square--and I'll
take no lip from anybody!"
"Well, shuffle 'em up then," answered Rimrock quietly, "and when I feel
like it I'll make my bet."
It was the middle of the night, as Bray's days were divided, and even
yet he was hardly awake; but he shuffled the cards until Rimrock was
satisfied and then locked them into the box. The case-keeper sat
opposite, to keep track of the cards, and a look-out on the stand at
one end, and while a mob of surging onlookers fought at their backs
they watched the slow turning of the cards.
"Why don't you bet?" snapped Bray; but Rimrock jerked his head and
beckoned him to go on.
"Yes, and lose half on splits," he answered grimly, "I'll bet when it
comes the last turn."
The deal went on till only three cards remained in the bottom of the
box. By the record of the case-keeper they were the deuce and the
jack--the top card, already shown, did not count.
"The jack," said Rimrock and piled up his money on the enameled card on
the board.
"You lose," rasped out Bray without waiting for the turn and then drew
off the upper card. The jack lay, a loser, in the box below and as he
shoved it slowly out the deuce appeared underneath.
"How'd you know?" flashed back Rimrock as Bray reached for his money,
but the gambler laughed in his face.
"I outlucked you, you yap," he answered harshly. "That dealer--he
wasn't worth hell room!"
"Gimme a fiver to eat on!" demanded Rimrock as Bray banked the money,
but he flipped him fifty cents. It was the customary stake, the sop
thrown by the gambler to the man who has lost his last cent, and Bray
sloughed it without losing his count.
"Go on, now," he said, still keeping to the formula, "go back and
polish a drill!"
It was the form of dismissal for the hardrock miners whose earnings he
was wont to take, but Rimrock was not particular.
"All right, Ike," he said and as he drifted out the door his prosperity
friends disappeared. Only L. W. remained, a scornful twist to his
lips, and the sight of him left Rimrock sick. "Yes, rub it in!" he
said defiantly and L. W., too, walked away.
In his sober moments--when he was out on the desert or slugging away
underground--Rimrock Jones was neither childish nor a fool. He was a
serious man, with great hopes before him; and a past, not ignoble,
behind. But after months of solitude, of hard, yegging work and hopes
deferred, the town set his nerves all a-tingle--even Gunsight, a mere
dot on the map--and he was drunk before he took his first drink. Drunk
with mischief and spontaneous laughter, drunk with good stories untold,
new ideas, great thoughts, high ambitions. But now he had had his
fling.
With fifty cents to eat on, and one more faro game behind him, Rimrock
stood thoughtfully on the corner and asked the old question: What next?
He had won, and he had lost. He had made the stake that would have
taken him far towards his destiny; and then he had dropped it,
foolishly, by playing another man's game. He could see it now; but
then, we all can--the question was, what next?
"Well, I'll eat," he said at last and went across the street to Woo
Chong's. "The American Restaurant" was the way the sign read, but
Americans don't run restaurants in Arizona. They don't know how. Woo
Chong had fed forty miners when he ran the cookhouse for Rimrock, for
half what a white man could; and when Rimrock had lost his mine, at the
end of a long lawsuit, Woo Chong had followed him to town. There was a
long tally on the wall, the longest of all, which told how many meals
Rimrock owed him for; but Rimrock knew he was welcome. Adversity had
its uses and he had learned, among other things, that his best friends
were now Chinamen and Mexicans. To them, at least, he was still El
Patron--the Boss!
"Hello there, Woo!" he shouted at the doorway and a rapid-fire of
Chinese ceased. The dining-room was deserted, but from the kitchen in
the rear he could hear the shuffling slippers of Woo.
"Howdy-do, Misse' Jones!" exclaimed Woo in great excitement as he came
hurrying out to meet him. "I see you--few minutes ago--ove' Ike Blay's
place! You blakum falo bank, no?"
"No, I lose," answered Rimrock honestly. "Ike Bray, he gave me this to
eat on."
He showed the fifty-cent piece and sat down at a table whereat Woo
Chong began to giggle hysterically.
"Aw! Allee time foolee me," he grinned facetiously. "You no see me
the'? Me playum, too. Win ten dolla', you bet!"
"Well, all right, Woo," said Rimrock. "Just give me something to
eat--we won't quarrel about who won."
He leaned back in his chair and Woo Chong said no more till he appeared
again with a T-bone steak.
"You ketchum mine, pletty soon?" he questioned anxiously. "All lite,
me come back and cook."
Rimrock sighed and went to eating and Woo remembered the coffee, but
somehow even that failed to cheer.
A shadow of doubt came across Woo's watchful face and he hurried away
for more bread.
"You no bleakum bank?" he enquired at last and Rimrock shook his head.
"No, Woo," he said, "Ike Bray, he came down and win all my money back."
"Aw, too bad!" breathed Woo Chong and slipped quietly away; but after a
while he came back.
"Too bad!" he repeated. "You my fliend, Misse' Jones." And he laid
five dollars by his hand.
"Ah, no, no!" protested Rimrock, rising up from his place as if he had
suffered a blow. "No money, Woo. You give me my grub and that's
enough--I haven't got down to that!"
Woo Chong went away--he knew how to make gifts easy--and Rimrock stood
looking at the gold. Then he picked it up, slowly, and as slowly
walked out, and stood leaning against a post.
There is one street in Gunsight, running grandly down to the station;
but the rest is mostly vacant lots and scattered adobe houses, creeping
out into the infinitude of the desert. At noon, when he had come to
town, the street was deserted, but now it was coming to life.
Wild-eyed Mexican boys, mounted on bare-backed ponies, came galloping
up from the corrals; freight wagons drifted past, hauling supplies to
distant mining camps; and at last, as he stood there thinking, the
women began to come out of the hotel.
All day they stayed there, idle, useless, on the shaded veranda above
the street; and then, when the sun was low, they came forth like
indolent butterflies to float up and down the street. They sauntered
by in pairs, half-hidden beneath silk parasols, and their skirts
swished softly as they passed. Rimrock eyed them sullenly, for a black
mood was on him--he was thinking of his lost mine. Their faces were
powdered to an unnatural whiteness and their hair was elaborately
coiffed; their dresses, too, were white and filmy and their high heels
clacked as they walked. But who was keeping these women, these wives
of officials, and superintendents and mining engineers? Did they
glance at the man who had discovered their mine and built up the town
where they lived? Well, probably they did, but not so as he could
notice it and take off his battered old hat.
Rimrock looked up the road and, far out across the desert, he could see
his own pack-train, coming in. There was money to be got, to buy
powder and grub, but who would trust Rimrock Jones now? Not the
Gunsight crowd, not McBain and his hirelings--they needed the money for
their women! He gazed at them scowling as they went pacing by him,
with their eyes fixed demurely on space; and all too well he knew that,
beneath their lashes, they watched him and knew him well. Yes, and
spoke to each other, when they were off up the street, of what a bum he
had become. That was women--he knew it--the idle kind; they judged a
man by his roll.
The pack-train strung by, each burro with its saw-horse saddle, and old
Juan and his boy behind.
"Al corral!" directed Rimrock as they looked at him expectantly, and
then he remembered something.
"Oyez, Juan," he beckoned, calling his man servant up to him, "here's
five dollars--go buy some beans and flour. It is nothing, Juanito,
I'll have more pretty soon--and here's four bits, you can buy you a
drink."
He smiled benevolently and Juan touched his hat and went sidling off
like a crab and then once more the black devil came back to plague him,
hissing Money, _Money_, MONEY! He looked up the street and a plan,
long formless, took sudden shape in his brain. There was yet McBain,
the horse-leech of a lawyer who had beaten him out of his claim. More
than once, in black moments, he had threatened to kill him; but now he
was glad he had not. Men even raised skunks, when the bounty on them
was high enough, and took the pay out of their hides. It was the same
with McBain. If he didn't come through--Rimrock shook up his
six-shooter and stalked resolutely off up the street.
The office of the Company was on the ground floor of the hotel--the
corner room, with a rented office beyond--and as Rimrock came towards
it he saw a small sign, jutting out from the farther door:
MARY ROGET FORTUNE
TYPEWRITING.
He glanced at it absently, for strange emotions came over him as he
peered in through that plateglass window. It had been his office, this
same expensive room; and he had been robbed of it, under cover of the
law. He shaded his eyes from the glare of the street and looked in at
the mahogany desk. It was vacant--the whole place was vacant--and
silently he tried the door. That was locked. McBain had seen him and
slipped away till he should get out of town.
"The sneaking cur!" muttered Rimrock in a fury and a passing woman drew
away and half-screamed. He ignored her, pondering darkly, and then to
his ears there came a familiar voice. He listened, intently, and
raised his head; then tiptoed along the wall. That voice, and he knew
it, belonged to Andrew McBain, the man that stole mines for a living.
He paused at the door where Mary Fortune had her sign, then suddenly
forced his way in.
Without thinking, impulsively, he had moved towards that voice as a man
follows some irresistible call. He opened the door and stood blinking
in the doorway, his hand on the pistol at his side. Then he blinked
again, for in the gloom of the back office there was nothing but a desk
and a girl. She wore a harness over her head, like a telephone
operator, and rose up to meet him tremulously.
"Is there anything you wish?" she asked him quietly and Rimrock fumbled
and took off his hat.
"Yes--I was looking for a man," he said at last. "I thought I heard
him--just now."
He came down towards her, still looking about him, and there was a stir
from behind the desk.
"No, I think you're mistaken," she answered bravely, but he could see
the telltale fear in her eyes.
"You know who I mean!" he broke out roughly, "and I guess you know why
I've come!"
"No, I don't," she answered, "but--but this is my office and I hope you
won't make any trouble."
The words came with a rush, once she found her courage, but the appeal
was lost upon Rimrock.
"He's here, then!" he said. "Well, you tell him to come out. I'd like
to talk with him on business--alone!"
He took a step forward and then suddenly from behind the desk a shadow
rose up and fled. It was Andrew McBain, and as he dashed for the rear
door the girl valiantly covered his retreat. There was a quick slap of
the latch, a scuffle behind her, and the door came shut with a bang.
"Oho!" said Rimrock as she faced him panting, "he must be a friend of
yourn."
"No, he isn't," she answered instantly, and then a smile crept into her
eyes. "But he's--well, he's my principal customer."
"Oh," said Rimrock grimly, "well, I'll let him live then. Good-bye."
He turned away, still intent on his purpose, but at the door she called
him back.
"What's that?" he asked as if awakened from a dream. "Why, yes, if you
don't mind, I will."