Chapter IV: Ace-In-The-Hole

On the outskirts of Dawson, city of the tents and log buildings, Brent pitched his own tent, paid off his Indian canoeman, and within the hour was sucked into the mad maelstrom of carousal that characterized the early days of the big gold camp.

It was the city of men gone mad. The saloon was the center of activity--and saloons there were aplenty; Dick Stoell's Place, which was "the big game" of Dawson; "The Nugget" of uproarious fame; Cuter Malone's "Klondike Palace," where, nightly, revel raged to the _n_th power--where bearded men and scarlet women gave over to debauch magnificent in its wild abandon; and many others, each with its wheels of chance, its cards, its music, and its women.

And into the whirl of it Carter Brent plunged with a zest born of youth and of muscles iron-hard from the gruelling trail. And into it he fitted as though to the manner born. No invisible lines of demarkation divided the bars of Dawson as they had divided Kelliher's bar. Millionaires in blanket coats and mukluks rubbed shoulders with penniless watery-eyed squaw-men. Sourdoughs who spilled coarse gold from the mouths of sacks, misfit _chechakos_, and painted women, danced, and sang, and cursed, and gambled, the short nights through.

The remnant of Brent's thousand dollars was but a drop in the bucket, and he was glad when it was gone three days after his arrival. Not that he particularly wanted to be "broke." But in the spending of it, men had taken his measure--the bills and the coined gold had branded him as a man from the "outside," a _chechako_--a tenderfoot.

An hour after he had tossed his last yellow disk upon the bar in payment for a round of drinks he had hired out to Camillo Bill Waters to sluice gravel at an ounce a day. An ounce was sixteen dollars. Thereafter for the space of a month he was seen no more in Dawson.

Then one day he returned. He presented a slip of paper signed by Camillo Bill to the bartender at Stoell's and received therefor thirty ounces of gold--raw gold, in dust and nuggets. He bought a round of drinks glorying in the fact that at last he, too, was spending coarse gold. He bet ten ounces on an Indian foot race, and won. More drinks, and an hour later he bet his pile on a seven, a ten-spot, a deuce, and a king in a game of stud poker. Two players called the bet and he flipped over his hole card--it was a seven-spot and again he won.

He quit the game and danced for an hour, and between dances he drank whiskey. He got the hunch that this was his lucky day and that he could win, but the hunch called for quick big bets, and not for long continued play. He rode his hunch, and at Cuter Malone's wheel he tossed fifty ounces on Number 21. The ivory ball rolled slower and slower, hesitated on the 10 and then with a last turn settled into 21. He pocketed twenty-eight thousand dollars with a grin. The news of the bet spread swiftly and Brent became a man of sorts. Four times more that night he placed big bets--and three of the times he won.

One of these plays also in a game of stud earned him the name by which he became known in the North. With a king, and a queen, showing in his own hand he mercilessly raised an exposed pair of Jacks. Of the six other players in the game five dropped out. The holder of the Jacks stayed for the last draw and checked the bet. Brent laid fifty thousand dollars on his cards, a king, a queen, an eight spot and a four spot. The other stared at the hand for a long time. He was a man known for his nerve and his high play, and he knew that Brent knew this. Whispers of the big bet had gone about the room and men and women crowded the table. At length the other turned down his cards in token of surrender, and with a laugh Brent turned his hole card face up. It was the Ace of Diamonds, and an audible gasp hissed from twenty throats. Thereafter Brent was known as Ace-In-The-Hole.

The next morning he deposited one hundred and thirty thousand dollars in Dick Stoell's safe, and his pockets still bulged with dust. For two days and nights he drank and danced, but not a card did he touch, nor did he lay any bet. When questioned he answered that his hunch was not working. The sourdoughs respected him and treated him as an equal. He spent dust lavishly but he did not throw it away.

Then suddenly he bought an outfit and disappeared. When the first snow flew he was back, and into Dick Stoell's safe went many sacks of raw gold. He drank harder than ever and spent gold more freely. His fame spread to other camps, and three men came up from Circle to relieve him of his pile. He was gambling regularly now, and in a game of stud he caught them at the trick by means of which they had won forty thousand dollars from him. Many miners, among them a goodly sprinkling of old timers, were watching the play, and many of them had already detected the swindle, but after the custom of the country they held their peace. Brent never batted an eye upon discovering the trick, but when a few moments later it was repeated, things happened in Stoell's--and they happened with the rapidity of light. One minute after the trouble started there was an ominous silence in the room. A circle of men stood and stared at the wreck of a table, across which sagged the body of a man killed with his own gun. Another man with his jaw shattered lay on the floor, and a third lay white and still across him with a wide red mark on his forehead where a sack of gold dust had caught him fair. And over all stood Brent with one leg jammed through the rungs of a broken chair.

The incident placed Ace-In-The-Hole in the foremost ranks of the big men of the North. He was regarded as the equal of such men as Old Bettles, Camillo Bill Waters, Swiftwater Bill, and McMann. Sourdoughs sought his acquaintance and _chechakos_ held him in awe. When the snow lay deep he bought the best string of dogs he could find, hired an Indian musher, and again disappeared. He was back at Christmas for a two weeks carousal, and when he hit the trail again he carried with him several gallons of whiskey. The sourdoughs shook their heads and exchanged glances at this, but a man's business is his own. In July he sent his Indian down for ten men to work his sluices and much whiskey. In September he came down himself and he brought with him a half million in gold.

Others had cleaned up big during the summer, and that winter saw Dawson's highest peak of wild orgies and wild spending. Riding a hunch when he first hit town Brent doubled and trebled his pile, and then with Jimmie the Rough, McMann, Camillo Bill and a few others they inaugurated such a campaign of reckless spending as the North had never seen and never again did see.

Brent was never sober, now--and men said he never slept. He was the youngest and by far the strongest of the spenders, the urge of the game was in his blood, and he rode it as he rode his hunches--to the limit of his endurance. All men liked him--open hearted, generous to the fault, and square as a die in his dealings, he spent his money like a prince. And where the men liked him the painted women worshipped him--but they worshipped from afar. For despite the utmost blandishments of the most intriguing of them, he treated all alike--even Kitty, whom men called "The Queen of the Yukon," failed to hold him in thrall. This dancing girl who had taken the North by storm, who was the North's darling and beautiful plaything, whose boast it was that she had never sought any man, fell violently in love with Brent. Men saw it and marvelled, for it was known in the camps that she had spurned men who had laid fortunes at her feet. It was not that he feared women, rather he sought them. He danced with them, frolicked with them--and then promptly forgot them. His one real passion was gambling. Any game or device whereupon big bets could be laid found him an enthusiastic devotee. And his luck became a byword in the North.

"Sometime your luck will change," warned the dancing girl as the two sat one evening in the early fall at a little table in Stoell's and drank champagne which cost Brent fifty dollars the quart. "And then you'll be broke and----"

Brent who had been idly toying with the rings upon her fingers returned the slender hand to the table. "It can't change. It's a part of me. As long as I'm me, I'll be lucky. Look, I'll show you! You want to marry me--you've told me so. Well, I don't want to marry you, or anyone else--wouldn't know what to do with you if I did marry you. You want me to go back on the claim--well, here's a bargain--just to show you that I can't lose." He pulled a buckskin sack full of gold from his pocket and held it before the girl's eyes. "See this sack. It isn't very big. It can't cover many numbers. I'm going to stand up in this chair and toss it onto the roulette table over there, and play every number it touches. If I lose I lose the dust--Stoell will get that. But that isn't all I'll lose--I'll lose myself--to you. If one of the numbers that this sack falls on don't win, I marry you tonight, and we hit for the claim tomorrow."

The girl stared at him, fascinated: "Do you mean that--you'll quit gambling--and you'll sober up and--and live with me?"

Again Brent laughed: "Yes, I'll quit gambling, and sober up, and live with you till--how does it go--till death us do part."

"Toss it!" The words of the girl came short, with a curious indrawing of the breath, and her fingers clutched at the edge of the table till the knuckles whitened. The men who were crowded about the wheel glanced toward the table at the sound, and standing in his chair Brent waved them to fall back. Then he told them of his bet--while the dancing girl sat with parted lips, her eyes fastened upon his face. The men at the wheel surged back to give room. The proposition caught their fancy. Ace-In-The-Hole, prince of gamblers, was betting himself--with the odds against him! And every man and woman in the room knew that if he lost he would keep his word to the last letter.

Carefully measuring the distance, Brent balanced the sack in his hand, then with a slow movement of his arm, tossed it onto the table. It struck almost squarely in the center, covering Numbers 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20. The croupier spun the wheel, and sent the ivory ball spinning on its way. The men who had been playing, and the men from the bar, crowded close, their eyes on the whirling wheel. Brent sat down in his chair, lighted a cigarette, and filled the two empty champagne glasses from the bottle. He glanced across at Kitty. She was leaning forward with her face buried in her arms. Her shoulders were heaving with quick, convulsive sobs. In Brent's heart rose sudden pity for this girl. What to him had been a mere prank, a caprice of the moment, was to her a thing of vital import. The black fox fur had fallen away from about her neck exposing a bare shoulder that gleamed white in the light of the swinging lamp. She looked little and helpless, and Brent felt a desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. He leaned toward her, half rose from his chair and then, at a sound from the table, he settled back.

"Number 13 wins," announced the croupier, and the room was suddenly filled with the voices of many men. The croupier scribbled a notation upon a piece of paper and together with the sack of dust laid it upon the table between Brent and the girl. A moment later she raised her head and stared, dry eyed into Brent's face.

"Here, little girl," he said gently. "Forgive me. I didn't know you really felt--that way. Here, this is all yours--take it. The bet paid six to one. The weigher will cash this slip at the bar."

With a swift motion of her hand the girl swept sack and slip to the floor. "Oh, I--I hope you _die_!" she cried hysterically, and gathering her wrap about her, she sped from the room.