Chapter XX: Kenney’s Royal Flush 253 (4)

“The way of it was this. It was in the time o’ the spring floods, an’ the river had been up for nigh two months, an’ Arkansas City was all afloat up to the second story, ’xcept on the levee. There were a boat now an’ again, of course, but they’d just tie up at the levee for a few minutes, an’ the folks that had been thinkin’ o’ comin’ ashore would just look around for a spell, kind o’ discouraged like, and then they’d set down on the boat again an’ go on down the river, or up, as the case might be, an’ you couldn’t blame ’em. The railroad was washed away for ten miles back, an’ there wasn’t no other way to git out o’ town. Just naturally folks took the way they was sure of, there bein’ nothin’ to stay here for. There bein’ no strangers in town, the boys played poker among themselves pretty constant, for there wasn’t nothin’ else to do while the river was up, an’ after the first five weeks the entire cash capital of the place was in the possession of two men. It was a case o’ what the Good Book tells about when it says that him as has shall win, and him that has nothin’ shall lose that which he seemeth to have. Jim Harris and Pete Barlow won everything in sight, an’ there wasn’t another man in town among the sporting set that had a dollar to his name. ’Course there was some of us taxpayers that didn’t play frequent, that had money in the bank, but the sports was all flat broke ’xcept them two. We was all looking for them to come together an’ for one of ’em to eat the other up, but for some reason they didn’t, each bein’ more or less afraid of the other as near as I c’d figger it. Pete an’ Ike was good friends, but Jim Harris hated Ike like p’ison for reasons of his own, an’ Ike like a good Christian was always lookin’ for a chance to pile red-hot coals on him.

“Well, just then some crossroads gambler from Mississippi come along the river lookin’ for blood. He’d raked one or two other towns clean, an’ just naturally arrove here with a wad bigger’n his head. He drifted around the first day tryin’ to get acquainted, an’ some o’ the boys spotted him, an’ lost no time in tellin’ our two capitalists about him an’ his wad. Thar was some backin’ an’ fillin’, but the second day the three come together right here in this room an’ after some talk got to playin’ cards. The news got around an’ the room was tol’able nigh full o’ the boys. All of ’em was pinin’ for the destruction o’ that stranger, just for the sake of encouragin’ home talent, but there wasn’t many of ’em that cared whether Harris or Barlow’d git away with him, so long as one of ’em should do the trick. Ike was here, o’ course. If he’d had money enough to set into the game I s’pose he’d ha’ been in Little Rock, but bein’ as there wasn’t no earthly probability o’ his bein’ wanted here, he was just naturally here. But the dispensation o’ Providence is very often mysterious an’ he turned out to be the chosen instrument o’ heaven for the salvation of Arkansas City.

“They played an’ played for six or seven hours, settin’ ’em up for the house once in awhile by way of a kitty, but none of ’em gittin’ much ahead. Just naturally the boys all stayed. I don’t never give ’em too much credit when they’re broke, for fear of encouragin’ ’em in pernicious habits, an’ they was a pretty dry lot. They was a-watchin’ the game close, an’ stood around tol’able close, but o’ course not crowdin’ the players. Ike stood a little behind Barlow, lookin’ over his left shoulder, but o’ course sayin’ nothin’. We didn’t s’pose he could see what cards was held, no more than the rest of us, for all three men was playin’ close to their chests, as was natural. It seems, though, that Ike has eyes consid’able better’n the average hawk, an’ he was keepin’ tabs on the game right smart.

“It come Jim Harris’s deal, an’ I noticed the stranger give a sort of a little start as he watched the cards droppin’. Then he looked at his hand an’ I see his face change just the least little. He seemed to hesitate a little an’ then he reached into his pocket an’ pulled out his gun, an’ laid it on the table alongside of his cards. ‘It’s kind of uncomfortable settin’ on the end of it,’ he says with a little grin, which we all understood well enough. Pete Barlow did, anyhow, for he dropped his cards on the table almost before he had lifted them, and flashed out his own gun. ‘That’s so. ’Tis uncomfortable,’ he says, as he lays it on the table. Jim Harris, he warn’t far behind, an’ when he lays out his weapon he says, ‘I might as well be in the fashion.’

“Just naturally we all understood what all that meant, but we warn’t any of us expectin’ what followed. It were fairly amazin’. Ike reached over in front o’ Pete Barlow an’ grabbed his pistol, sayin’ as he did so, ‘You look after your playin’, Pete. If there’s goin’ to be any shootin’ done, I’ll shoot for you.’

“Now I reckon there couldn’t be no worse break made than that, an’ I looked to see Pete break out in a blaze o’ wrath, but I was clean flabbergasted when he looked up pleasant an’ smiled an’ said: ‘All right, Ike.’ I was clean flabbergasted an’ I never understood the thing at all till Ike explained it to me afterward.

“‘You see Harris had boxed the cards,’ he says, ‘an’ the stranger seen it. That’s why he pulled his gun. I seen that Pete had three tens an’ a pair o’ aces, an’ I guessed the rest. Now, it was a clean plumb miracle, but I happened to have a ten o’ clubs in my pocket o’ the same pattern o’ cards. It was one of a pack that dropped in the water an’ I’d put it in my pocket. I didn’t know why at the time, but now I can see it was the will o’ heaven. I reached over an’ took the gun just for an excuse to drop the card in Pete’s lap. He seen it an’ tumbled.’

“Well, that’s all there was to it. The stranger, he wouldn’t play the hand, o’ course, but Harris havin’ four sevens, laid for Pete, who just naturally stood pat an’ flashed four tens an’ an ace at the show down. That let Harris out, an’ Pete swatted the stranger till he had to borrow twenty to leave town with. An’ the credit of Arkansas City was saved.”

XIV

IT WAS A GREAT DEAL

“One o’ the commonest failin’s o’ poor fallen humanity is a lack o’ self-control,” said old man Greenhut, as he turned back from the door of his tavern, out of which he had just thrown an unfortunate stranger, and walked around to his place behind the bar rubbing and slapping his hands together, as if to brush off some imaginary taint that might be supposed to have attached to the stranger’s clothes.

The stranger, who didn’t seem to be in good health, and was far from being well dressed, had shuffled in a few moments before and walked up to the stove with a deprecatory air, saying nothing to anybody and warming himself in an apologetic fashion as if he realized that he had no right to the heat and good cheer that radiated from the red-hot sides of that comfortable piece of furniture. Nobody said anything to him, and he coughed once or twice, timidly, before he ventured to walk over to the bar and accost the old man. “Squire,” he said, “I am half-sick, an’ I need a glass o’ liquor powerful bad, but I hain’t got any money. Kin you trust me for a drink? I’ll pay ye for it, honest. I hain’t never beat a man out of a cent in my life, an’ I’ll pay, sure. I wouldn’t ask ye for it, on’y I’m reely sick.”

The old man looked at him steadily while he was talking, but he answered never a word. Slowly he reached under the bar and the stranger’s face brightened up. He thought the old man was reaching for a bottle. After hesitating a little the old man came out from behind the bar. Seizing the unresisting stranger by the collar he rushed him violently to the door, and half-threw and half-kicked him out. Then breaking the silence for the first time since the stranger’s entrance, he delivered himself of the reflections recorded above as he walked slowly back to his place. He stood there for some minutes, evidently thinking of what he had said, and then, business being slack for the moment, he relighted his cigar and came out again to his favourite seat by the window.

“Self-control,” he said, presently, “is God’s best gift to man. The fellow that kin always control himself under all circumstances is the one that’s goin’ to win the pot. Now take that ar shiftless bum that just come in here an’ asked me to supply his necessities at my expense. If he’d ’a’ had any self-control he never would have allowed hisself to be mastered by an accursed longin’ for liquor without the price of it, an’ if I hadn’t ’a’ had my self-control right along with me, like as not I’d ’a’ let him have it. I’ve knowed men to do just such fool things. An’ thar he’d ’a’ been saddled with a debt that he wouldn’t never ’a’ paid, an’ I’d ’a’ been just that much out.

“I’ve often thought that the Lord must ’a’ meant the game o’ poker as a instrument o’ savin’ grace in the way o’ cultivatin’ those virtues ’thout which a man hain’t fit to live, nor yet capable o’ gettin’ on in the world. Now poker’ll teach a man self-control better’n almost anything else I know. You never seen a poker player what knowed the first principles o’ the game, givin’ way to no weaknesses.

“‘Minds me of a game I see played once on the old _River Belle_, comin’ down the river just after the spring floods o’ ’76. There wa’n’t no such games then as there used to be before the war, or even for a few years after. I don’t know what the reason is, but poker don’t ’pear to be respected, now, like it used to be. ’Pears like the risin’ generation hain’t none o’ the moral stamina that folks had when I was younger. Call poker immoral, I’ve heard tell, just as if ’twasn’t the greatest educator an’ highest moral training known to civilization.

“There was a good bit o’ money up in that game, for there was four o’ the nerviest men I ever knowed in it, an’ every one of ’em was out for blood. Two of ’em, Jim Waters an’ Abe Simpson, was St. Louis sports that always travelled together. Jim Blivins was another. He come from Memphis, but he’d kind o’ run hisself out o’ town an’ mostly travelled the river. ’Twarn’t that he was crooked, partic’lar. He played as fair as most of ’em did, an’ used to say that he never stacked the cards ’thouten he had reason to think that somebody else in the game was up to the same sort o’ deviltry. But the truth was he played too strong a game for the Memphis crowd, an’ it got so that nobody that knowed him would play with him, so just naturally he had to seek for new pastures an’ strange lambs. The fourth man was a feller I never seed afore, though I come to know him well enough afterward. ’Twas George Dunning, a chap f’m somewheres up in Iowa that had took to the river for business an’ somehow had struck up a friendship with Blivins. They was playin’ partners at the time, though I didn’t know it, an’ just naturally they wasn’t a-shoutin’ it out from the housetops, the same bein’ the upper deck in case of steamboats. Incidentally there was another feller in the game. He was a cattle-dealer from Texas, Dunnigan by name, that had just been up north sellin’ a slew o’ cattle, an’ was goin’ home with a wad that wouldn’t fit comfortable in his inside pocket.

“The other four was just naturally intendin’ to get hold o’ that wad, but there was some difference of opinion amongst ’em about it. Waters an’ Simpson was reckonin’ on takin’ it back to St. Louis with ’em, an’ Blivins an’ Dunning was thinkin’ o’ gettin’ off at Memphis an’ dividin’ up there. What Dunnigan was figurin’ on I don’t know, but I reckon he expected to draw compound interest on his money durin’ the time he was on the boat.

“By the time we got below Cairo the game was goin’ on under a full head o’ steam. The professionals was all well fixed for money an’ there wasn’t no small stakes played for. Nothin’ was said about a limit, neither, nor there warn’t no table stakes rules. It was just a case o’ bettin’ anything you damn please, an’ either layin’ down or makin’ a bigger bluff every time the other feller peeped.

“White chips was a dollar, reds was five, an’ blues was fifty, makin’ a tol’able stiff game even with chips, but they was a good many hundred-dollar bills lyin’ on the table ’fore they’d been playin’ long, an’ there was a feelin’ among them that was lookin’ on that bigger money than that was liable to be flashed ’most any time.

“It was reely surprisin’, seein’ that the game was that sort, an’ the men playin’ was so much in earnest, that there was nothin’ decisive-like in the fust day’s play. You’d ha’ thought that somebody’d gone broke within a few hours, anyhow, but whether ’twas that they wasn’t in no hurry, seein’ they had several days ahead of ’em, or whether ’twas that they was too much for one another, I don’t know. Anyhow, they was a-playin’ from about four o’clock in the evenin’ till after midnight, an’ nobody was more’n five or six hundred dollars out that fust day.

“You see they all played cautious. I’ve often noticed that when men are playin’ in a real important game, with plenty o’ time to play in, they’ll play a much more cautious game than they will if there’s only a few dollars, or a few hundred in sight. Anyhow, I didn’t see no bet o’ more than five hundred pushed up while I was lookin’ on, an’ that was most o’ the time, an’ I didn’t see that called nor raised on’y once. Blivins put up five hundred once on three queens, an’ Dunnigan, who had drawed one card, raised him five hundred, so Blivins just naturally laid down, seein’ ’twas a jack-pot an’ Dunnigan hadn’t opened when he had a chance, but had raised once before the draw, showin’ he had hopes of a flush or a straight.

“Well, as I said, they played till about twelve o’clock an’ nobody was hurt much. Then Dunnigan said he guessed he’d turn in, an’ nobody made any objections, only they all seemed to understand they was to go on with the game the next day.

“I must say that there Dunnigan was a foxy player. He laid down his cards a good many times that second day when an ordinary man would have played ’em, provin’ conclusive that he knowed the game. You see he was reely better off in the game than he would have been if the other fellers hadn’t been watchin’ one another the way they was. Ef either two of the four had drawed out o’ the game I don’t reckon he’d ha’ lasted more’n perhaps an hour or so, though as I said, he understood the game well enough, but just naturally he wasn’t on to the reely subtle refinements o’ scientific manipulation, an’ any one o’ them four could ha’ stacked cards on him without him knowin’ it. But the p’int was that Waters an’ Simpson was watchin’ Blivins an’ Dunning with more anxiety than a hen gives to a brood o’ ducklin’s, and Blivins an’ Dunning was returnin’ the compliment most amazin’ earnest like. Nary a one of ’em dasted to deal crooked, an’ as for tryin’ to ring in marked cards, any such trick as that would ha’ just been suicide.

“After some hours’ play the second day, though, all hands seemed to get impatient. ’Twa’n’t that they played any less cautious, but they seemed to be gettin’ on to one another’s play better an’ better all the time an’ feelin’ as though they was justified in playin’ to the strength o’ their hands more’n they had. I noticed they begun callin’ one another once in awhile, an’ a call had been ruther a scarce thing before that. Dunnigan was caught bluffin’ most outrageous once, on a busted flush, but nobody even smiled. Blivins had called him on two pairs, an’ he raked in a pot of near a thousand dollars just as if nothin’ had happened.

“All of a sudden came a most astonishin’ deal. I reckon it was honest enough, for, as I said, they was a-watchin’ one another like cats, an’ slick as they all was, there warn’t one of ’em but knowed the others would catch him if he tried to deal crooked. So just naturally we had to assume it was honest, anyway, although Dunning dealt the cards, an’ he was one o’ the best manipulators I ever see.

“What made it surprisin’ was that the cards had been a-runnin’ most almighty slow up to that time, as they will sometimes for a long spell. There had been a few good hands, o’ course, but there hadn’t been a real struggle worth talkin’ about in all those hours o’ play. This time, though, there was struggle enough to satisfy the most sanguinary.

“Dunning dealt, as I said, an’ Waters had the age. He got four hearts with the ace and king at the head. Blivins was next player an’ he caught three queens. Dunnigan was next an’ he found kings and eights in his hand. Simpson was next an’ he got four spades--little ones. An’ Dunning dealt himself four ten-spots, pat.

“That of itself was a tol’able noteworthy deal, but the draw was still more astonishin’. They’d all come in as a matter o’ course, an Waters had just naturally raised it a blue chip. That give Dunning a chance, an’ he raised it a hundred dollars. I asked him a long time afterward how ’twas he didn’t raise the first round, an’ he said he couldn’t exactly say, on’y he had a sort o’ hunch that Waters would raise, as he did, an’ so give him all the better show. Everybody stood this raise also, and then they called for cards.

“Waters got his fifth heart. Blivins caught the fourth queen. Dunnigan made a king full, an’ Simpson got nothin’. Dunning, o’ course, drew a dummy to his four tens.

“If ever there was a kettle o’ fish that was. Blivins bet five hundred on the go off, an’ Dunnigan raised him five hundred as a simple act o’ Christian duty, havin’ a king full against one two-card and three one-card draws, Simpson threw down his cards, havin’ no chance to do anything else. Dunning just naturally put up a thousand dollars more, an’ Waters was between the devil an’ the deep blue sea.

“Just naturally he says to himself that Blivins an’ Dunning was a-playin’ whipsaw an’ cal’latin’ to scare him out right away. Dunnigan was the man he was after, same as the others was, an’ he reckoned he could beat Dunnigan, but he didn’t see how he was goin’ to stand up against the other two. Talk about your self-control. There was a man that felt certain in his own mind that he had the winnin’ hand when he reely had the poorest one in the game. He was low man for fair, but you couldn’t ha’ made him think so just then. An’ ’twas sharper than a serpent’s tooth to see the other two fellers gettin’ away with Dunnigan’s money, as he could see they was likely to do.

“What did he do? Why, he throwed down his cards o’ course, like a good player as he was. He knowed that, although the chances was that he had the best hand, he was goin’ to have to play that hand so high that the three chances against him made it poor play to back it. An’ mind you, ’twarn’t honest play he was lookin’ for, but a whipsaw game by two men with plenty of money an’ more nerve.

“Blivins couldn’t do no less than raise it another thousand, an’ it was up to Dunnigan to make the play of his life. He thought he was makin’ it when he saw both raises an’ went two thousand better. I don’t know but what I might ha’ done the same thing, but I’ve played poker now longer’n I had then, an’ I’ve seen four of a kind out a good many times. ’Pears to me like I’d ha’ sensed somethin’ o’ the sort when I see two good players bettin’ like them two did, an’ one of ’em drawin’ two cards an’ the other only one.

“Anyhow, he raised, as I said, an’ then o’ course he was their cold meat. All they had to do was to wait on one another, so Dunning he raised an’ Blivins chipped along. Dunnigan naturally thought he had one of ’em beat, an’ he raised again, hoping to scare the other one out. He made his raise five thousand this time, as was entirely proper, seein’ he’d made up his mind to bet, but he was considerable surprised when Dunning fingered his roll an’ called for a show on two thousand, which was all he had left, an’ then Blivins makes good an’ goes him five thousand more.

“That was a little more than poor fallen human nature could stand. Just naturally he was certain that Blivins was bluffing, an’ havin’ more money in his pocket than was reely good for him, he makes another bluff hisself, havin’, as I say, parted entirely with his self-control.

“Blivins was well fixed, too, though, an’ he comes back at him again, so Dunnigan see it was plump foolishness to raise any more, an’ he called. I’ve heerd people criticize his play, sayin’ that he’d either oughter laid down or raised again, but I’m free to say that I don’t agree with ’em. A king full was good enough to call on, but nothin’ short of a straight flush was good enough to raise on against Blivins’s play, according to my notions.

“I’ve heerd people say, too, that they didn’t believe Dunning dealt them cards honest, but I seen the expression on his face when Blivins showed down four queens against his four tens an’ raked the pot. If he warn’t genuinely surprised I never see any one that was.

“That broke up the game, for the cattle-dealer didn’t want to go plumb broke an’ he dropped out, so there wern’t no use in prolongin’ the struggle. But if ever a man had cause to be thankful for his self-control, Jim Waters had when he laid down his ace flush.”

XV

HE SAT IN WITH A V

“I hear a lot o’ talk,” said old man Greenhut, as he wiped up the bar and set his bottles and glasses in order, “about modern progress an’ the elevatin’ influences of eddication, an’ sich, but I’ll be everlastingly hornswaggled if it don’t appear to me that young folks nowadays is sure a degenerate lot. I don’t mean boys, for there can’t nobody tell what a boy’s goin’ to turn out to be. I’ve seen reg’lar milksops that went to Sunday school an’ wore neckties, or, mebbe, played with their sisters up to the time they was seventeen or eighteen, turn all of a suddin like, an’ develop into rip-roaring good citizens that could take their own part in anything that came along from a poker party to a political meetin’, an’ was a right down credit to the community. An’ similar I’ve seen right lively youngsters o’ fifteen an’ sixteen, that was full o’ ginger and gave every promise o’ bein’ husky citizens, take to foppish ways by the time they was twenty, an’ go around smokin’ cigarettes. No, there ain’t no tellin’ about boys.

“What I mean,” continued the old man, as he came around to his favourite seat by the window, “is the no-’count ways that the younger men of to-day seem to be fallin’ into. Why, talkin’ about cigarettes, there’s grown men smokes ’em now, just as shameless as if they was smokin’ honest tobacco in a pipe. An’ I don’t mean dagos and creoles an’ sich, but full-grown men. An’ what with temp’rance societies, an’ the women tryin’ to vote an’ gettin’ the men to uphold ’em in it, the country seems to be a-goin’ hell to breakfast cross lots an’ sideways.

“You don’t see none o’ the old style o’ men scarcely. Forty year ago men was different. They wasn’t afraid to drink four fingers to once o’ good liquor, an’ a word meant a blow an’ a blow meant a shot. Consequences was men was careful what they said, an’ was a heap sight more polite. An’ they played a man’s game o’ poker in them days. Nowadays they tell me the women is playin’ it, an’ it’s got to be a reg’lar parlour amusement.

“Sam Nichols was in here only the other night an’ somebody ast him to take a hand in a little game that was goin’ on in the back room, an’ he laughed an’ says: ‘No, I ain’t a-playin’ poker anywheres now ’ceptin’ at home. My wife, she’s learned the game an’ some o’ the neighbours comes in with their wives, an’ we plays ten-cent limit. You have all the fun o’ poker an’ it don’t cost nothin’ to speak of.’ An’ Sam, he used to be one o’ the stiffest players in Arkansas City.

“Just naturally, I was disgusted for fair. ‘Yes, Sam,’ I says, ‘you can have all the fun o’ poker if you leave out all there is in the game that makes it worth playin’. Certainly you can. An’ you could have all the fun of eatin’, too, if you was to take all your teeth out an’ gum it on a piece o’ sponge. But you wouldn’t get no nourishment out of it, I reckon. An’ similar, I’d like to know what sort o’ nutriment for a grown man there is in a ten-cent limit game. You sure make me sick.’”

The old man smoked in silence for a few minutes after he had got all this out and then began to chuckle. “It wasn’t no ten-cent limit game they was playin’ in here the night Park Halloway made his big haul,” he said, still chuckling. “That was a grown man’s game. The boys had been a little short o’ money for three or four weeks, an’ had got to playin’ a table stakes game among themselves. You see there hadn’t been no strangers in town since Three-finger Pete an’ his pal come in an’ done up the crowd with some marked cards they’d had sent here ahead of ’em.

“That was the slickest trick that was ever played on this community. Didn’t you never hear of it? Why that was told all up an’ down the river for years an’ years. It ’peared that Three-fingered Pete was special sore on Arkansas City for doin’ him up bad the first time he come here, an’ he swore he’d get even. So he waits a long time an’ he gets in with a feller that dealt in cards wholesale. That feller was afterward shot, but we never caught Pete.

“Well, Pete managed to get a line on everybody in Arkansas City that bought an’ sold cards. There was only three stores where they kept ’em, an’ this feller that I’m tellin’ about sold to all three. Well, Pete, he fixed up a set o’ marks entirely original an’ clever enough to fool the devil himself, an’ for three whole years he marked every pack that came to Arkansas City, so’s to be sure that no other kind o’ cards would be in use in the town when he come. He was a good stayer, Pete was, an’ he played a long game on this.

“After he was plumb certain that there wasn’t no old stock left over in town, he drifted in one day, an’ his pal followed next day. They was too slick to come together, or to let on that they knowed each other. Well, just naturally, when every pack o’ cards in town was marked, an’ only two men knowed it, and both o’ them had been practisin’ on readin’ them marks till they knowed the backs as well as they did the fronts, them two men took away all the available cash capital there was in Arkansas City. It was a rich haul, an’ everybody ’lowed that Pete was entitled to great credit for the way he worked it, though just naturally we was all pretty sore when we found it out, which we didn’t till Pete an’ the other feller had got away to Mexico.

“Well, as I was sayin’, the boys was a-gettin’ on the best way they could after that cyclone, an’ playin’ mumbletypeg amongst themselves with their odd change till some more strangers would come along an’ give ’em a chance to git their money back. An’ it had been goin’ on that way for some weeks when it come that night I was tellin’ of, that Park Halloway made his big play.

“It was a dispensation o’ Providence, sure enough, that sent three cotton factors up f’m New Orleans just at that time. They was comin’ up to dicker with some o’ the planters for the next crop, there havin’ been some difficulty in the market that had got a lot o’ planters dissatisfied, and these new factors had all sorts o’ money with ’em. They was stoppin’ over in Arkansas City to make some inquiries, an’ just naturally they set into a little game while they was a-waitin’ for the next boat.

“Jim Farley an’ Dick Hackett had been playin’ with ’em for about a hour when Halloway come in, an’ naturally they had accumulated some wealth, so that the game was pretty healthy. It was table stakes, but there wasn’t one o’ the five that didn’t have over a hundred in front of him, so when Halloway come in an’ ast if he c’d have a hand we was some surprised. He’d been as near broke as anybody in town since Pete’s raid, an’ it didn’t seem likely that he had money enough to set in with.

“So when he ast to set in, Hackett looked up a little doubtful an’ says, ‘Why, cert’nly, Park, but we’re playin’ table stakes,’ an’ he looked around at the money then in sight as much as to say, ‘That sort o’ lets you out, don’t it?’

“But Halloway, he grinned an’ says, ‘That’s the on’y game where I could get a show for my money, I reckon,’ an’ he sets down an’ flashes a five-dollar bill as sassy as you please. ‘I’ll make it as quick play as I can,’ he says, still grinnin’, an’ they all laughed an’ pushed him over five white chips.

“Well, it was his age an’ he antes a white chip as the others had been doin’ an’ let his cards lay face down till they’d all come in. Then, still without lookin’ at his cards, he made his ante good an’ shoved up the other three. One o’ the factors sat next an’ he saw. Then Hackett raised it five on the side, Halloway havin’, o’ course, a show for his money. The other two factors, Davis and Allen their names was, they was lookin’ for trouble, so they come in, an’ Farley, settin’ next, h’isted it ten dollars.

“Course, Halloway hadn’t nothin’ to say, an’ Smith, the first factor, he laid down. So did Hackett an’ Davis, but Allen come back with ten more, an’ Farley called it. Then Davis showed an ace high straight an’ Farley a small flush. Halloway waited till they was through, an’ then he turned his cards over. They was a ten full on sixes.

“That sort o’ gave him a footin’ in the game, for he had, o’ course, thirty dollars instead o’ five, an’ while Hackett was ten dollars out, Farley had won thirty dollars. The strangers was flush, anyhow, an’ they wasn’t a mite disturbed.

“It was Halloway’s deal next, an’ when it come his turn to see the ante he threw his cards away without lookin’ at ’em. ‘I’ll bet the next hand,’ he says, ‘same as I did the last, an’ I’d ruther not do it on my own deal.’ So they played that hand without him, an’ Hackett won it, with about forty dollars in the pot.

“Sure enough, in the next deal, Halloway shoved his thirty dollars in the pot without looking at his hand. Just naturally nobody thought he’d win again, so they bet as if he wasn’t in the game. Smith an’ Farley laid down, but Hackett an’ Davis raised back an’ forth till Hackett called for a show for his money. Allen stood one raise, but laid down on the second.

“Then came another surprise. Davis had three queens, Hackett had three kings, an’ Halloway had three aces. He won ninety dollars on that deal, an’ Hackett won something like a hundred an’ fifty.

“When the cards was dealt next time there was a jack-pot, for they was a-playin’ with a buck an’ Hackett had it. They made it a five-dollar jack, an’ Davis an’ Allen an’ Farley passed. That brung it up to Halloway an’ he opened it for twenty-five dollars. Smith an’ Hackett come in, Davis raised it fifty, Allen an’ Farley come in, an’ Halloway shoved up all he had which was forty dollars more. An’ once more they all come in. I don’t remember that I ever see anything just like it afore, but each man of the six drawed one card an’ not one of ’em bettered his hand. Davis was raisin’ on a four straight flush, king high, an’, of course, wanted to play it as hard as he could, but the others was drawin’ to four straights an’ four flushes exceptin’ Halloway, an’ he had aces up.

“Then he was in the game with all four feet, for he’d won more’n seven hundred dollars off’n his V-spot in three deals. We was all struck, but Park on’y grinned an’ says, quiet like, ‘’Pears as though I’d struck my gait, don’t it?’ which it sure did.

That warn’t the end of it, though, for on the next deal, Allen having the age, an’ Farley comin’ in, Halloway simply made good with his little two dollars, waitin’, as it appeared, for somebody else to raise. It was good play, too, for when it come Smith’s turn he raised it ten dollars. The others all come in, an’ Halloway raised it twenty-five. This kind o’ staggered ’em, an’ Hackett an’ Farley, knowin’ Halloway as well as they did, laid down, but the strangers all thought he was bluffin’ on the stren’th of his run o’ luck, an’ all three of ’em made good. Allen drew three cards to a pair of aces. Halloway drew one, holdin’ a kicker to three sevens, Smith drew two to three jacks, an’ Davis, who was dealing, drew one to a four flush.

Allen got his third ace. Halloway got his fourth seven. Smith didn’t better, an’ Davis filled his flush, so if ever the Lord was good to a man, He cert’nly was good to Halloway. It was his first bet, Farley havin’ passed out, an’ he put up fifty dollars. Smith came in, figgerin’ that some one else’d raise, which Davis did for fifty dollars more. Allen studied on his three aces for awhile an’ then come in. I don’t know what sort of poker he thought he was playin’, but I reckon he thought Halloway an’ Davis was both bluffin’. Just naturally Halloway come back with a hundred more, an’ Smith an’ Allen laid down, Davis callin’. That made seven hundred and ten dollars in the pot, of which four hundred and seventy-three dollars went to his profit an’ loss account, makin’ his winnin’s up to this time one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight dollars, which was doin’ well for a five-dollar bill in four pots.

By this time the others was all proper astonished, an’ Davis showed a little temper. He’d been hit pretty hard three times an’ was aggravated, but Halloway never said nothin’. On’y just set there an’ grinned, an’ once more the lightnin’ struck in the same place. It was a short game an’ a tol’able warm one.

The next deal was Davis’s, an’ as Halloway had the first say he come in without lookin’ at his cards. The next two men come in, an’ Davis raised it fifty. That showed, o’ course, that he was lookin’ for fight, for there wa’n’t but seven dollars in the pot up to then, an’ nobody had showed any stren’th. Allen an’ Farley looked over their cards pretty careful, an’ findin’ no encouragement they dropped.

Then Halloway picked up his cards an’ skint ’em down slow. The luck was still with him, for he had four treys. He was a cool player, though, an’ pretended to be studyin’ the cards, while he was really studyin’ how to play Davis good and hard again. He knowed it was no good to think about the others, for they wouldn’t be likely to stand Davis’s raise, let alone his, if he should raise back. So he thought awhile an’ then raised it a hundred.

That made Davis madder’n ever. ‘You can’t bluff me that way,’ he says, very nasty, an’ as the other two laid down, he come back with two hundred more. Then, o’ course, Halloway had him. He looked more serious than ever for awhile, and finally he says, ‘Well, I reckon I’ll draw one card,’ shovin’ up his two hundred as he spoke.

He let the card lay as it was dealt to him, an’ Davis, havin’ a pat flush, o’ course, drew none. Halloway looked at him for a minute, as if tryin’ to study out whether he was bluffin’ or not, an’ finally says: ‘Well, I’ll bet you five hundred, anyway.’

‘An’ I’ll raise you a thousand,’ said Davis, with some sort o’ French swearin’ that I reckon he must ha’ brought f’m New Orleans, f’r I never heerd anything like it around here.

Halloway grinned again, an’ he says: ‘I’m sorry I can’t see your thousand, but I’ll call for a show for what I have, an’ I reckon my cards is good.’ An’ he showed down his four treys.

Well, that broke up the game. Davis was too mad to play any more, an’ his pals see that it was foolish for them to stack up against any such luck as Halloway was settin’ in. But it was a monstrous good game while it lasted. I never seen five dollars grow to two thousand three hundred and eighty-six quite so quick, afore nor since.”

XVI

HIS QUEER SYSTEM

“‘Tain’t a matter of record,” said old man Greenhut, with a reminiscent look in his eye, “that any stranger has ever come to Arkansas City with any notion o’ doin’ up the town what got away with the proposition an’ any consid’able remnant o’ the wad he had with him when he arrove. The citizens o’ this town is mostly capable men, what is well qualified to drink red liquor straight an’ set into ’most any sort of a game without drawin’ weepons, ’less there’s some provocations, an’ when it comes to draw-poker it’s universally acknowledged up an’ down the river that there ain’t no superior game played anywhere. The galoot that comes here with a notion in his nut o’ makin’ a everlastin’ fortune out o’ such hands as a merciful Providence may allow him to hold in two or three nights’ play is gen’ly considered to be runnin’ in great luck if he gets out o’ town without havin’ a subscription took up for his benefit about the time the next boat ties up.

There has been a good many times, true enough, when things looked doubtful. Players has come that had new wrinkles in the way o’ holdin’ out, or stackin’ the cards, or some new system o’ play that puzzled the boys for awhile. An’ there’s been some come that sure knowed the game an’ played it almighty skilful. But none of ’em, as I said, ever reely got away with the proposition.

There was one feller, though, that showed up here about six years ago, that come monstrous near breakin’ the record. That is to say, if he’d have understood the first principles o’ poker he’d ha’ busted the town wide open, an’ the mortifyin’ thing about it was ’twas poker he was playin’. That is, ’twas called poker, an’ he sure did win, but the way he played it was one o’ the seven wonders o’ the world. We talked about it quite some, after he left, an’ the unanimous verdict was that if he ha’ knowed what he was doin’ an’ how to do it, he’d ha’ just everlastin’ly skint the entire crowd out o’ what money there was, instead o’ comin’ out consid’able ahead, an’ him not knowin’ just how he done it or what he’d done. It sure were bewilderin’, an’ well cal’lated to make a man lose his faith in Providence, ’thout he was one that stuck to his religion spite of anything.

The puzzlin’ thing about it were that the feller seemed to be playin’ poker all the time, an’ the rest o’ the party was playin’ it for all they knew, but he were either playin’ on a system that was entirely unbeknownst to everybody in this part o’ the world, or else he were that outrageous ignorant o’ first principles as would disgrace a half-grown boy. An’ yet he won! Some of ’em was inclined to think at first that it were a new system, an’ there was a good deal o’ speculation on how it would work, played constant, but nobody had the nerve to try it, seein’ it were plumb contrary to all science as poker is understood, an’ they couldn’t get up that child-like confidence in heaven’s mercy that would lead ’em to look for over-whelmin’ luck in the matter o’ cards at the critical moments o’ the game.

The way of it was this. He just landed from the boat one day an’ walked up the levee a bit, lookin’ round, an’ sayin’ nothin’ to nobody. There didn’t seem to be no reason for anybody to pay attention to him, an’ consequent nobody did, for he wa’n’t a man that looked like a sport, nor yet a business man. Just ’peared to have got out f’m somewheres an’ didn’t know his way back. After he looked round a spell, he sort o’ drifted in to the hotel an’ wrote his name, absent-minded like, on the register, an’ said ‘Yes’ when the proprietor ast him if he wanted a room. Then he just sat round for a day or two, sayin’ nothin’ to nobody all the time. Didn’t appear to have ambition enough to eat his meals, for he’d wait till everybody else was most through ’fore he’d go into the dinin’-room. An’ even when he took a drink, which wa’n’t often, he did it all alone without seemin’ to take no interest in it.

“‘Long about the third day he began takin’ short walks, an’ bimeby he got as far as to come in here an’ look ’round. Seein’ the bar, he called for some red liquor an’ drank it, an’ then seein’ a chair he sot down. There hadn’t been much doin’ for a week or two, an’ I says to Jake Winterbottom that it mought be a good idea to start a game o’ poker. ‘This here stranger,’ I says, ‘don’t look as if he knowed one card from another, but ’tain’t likely he’s quite as simple as he looks, an’ mebbe,’ I says, ‘you might get him into the game. Don’t make it too stiff right away,’ I says, ’an’ who knows but you might get a small stake out of him? ’Tain’t very promisin’,’ I says, ‘but some men is like crooked cattle. There’s more meat on ’em than they looks.’

Well, Jake, he didn’t think there was nothin’ doin’. He looked the stranger over an’ sort o’ turned up his nose, but things was quiet, an’ finally he says: ‘I don’t reckon he’s got fifty dollars in the world, an’ if we win that we’ll only have to chip in an’ send him away. There ain’t the makings of a citizen into him, no way I can figure it, an’ we don’t want him settin’ around for ever. But we might take a shy at it, just to pass the time.’

“So him an’ Sam Blaisdell an’ George Bascom kind o’ got together an’ played a few hands, thinkin’ the stranger might show some interest an’ propose to join the game, but he never stirred. Just sot still an’ chawed his tobacco, like he didn’t give a cuss for nothin’. So finally Bascom he spoke up an’ says: ‘This is pretty slow playin’ three-handed. We’d oughter have somebody else in the game,’ an’ they waited a minute to see if that would catch him, but he never even looked round. So Winterbottom says: ‘Wouldn’t you like to play?’ an’ the stranger he says: ‘Yes,’ just the same absent-minded-like way he’d spoke to the hotel proprietor, an’ he went over an’ sot in. I sold him ten dollars’ o’ chips, an’ they dealt him cards. It were a table stakes game, an’ each man had put up ten.

“The stranger, he talked like a Yankee an’ looked like a Frenchman, but his name on the hotel register was Dennis McCarthy, an’ for all the interest he showed in the cards after he got ’em he might have been a Chinee. He just put up when it come his turn, an’ drawed cards every time, but he never made a bet till his ten was all gone, an’ then he bought ten more as calm an’ collected as a knot-hole in a board fence.

“Well, we played along, if you can call it playing poker, just like that until his third ten-spot was gone, an’ he bought ten more worth o’ chips. Then he caught a hand that seemed to interest him some, for he studied it a long time after Bascom had bet ten on his cards before he said anything. Then he said, ‘I call,’ an’ shoved a ten-dollar bill into the pot. They showed down an’ the stranger had a pair o’ queens. Bascom, he had three sevens, so he raked the pot, o’ course, for Winterbottom an’ Blaisdell had passed out.

“Well, that there McCarthy, if his name was McCarthy, just sat there and called every bet that was made after that for three-quarters of an hour. I never see such a thing before nor since. ’Peared like he’d on’y just found out that he could call, an’ he’d been playin’ along afore that on the idee that all the other feller had to do to win the pot was to make a bet, an’ as if he’d got in his head that callin’ was all he was ’lowed to do under the rules. Whatever his fool notion was, I don’t p’tend to say, but that’s just what he did. Just called every time it come to him.

“Just naturally that looked easy, an’ I will say for the boys that they didn’t try to play it low down on him for a good while. All they did was to wait for a pretty strong hand an’ then bet it for what it was worth an’ wait for a call. As there was three o’ them to one o’ him, they naturally outheld him as a rule, but somehow or other he managed to scoop a pot just about often enough to keep him even. He’d bought twenty-five dollars after he lost his first fifty, so there was over a hundred on the table. The boys wasn’t pushin’ him very hard, so they only bet fives an’ tens, an’ once in awhile he’d show down the best hand an’ scoop a pot. An’ bimeby we was all surprised to see he was gettin’ ahead. Still, ’twa’n’t no game to speak about. They’d all got the idee’t he hadn’t got much of a wad, an’ they was playin’ more for the fun o’ the thing than to do him up.

“Pretty soon Blaisdell he caught a four-flush in a jack-pot an’ the stranger he opened it. Blaisdell stayed an’ the others dropped out. They each drawed one card an’ the stranger he bet ten. Blaisdell looked at his draw an’ found he’d filled a ace flush, so he raised it for his pile, which was thirty dollars, an’ the stranger called. He showed down a full house an’ Blaisdell had to go diggin’.

“Next hand Bascom opened the jack on a pat straight, an’ the stranger he come in an’ drawed one card. The others stayed out an’ Bascom bet his pile, which was twenty odd, an’ the stranger he called an’ showed down a flush, so Bascom was obliged to dig.

“Then ’twas Winterbottom’s turn, as it happened, an’ he opened it on threes. They was playin’ a jack again on account o’ the hands showed, an’ I’m blamed if the same thing didn’t happen. The stranger he come in an’ drawed two cards. Winterbottom bet his pile, havin’ three queens. The other two dropped out an’ the stranger he called an’ showed three kings.

“It looked like a most amazin’ run o’ luck, but the stranger never turned a hair. He did call for the drinks all round, as a sort o’ reco’nition, but he sot as calm as ever, waitin’ for his cards, an’ lookin’ as if he didn’t know what to do with ’em when they come. The others had bought fifty apiece when they come back, so there was money enough on the table to make it worth while, an’ the play got stronger. First, Winterbottom he bet twenty on two pairs an’ the stranger called on one pair. Then Bascom he bet ten on a pair o’ queens an’ the stranger called on ace high. Then Blaisdell bet twenty-five on three jacks, Bascom saw it on aces up, Winterbottom stayed out, havin’ nothin’, an’ the stranger called on a nine-high straight. No matter what he held he wouldn’t raise.

“Blaisdell kind o’ got huffy this time, an’ seein’ the stranger was still pretty well to the good, he began cussin’ a little an’ proposed to take off the limit. The others said they was willin’, an’ they ast McCarthy if he was, an’ he said ‘Yes.’ Blamed if it didn’t ’pear like ‘yes’ was ’most the only word he knowed in the language.

“Well, the bets was heavier after that, an’ the stranger lost what he had in front of him in the next three pots, callin’ on the most ridiculousest hands you ever see, but he stayed right along in for the next deal, so they knowed he must have more money in his clothes. It were his first say, Bascom havin’ the age, an’ he dug out two silver dollars an’ come in, the ante bein’ a dollar. The others stayed, an’ McCarthy drawed three cards. When it come to the bettin’, he bet a dollar, an’ Winterbottom put up fifty, havin’ filled a flush. Blaisdell dropped out an’ Bascom raised it fifty. McCarthy never said a word, but he pulled out his wallet an’ fished up a hundred-dollar bill. Winterbottom raised it fifty an’ Bascom raised it fifty more, an’ the stranger laid down another hundred.

“It looked like his finish there, for sure, for o’ course nobody thought he had much of a hand, an’ the boys thought all they had to do was to keep raisin’. They knowed he’d keep callin’, for he hadn’t done nothin’ else for nigh an hour, an’ all they had to do was to keep up the crisscross an’ whipsaw him out of his pile. ’Twa’n’t certain whether Bascom or Winterbottom would win, but one of ’em was sure to, an’ the money would stay right here.