Part 11 (2/2)
He sent for his ”dust,” and piled the long, buckskin bags criss-cross before Faro Sam's table.
”I'll copper the jack, gentlemen,” he shouted. ”All on the jack!”
Teddy Karn's face turned a pasty hue, and the tip of his tongue slid along his puffed lips, but the lines of Faro Sam's face never changed, and his eyes retained the blank impa.s.sivity of a snake's as he slipped his cards. There was a sudden, tense silence. The girls pressed forward with hurried breathing and the men waited, rigid as stones.
Somebody's mongrel paced to the middle of the platform and scratched for fleas, with soft thumping on the floor. That was all.
Suddenly a man swore! A woman's voice shrilled hysterically! Faro Sam rose to his feet ceremoniously. ”The house is yours.”
”By Jinks!” yelled Curly, ”I've coppered the jack! I've broken the bank!
I've--”
One of the doors swung open quietly. Silence dropped once more, with the speed of tropical night, upon the blare of the place.
The gambler's ghost stood there silhouetted against the light from a log fire outside. There were pink streaks down his dirty face, washed by tears, and his young shoulders drooped woefully. The dog came forward and licked his twitching fingers.
”Allie is dead,” he whispered.
”Curly, I should like to apply for the position of dealer over at your place, which yesterday was my place,” said Faro Sam, next day at noon, meeting Curly on the street.
”Sure, you can have it, Sam. Too bad it's the custom for the house to go, too, when somebody breaks the bank. I've turned it over to George Spellman, with a thousand to start with. He and I come from the same place back in the States. Great friends we were, till we both got to sparkin' the same girl. When she took me, George, he got pretty ornery, but I guess he's all over it by this time. I'm goin' home to marry her, now.
”I've just been around to the tents seein' about little Allie's funeral, an' he'll keep on the girls, too. I'm pullin' my freight for Hangtown (Placerville). This town's a little too small for a fellow of my means.”
Faro Sam looked after him with a cynical light in his narrow eyes.
”The pot bubbles loudest when the water's nearest the bottom,” he muttered, and turned to pick a fastidious way through the mud.
Life that night in the gambling h.e.l.l went on much as usual. Teddy Karns ”poured the rye,” and Faro Sam ”slipped the cards,” whilst Babe worried over Bouncing Bet's intoxicated condition.
”It's Allie, you know,” Babe confided to Red s.h.i.+rt Pete at midnight.
”She took it awful hard, and Spellman, the new boss, wouldn't let 'er off tonight. I bin tellin' 'er Allie's better off, but she won't listen to n.o.body. She's just bin pourin' 'em down all evenin'. What's that?”
at a loud banging on the doors. Some one opened them and Curly rode into the place on the handsome horse he had bought that morning.
”Well, boys, I'm cleaned! Tried to copper the jack in Hangtown and the whole $50,000 went. George, I'll be askin' for this place back, I guess.”
”This place belongs to me, Curly Gillmore.”
”Who says so?”
”This old lady says so,” covering him with his pistol.
Curly laughed, not too musically. ”Well, boys, what am I bid for this horse? I need a grubstake.”
”Play you for him,” said Faro Sam, laconically.
”Done,” said Curly. A moment later he laughed once more and swung down off the Spanish thoroughbred. ”He's yours. Well, good-night, boys.”
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