Chapter 13. In Which A Man Is Possessed Of A Devil

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_ CHAPTER XIII. IN WHICH A MAN IS POSSESSED OF A DEVIL

For a long time Cherry Malotte sat quietly thinking, removed by her mental stress to such an infinite distance from the music and turmoil beneath that she was conscious of it only as a formless clamor. She had tipped a chair back against the door, wedging it beneath the knob so that she might be saved from interruption, then flung herself into another seat and stared unseeingly. As she sat thus, and thought, and schemed, harsh and hateful lines seemed to eat into her face. Now and then she moaned impatiently, as though fearing lest the strategy she was plotting might prove futile; then she would rise and pace her narrow quarters. She was unconscious of time, and had spent perhaps two hours thus, when amid the buzz of talk in the next compartment she heard a name which caused her to start, listen, then drop her preoccupation like a mantle. A man was speaking of Glenister. Excitement thrilled his voice.

"I never saw anything like it since McMaster's Night in Virginia City, thirteen years ago. He's RIGHT."

"Well, perhaps so," the other replied, doubtfully, "but I don't care to back you. I never 'staked' a man in my life."

"Then LEND me the money. I'll pay it back in an hour, but for Heaven's sake be quick. I tell you he's as right as a golden guinea. It's the lucky night of his life. Why, he turned over the Black Jack game in four bets. In fifteen minutes more we can't get close enough to a table to send in our money with a messenger-boy- -every sport in camp will be here."

"I'll stake you to fifty," the second man replied, in a tone that showed a trace of his companion's excitement.

So Glenister was gambling, the girl learned, and with such luck as to break the Black Jack game and excite the greed of every gambler in camp. News of his winnings had gone out into the street, and the sporting men were coming to share his fortune, to fatten like vultures on the adversity of their fellows. Those who had no money to stake were borrowing, like the man next door.

She left her retreat, and, descending the stairs, was greeted by a strange sight. The dance-hall was empty of all but the musicians, who blew and fiddled lustily in vain endeavor to draw from the rapidly swelling crowd that thronged the gambling-room and stretched to the door. The press was thickest about a table midway down the hall. Cherry could see nothing of what went on there, for men and women stood ten deep about it and others perched on chairs and tables along the walls. A roar arose suddenly, followed by utter silence; then came the clink and rattle of silver. A moment, and the crowd resumed its laughter and talk.

"All down, boys," sounded the level voice of the dealer. "The field or the favorite. He's made eighteen straight passes. Get your money on the line." There ensued another breathless instant wherein she heard the thud of dice, then followed the shout of triumph that told what the spots revealed. The dealer payed off. Glenister reared himself head and shoulders above the others and pushed out through the ring to the roulette-wheel. The rest followed. Behind the circular table they had quitted, the dealer was putting away his dice, and there was not a coin in his rack. Mexico Mullins approached Cherry, and she questioned him.

"He just broke the crap game," Mullins told her; "nineteen passes without losing the bones."

"How much did he win?"

"Oh, he didn't win much himself, but it's the people betting with him that does the damage! They're gamblers, most of them, and they play the limit. He took out the Black Jack bank-roll first, $4,000, then cleaned the 'Tub.' By that time the tin horns began to come in. It's the greatest run I ever see."

"Did you get in?"

"Now, don't you know that I never play anything but 'bank'? If he lasts long enough to reach the faro lay-out, I'll get mine."

The excitement of the crowd began to infect the girl, even though she looked on from the outside. The exultant voices, the sudden hush, the tensity of nerve it all betokened, set her a-thrill. A stranger left the throng and rushed to the spot where Cherry and Mexico stood talking. He was small and sandy, with shifting glance and chinless jaw. His eyes glittered, his teeth shone rat-like through his dry lips, and his voice was shrill. He darted towards them like some furtive, frightened little animal, unnaturally excited.

"I guess that isn't so bad for three bets!" He shook a sheaf of bank-notes at them.

"Why don't you stick?" inquired Mullins.

"I am too wise. Ha! I know when to quit. He can't win steady--he don't play any system."

"Then he has a good chance," said the girl.

"There he goes now," the little man cried as the uproar arose. "I told you he'd lose." At the voice of the multitude he wavered as though affected by some powerful magnet.

"But he won again," said Mexico.

"No! Did he? Lord! I quit too soon!"

He scampered back into the other room, only to return, hesitating, his money tightly clutched.

"Do you s'pose it's safe? I never saw a man bet so reckless. I guess I'd better quit, eh?" He noted the sneer on the woman's face, and without waiting a reply dashed off again. They saw him clamorously fight his way in towards a post at the roulette-table. "Let me through! I've got money and I want to play it!"

"Pah!" said Mullins, disgustedly. "He's one of them Vermont desperadoes that never laid a bet till he was thirty. If Glenister loses he'll hate him for life."

"There are plenty of his sort here," the girl remarked; "his soul would fit in a flea-track." She spied the Bronco Kid sauntering back towards her and joined him. He leaned against the wall, watching the gossamer thread of smoke twist upward from his cigarette, seemingly oblivious to the surroundings, and showing no hint of the emotion he had displayed two hours before.

"This is a big killing, isn't it?" said the girl. The gambler nodded, murmuring indifferently.

"Why aren't you dealing bank? Isn't this your shift?"

"I quit last night."

"Just in time to miss this affair. Lucky for you."

"Yes; I own the place now. Bought it yesterday."

"Good Heavens! Then it's YOUR money he's winning."

"Sure, at the rate of a thousand a minute."

She glanced at the long trail of devastated tables behind Glenister and his followers. At that instant the sound told that the miner had won again, and it dawned upon Cherry that the gambler beside her stood too quietly, that his hand and voice were too steady, his glance too cold to be natural. The next moment approved her instinct.

The musicians, grown tired of their endeavors to lure back the dancers, determined to join the excitement, and ceased playing. The leader laid down his violin, the pianist trailed up the key- board with a departing twitter and quit his stool. They all crossed the hall, headed for the crowd, some of them making ready to bet. As they approached the Bronco Kid, his lips thinned and slid apart slightly, while out of his heavy-lidded eyes there flared unreasoning rage. Stepping forward, he seized the foremost man and spun him about violently.

"Where are you going?"

"Why, nobody wants to dance, so we thought we'd go out front for a bit."

"Get back, damn you!" It was his first chance to vent the passion within him. A glance at his maddened features was sufficient for the musicians, and they did not delay. By the time they had resumed their duties, however, the curtains of composure had closed upon the Kid, masking his emotion again; but from her brief glimpse Cherry Malotte knew that this man was not of ice, as some supposed. He turned to her and said, "Do you mean what you said up-stairs?"

"I don't understand."

"You said you could kill Glenister."

"I could."

"Don't you love--"

"I HATE him," she interrupted, hoarsely. He gave her a mirthless smile, and spying the crap-dealer leaving his bankrupt table, called him over and said:

"Toby, I want you to 'drive the hearse' when Glenister begins to play faro. I'll deal. Understand?"

"Sure! Going to give him a little 'work,' eh?"

"I never dealt a crooked card in this camp," exclaimed the Kid, "but I'll 'lay' that man to-night or I'll kill him! I'll use a 'sand-tell,' see! And I want to explain my signals to you. If you miss the signs you'll queer us both and put the house on the blink."

He rapidly rehearsed his signals in a jargon which to a layman would have been unintelligible, illustrating them by certain almost imperceptible shiftings of the fingers or changes in the position of his hand, so slight as to thwart discovery. Through it all the girl stood by and followed his every word and motion with eager attention. She needed no explanation of the terms they used. She knew them all, knew that the "hearse-driver" was the man who kept the cases, knew all the code of the "inside life." To her it was all as an open page, and she memorized more quickly than did Toby the signs by which the Bronco Kid proposed to signal what card he had smuggled from the box or held back.

In faro it is customary for the case-keeper to sit on the opposite side of the table from the dealer, with a device before him resembling an abacus, or Chinese adding-machine. When a card is removed from the faro-box by the dealer, the "hearse-driver" moves a button opposite a corresponding card on his little machine, in order that the players, at a glance, may tell what spots have been played or are still in the box. His duties, though simple, are important, for should he make an error, and should the position of his counters not tally with the cards in the box on the "last turn," all bets on the table are declared void. When honestly dealt, faro is the fairest of all gambling games, but it is intricate, and may hide much knavery. When the game is crooked, it is fatal, for out of the ingenuity of generations of card sharks there have been evolved a multitude of devices with which to fleece the unsuspecting. These are so carefully masked that none but the initiated may know them, while the freemasonry of the craft is strong and discovery unusual.

Instead of using a familiar arrangement like the "needle-tell," wherein an invisible needle pricks the dealer's thumb, thus signalling the presence of certain cards, the Bronco Kid had determined to use the "sand-tell." In other words, he would employ a "straight box," but a deck of cards, certain ones of which had been roughened or sand-papered slightly, so that, by pressing more heavily on the top or exposed card, the one beneath would stick to its neighbor above, and thus enable him to deal two with one motion if the occasion demanded. This roughness would likewise enable him to detect the hidden presence of a marked card by the faintest scratching sound when he dealt. In this manipulation it would be necessary, also, to shave the edges of some of the pasteboards a trifle, so that, when the deck was forced firmly against one side of the box, there would be exposed a fraction of the small figure in the left-hand corner of the concealed cards. Long practice in the art of jugglery lends such proficiency as to baffle discovery and rob the game of its uncertainty as surely as the player is robbed of his money. It is, of course, vital that the confederate case-keeper be able to interpret the dealer's signs perfectly in order to move the sliding ebony disks to correspond, else trouble will accrue at the completion of the hand when the cases come out wrong.

Having completed his instructions, the proprietor went forward, and Cherry wormed her way towards the roulette-wheel. She wished to watch Glenister, but could not get near him because of the crowd. The men would not make room for her. Every eye was glued upon the table as though salvation lurked in its rows of red and black. They were packed behind it until the croupier had barely room to spin the ball, and although he forced them back, they pressed forward again inch by inch, drawn by the song of the ivory, drunk with its worship, maddened by the breath of Chance.

Cherry gathered that Glenister was still winning, for a glimpse of the wheel-rack between the shoulders of those ahead showed that the checks were nearly out of it.

Plainly it was but a question of minutes, so she backed out and took her station beside the faro-table where the Bronco Kid was dealing. His face wore its colorless mask of indifference; his long white hands moved slowly with the certainty that betokened absolute mastery of his art. He was waiting. The ex-crap dealer was keeping cases.

The group left the roulette-table in a few moments and surrounded her, Glenister among the others. He was not the man she knew. In place of the dreary hopelessness with which he had left her, his face was flushed and reckless, his collar was open, showing the base of his great, corded neck, while the lust of the game had coarsened him till he was again the violent, untamed, primitive man of the frontier. His self-restraint and dignity were gone. He had tried the new ways, and they were not for him. He slipped back, and the past swallowed him.

After leaving Cherry he had sought some mental relief by idly risking the silver in his pocket. He had let the coins lie and double, then double again and again. He had been indifferent whether he won or lost, so assumed a reckless disregard for the laws of probability, thinking that he would shortly lose the money he had won and then go home. He did not want it. When his luck remained the same, he raised the stakes, but it did not change--he could not lose. Before he realized it, other men were betting with him, animated purely by greed and craze of the sport. First one, then another joined till game after game was closed, and each moment the crowd had grown in size and enthusiasm so that its fever crept into him, imperceptibly at first, but ever increasing, till the mania mastered him.

He paid no attention to Cherry as he took his seat. He had eyes for nothing but the "lay-out." She clenched her hands and prayed for his ruin.

"What's your limit, Kid?" he inquired.

"One hundred, and two," the Kid answered, which in the vernacular means that any sum up to $200 be laid on one card save only on the last turn, when the amount is lessened by half.

Without more ado they commenced. The Kid handled his cards smoothly, surely, paying and taking bets with machine-like calm. The on-lookers ceased talking and prepared to watch, for now came the crucial test of the evening. Faro is to other games as war is to jackstraws.

For a time Glenister won steadily till there came a moment when many stacks of chips lay on the deuce. Cherry saw the Kid "flash" to the case-keeper, and the next moment he had "pulled two." The deuce lost. It was his first substantial gain, and the players paid no attention. At the end of half an hour the winnings were slightly in favor of the "house." Then Glenister said, "This is too slow. I want action."

"All right," smiled the proprietor. "We'll double the limit."

Thus it became possible to wager $400 on a card, and the Kid began really to play. Glenister now lost steadily, not in large amounts, but with tantalizing regularity. Cherry had never seen cards played like this. The gambler was a revelation to her--his work was wonderful. Ill luck seemed to fan the crowd's eagerness, while, to add to its impatience, the cases came wrong twice in succession, so that those who would have bet heavily upon the last turn had their money given back. Cherry saw the confusion of the "hearse-driver" even quicker than did Bronco. Toby was growing rattled. The dealer's work was too fast for him, and yet he could offer no signal of distress for fear of annihilation at the hands of those crowded close to his shoulder. In the same way the owner of the game could make no objection to his helper's incompetence for fear that some by-stander would volunteer to fill the man's part--there were many present capable of the trick. He could only glare balefully across the table at his unfortunate confederate.

They had not gone far on the next game before Cherry's quick eye detected a sign which the man misinterpreted. She addressed him, quietly, "You'd better brush up your plumes."

In spite of his anger the Bronco Kid smiled. Humor in him was strangely withered and distorted, yet here was a thrust he would always remember and recount with glee in years to come. He feared there were other faro-dealers present who might understand the hint, but there was none save Mexico Mullins, whose face was a study--mirth seemed to be strangling him. A moment later the girl spoke to the case-keeper again.

"Let me take your place; your reins are unbuckled."

Toby glanced inquiringly at the Kid, who caught Cherry's reassuring look and nodded, so he arose and the girl slid into the vacant chair. This woman would make no errors--the dealer knew that; her keen wits were sharpened by hate--it showed in her face. If Glenister escaped destruction to-night it would be because human means could not accomplish his downfall.

In the mind of the new case-keeper there was but one thought--Roy must be broken. Humiliation, disgrace, ruin, ridicule were to be his. If he should be downed, discredited, and discouraged, then, perhaps, he would turn to her as he had in the by-gone days. He was slipping away from her--this was her last chance. She began her duties easily, and her alertness stimulated Bronco till his senses, too, grew sharper, his observation more acute and lightning-like. Glenister swore beneath his breath that the cards were bewitched. He was like a drunken man, now as truly intoxicated as though the fumes of wine had befogged his brain. He swayed in his seat, the veins of his neck thickened and throbbed, his features were congested. After a while he spoke.

"I want a bigger limit. Is this some boy's game? Throw her open."

The gambler shot a triumphant glance at the girl and acquiesced. "All right, the limit is the blue sky. Pile your checks to the roof-pole." He began to shuffle.

Within the crowded circle the air was hot and fetid with the breath of men. The sweat trickled down Glenister's brown skin, dripping from his jaw unnoticed. He arose and ripped off his coat, while those standing behind shifted and scuffed their feet impatiently. Besides Roy, there were but three men playing. They were the ones who had won heaviest at first. Now that luck was against them they were loath to quit.

Cherry was annoyed by stertorous breathing at her shoulder, and glanced back to find the little man who had been so excited earlier in the evening. His mouth was agape, his eyes wide, the muscles about his lips twitching. He had lost back, long since, the hundreds he had won and more besides. She searched the figures walling her about and saw no women. They had been crowded out long since. It seemed as though the table formed the bottom of a sloping pit of human faces--eager, tense, staring. It was well she was here, she thought, else this task might fail. She would help to blast Glenister, desolate him, humiliate him. Ah, but wouldn't she!

Roy bet $100 on the "popular" card. On the third turn he lost. He bet $200 next and lost. He set out a stack of $400 and lost for the third time. Fortune had turned her face. He ground his teeth and doubled until the stakes grew enormous, while the dealer dealt monotonously. The spots flashed and disappeared, taking with them wager after wager. Glenister became conscious of a raging, red fury which he had hard shift to master. It was not his money--what if he did lose? He would stay until he won. He would win. This luck would not, could not, last--and yet with diabolic persistence he continued to choose the losing cards. The other men fared better till be yielded to their judgment, when the dealer took their money also.

Strange to say, the fickle goddess had really shifted her banner at last, and the Bronco Kid was dealing straight faro now. He was too good a player to force a winning hand, and Glenister's ill- fortune became as phenomenal as his winning had been. The girl who figured in this drama was keyed to the highest tension, her eyes now on her counters, now searching the profile of her victim. Glenister continued to lose and lose and lose, while the girl gloated over his swift-coming ruin. When at long intervals he won a bet she shrank and shivered for fear he might escape. If only he would risk it all--everything he had. He would have to come to her then!

The end was closer than she realized. The throng hung breathless upon each move of the players, while there was no sound but the noise of shifting chips and the distant jangle of the orchestra. The lookout sat far forward upon his perch, his hands upon his knees, his eyes frozen to the board, a dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Crowded upon his platform were miners tense and motionless as statues. When a man spoke or coughed, a score of eyes stared at him accusingly, then dropped to the table again.

Glenister took from his clothes a bundle of bank-notes, so thick that it required his two hands to compass it. On-lookers saw that the bills were mainly yellow. No one spoke while he counted them rapidly, glanced at the dealer, who nodded, then slid them forward till they rested on the king. He placed a "copper" on the pile. A great sigh of indrawn breaths swept through the crowd. The North had never known a bet like this--it meant a fortune. Here was a tale for one's grandchildren--that a man should win opulence in an evening, then lose it in one deal. This final bet represented more than many of them had ever seen a one time before. Its fate lay on a single card.

Cherry Malotte's fingers were like ice and shook till the buttons of her case-keeper rattled, her heart raced till she could not breathe, while something rose up and choked her. If Glenister won this bet he would quit; she felt it. If he lost, ah! what could the Kid there feel, the man who was playing for a paltry vengeance, compared to her whose hope of happiness, of love, of life hinged on this wager?

Evidently the Bronco Kid knew what card lay next below, for he offered her no sign, and as Glenister leaned back he slowly and firmly pushed the top card out of the box. Although this was the biggest turn of his life, he betrayed no tremor. His gesture displayed the nine of diamonds, and the crowd breathed heavily. The king had not won. Would it lose? Every gaze was welded to the tiny nickelled box. If the face-card lay next beneath the nine- spot, the heaviest wager in Alaska would have been lost; if it still remained hidden on the next turn, the money would be safe for a moment.

Slowly the white hand of the dealer moved back; his middle finger touched the nine of diamonds; it slid smoothly out of the box, and there in its place frowned the king of clubs. At last the silence was broken.

Men spoke, some laughed, but in their laughter was no mirth. It was more like the sound of choking. They stamped their feet to relieve the grip of strained muscles. The dealer reached forth and slid the stack of bills into the drawer at his waist without counting. The case-keeper passed a shaking hand over her face, and when it came away she saw blood on her fingers where she had sunk her teeth into her lower lip. Glenister did not rise. He sat, heavy-browed and sullen, his jaw thrust forward, his hair low upon his forehead, his eyes bloodshot and dead.

"I'll sit the hand out if you'll let me bet the 'finger,'" said he.

"Certainly," replied the dealer.

When a man requests this privilege it means that he will call the amount of his wager without producing the visible stakes, and the dealer may accept or refuse according to his judgment of the bettor's responsibility. It is safe, for no man shirks a gambling debt in the North, and thousands may go with a nod of the head though never a cent be on the board.

There were still a few cards in the box, and the dealer turned them, paying the three men who played. Glenister took no part, but sat bulked over his end of the table glowering from beneath his shock of hair.

Cherry was deathly tired. The strain of the last hour had been so intense that she could barely sit in her seat, yet she was determined to finish the hand. As Bronco paused before the last turn, many of the by-standers made bets. They were the "case- players" who risked money only on the final pair, thus avoiding the chance of two cards of like denomination coming together, in which event ("splits" it is called) the dealer takes half the money. The stakes were laid at last and the deal about to start when Glenister spoke. "Wait! What's this place worth, Bronco?"

"What do you mean?"

"You own this outfit?" He waved his hand about the room. "Well, what does it stand you?"

The gambler hesitated an instant while the crowd pricked up its ears, and the girl turned wondering, troubled eyes upon the miner. What would he do now?

"Counting bank rolls, fixtures, and all, about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Why?"

"I'll pick the ace to lose, my one-half interest in the Midas against your whole damned lay-out!"

There was an absolute hush while the realization of this offer smote the on-lookers. It took time to realize it. This man was insane. There were three cards to choose from--one would win, one would lose, and one would have no action.

Of all those present only Cherry Malotte divined even vaguely the real reason which prompted the man to do this. It was not "gameness," nor altogether a brutish stubbornness which would not let him quit, It was something deeper. He was desolate and his heart was gone. Helen was lost to him--worse yet, was unworthy, and she was all he cared for. What did he want of the Midas with its lawsuits, its intrigues, and its trickery? He was sick of it all--of the whole game--and wanted to get away. If he won, very well. If he lost, the land of the Aurora would know him no more.

When he put his proposition, the Bronco Kid dropped his eyes as though debating. The girl saw that he studied the cards in his box intently and that his fingers caressed the top one ever so softly during the instant the eyes of the rest were on Glenister. The dealer looked up at last, and Cherry saw the gleam of triumph in his eye; he could not mask it from her, though his answering words were hesitating. She knew by the look that Glenister was a pauper.

"Come on," insisted Roy, hoarsely. "Turn the cards."

"You're on!"

The girl felt that she was fainting. She wanted to scream. The triumph of this moment stifled her--or was it triumph, after all? She heard the breath of the little man behind her rattle as though he were being throttled, and saw the lookout pass a shaking hand to his chin, then wet his parched lips. She saw the man she had helped to ruin bend forward, his lean face strained and hard, an odd look of pain and weariness in his eyes. She never forgot that look. The crowd was frozen in various attitudes of eagerness, although it had not yet recovered from the suspense of the last great wager. It knew the Midas and what it meant. Here lay half of it, hidden beneath a tawdry square of pasteboard. With maddening deliberation the Kid dealt the top card. Beneath it was the trey of spades. Glenister said no word nor made a move. Some one coughed, and it sounded like a gunshot. Slowly the dealer's fingers retraced their way. He hesitated purposely and leered at the girl, then the three-spot disappeared and beneath it lay the ace as the king had lain on that other wager. It spelled utter ruin to Glenister. He raised his eyes blindly, and then the deathlike silence of the room was shattered by a sudden crash. Cherry Malotte had closed her check-rack violently, at the same instant crying shrill and clear: "That bet is off! The cases are wrong!"

Glenister half rose, overturning his chair; the Kid lunged forward across the table, and his wonderful hands, tense and talon-like, thrust themselves forward as though reaching for the riches she had snatched away. They worked and writhed and trembled as though in dumb fury, the nails sinking into the oil-cloth table-cover. His face grew livid and cruel, while his eyes blazed at her till she shrank from him affrightedly, bracing herself away from the table with rigid arms.

Reason came slowly back to Glenister, and understanding with it. He seemed to awake from a nightmare. He could read all too plainly the gambler's look of baffled hate as the man sprawled on the table, his arms spread wide, his eyes glaring at the cowering woman, who shrank before him like a rabbit before a snake. She tried to speak, but choked. Then the dealer came to himself, and cried harshly through his teeth one word:

"Christ!"

He raised his fist and struck the table so violently that chips and coppers leaped and rolled, and Cherry closed her eyes to lose sight of his awful grimace. Glenister looked down on him and said:

"I think I understand; but the money was yours, anyhow, so I don't mind." His meaning was plain. The Kid suddenly jerked open the drawer before him, but Glenister clenched his right hand and leaned forward. The miner could have killed him with a blow, for the gambler was seated and at his mercy. The Kid checked himself, while his face began to twitch as though the nerves underlying it had broken bondage and were dancing in a wild, ungovernable orgy.

"You have taught me a lesson," was all that Glenister said, and with that he pushed through the crowd and out into the cool night air. Overhead the arctic stars winked at him, and the sea smells struck him, clean and fresh. As he went homeward he heard the distant, full-throated plaint of a wolf-dog. It held the mystery and sadness of the North. He paused, arid, baring his thick, matted head, stood for a long time gathering himself together. Standing so, he made certain covenants with himself, and vowed solemnly never to touch another card.

At the same moment Cherry Malotte came hurrying to her cottage door, fleeing as though from pursuit or from some hateful, haunted spot. She paused before entering and flung her arms outward into the dark in a wide gesture of despair.

"Why did I do it? Oh! WHY did I do it? I can't understand myself." _

Read next: Chapter 14. A Midnight Messenger

Read previous: Chapter 12. Counterplots

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