It was, however, filled that night with bronzed-faced men who expected nothing better. Most of them wore jackets of soft black leather or embroidered4 deerskin, and the jean trousers and long boots of not a few apparently5 stood in need of repairing, though the sprinkling of more conventional apparel and paler faces showed that the storekeepers of the settlement had been drawn6 together, as well as the prairie farmers who had driven in to buy provisions or take up their mail. There was, however, but little laughter, and their voices were low, for boisterousness7 and assertion are not generally met with on the silent prairie. Indeed, the attitude of some of the men was mildly deprecatory, as though they felt that in assisting in what was going forward they were doing an unusual thing. Still, the eyes of all were turned towards the table where a man, who differed widely in appearance from most of them, dealt out the cards.
He wore city clothes, and a white shirt with a fine diamond in the front of it, while there was a keen intentness behind the half-ironical smile in his somewhat colorless face. The whiteness of his long nervous fingers and the quickness of his gestures would also have stamped his as a being of different order from the slowly-spoken prairie farmers, while the slenderness of the little pile of coins in front of him testified that his endeavors to tempt10 them to speculation11 on games of chance had met with no very marked success as yet. Gambling12 for stakes of moment is not a popular amusement in that country; where the soil demands his best from every man in return; for the scanty13 dollars it yields him, but the gamester had chosen his time well, and the men who had borne the dreary14 solitude15 of winter in outlying farms, and now only saw another adverse16 season opening before them, were for once in the mood to clutch at any excitement that would relieve the monotony of their toilsome lives.
A few were betting small sums with an apparent lack of interest which did not in the least deceive the dealer17, and when he handed a few dollars out he laughed a little as he turned to the barkeeper.
"Set them up again. I want a drink to pass the time," he said. "I'll play you at anything you like to put a name to, boys, if this game don't suit you, but you'll have to give me the chance of making my hotel bill. In my country I've seen folks livelier at a funeral."
The glasses were handed around, but when the gambler reached out towards the silver at his side, a big, bronze-skinned rancher stopped him.
"No," he drawled. "We're not sticking you for a locomotive tank, and this comes out of my treasury18. I'll call you three dollars, and take my chances on the draw."
"Well," said the dealer, "that's a little more encouraging. Anybody wanting to make it better?"
A young lad in elaborately-embroidered deerskin with a flushed face leaned upon the table. "Show you how we play cards in the old country," he said. "I'll make it thirty--for a beginning."
There was a momentary19 silence, for the lad had staked heavily and lost of late, but one or two more bets were made. Then the cards were turned up, and the lad smiled fatuously20 as he took up his winnings.
"Now I'll let you see," he said. "This time we'll make it fifty."
He won twice more in succession, and the men closed in about the table, while, for the dealer knew when to strike, the glasses went around again, and in the growing interest nobody quite noticed who paid for the refreshment21. Then, while the dollars began to trickle22 in, the lad flung a bill for a hundred down.
"Go on," he said, a trifle huskily. "To-night you can't beat me!"
Once more he won, and just then two men came quietly into the room. One of them signed to the hotel keeper.
"What's going on? The boys seem kind of keen," he said.
The other man laughed a little. "Ferris has struck a streak23 of luck, but I wouldn't be very sorry if you got him away, Mr. Courthorne. He has had as much as he can carry already, and I don't want anybody broke up in my house. The boys can look out for themselves, but the Silverdale kid has been losing a good deal lately, and he doesn't know when to stop."
Winston glanced at his companion, who nodded. "The young fool!" he said.
They crossed towards the table in time to see the lad take up his winnings again, and Winston laid his hand quietly upon his shoulder.
"Come along and have a drink while you give the rest a show," he said. "You seem to have done tolerably well, and it's usually wise to stop while the chances are going with you."
The lad turned and stared at him with languid insolence24 in his half-closed eyes, and, though he came of a lineage that had been famous in the old country, there was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance. His mouth was loose, his face weak in spite of its inherited pride, and there was little need to tell either of the men, who noticed his nervous fingers and muddiness of skin, that he was one who in the strenuous25 early days would have worn the woolly crown.
"Were you addressing me?" he asked.
"I was," said Winston quietly. "I was in fact inviting26 you to share our refreshment. You see we have just come in."
"Then," said the lad, "it was condemnable27 impertinence. Since you have taken this fellow up, couldn't you teach him that it's bad taste to thrust his company upon people who don't want it, Dane?"
Winston said nothing, but drew Dane, who flushed a trifle, aside, and when they sat down the latter smiled dryly.
"You have taken on a big contract, Courthorne. How are you going to get the young ass8 out?" he said.
"Well," said Winston, "it would gratify me to take him by the neck, but as I don't know that it would please the Colonel if I made a public spectacle of one of his retainers, I fancy I'll have to tackle the gambler. I don't know him, but as he comes from across the frontier it's more than likely he has heard of me. There are advantages in having a record like mine, you see."
"It would, of course, be a kindness to the lad's people--but the young fool is scarcely worth it, and it's not your affair," said Dane reflectively.
Winston guessed the drift of the speech, but he could respect a confidence, and laughed a little. "It's not often I have done any one a good turn, and the novelty has its attractions."
Dane did not appear contented28 with this explanation, but he asked nothing further, and the two sat watching the men about the table, who were evidently growing eager.
"That's two hundred the kid has let go," said somebody.
There was a murmur29 of excited voices, and one rose hoarse30 and a trifle shaky in the consonants31 above the rest.
"Show you how a gentleman can stand up, boys. Throw them out again. Two hundred this time on the game!"
There was silence and the rustle32 of shuffled33 cards; then once more the voices went up. "Against him! Better let up before he takes your farm. Oh, let him face it and show his grit--the man who slings34 around his hundreds can afford to lose!"
The lad's face showed a trifle paler through the drifting smoke, though a good many of the cigars had gone out now, and once more there was the stillness of expectancy35 through which a strained voice rose.
"Going to get it all back. I'll stake you four hundred!"
Winston rose and moved forward quietly, with Dane behind him, and then stood still where he could see the table. He had also very observant eyes, and was free from the excitement of those who had a risk on the game. Still, when the cards were dealt, it was the gambler's face he watched. For a brief space nobody moved, and then the lad flung down his cards and stood up with a grayness in his cheeks and his hands shaking.
"You've got all my money now," he said. "But I'll play you doubles if you'll take my paper."
The gambler nodded and flung down a big pile of bills. "I guess I'll trust you. Mine are here."
The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the lad, who stood tensely still, while Winston watched the face of the man at the table in front of him. For a moment he saw a flicker36 of triumph in his eyes, and that decided37 him. Again, one by one, the cards went down, and then while everybody waited in strained expectancy the lad seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned38.
"You can let up," he said hoarsely39. "I've gone down!"
Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest stared in astonishment40, a voice which had a little stern ring in it said, "Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one."
In an instant the gambler's hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard brown fingers closed upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw Winston leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted41 over beneath him and the cards were on the gambler's knees, while, as the two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of one of them.
It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he had not the opportunity, for in another moment Winston's right hand had closed upon his wrist and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to extricate42 it. He was a muscular man, with, doubtless, a sufficiency of nerve, but he had not
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