Chapter XX: Kenney’s Royal Flush 253 (5)

“Well, they kep’ it up for five minutes, I reckon, till Bascom come to the end of his wad. He on’y had six or seven hundred in his clothes an’ Winterbottom wasn’t much stronger. It didn’t look worth while for Bascom to send for more money, for the stranger’s pocketbook was empty an’ he’d fished out his last hundred from one of his pockets, so Bascom just made good when Winterbottom raised, an’ the stranger got his chance to call, nobody supposin’ that he had more’n perhaps three of a kind, an’ likely not that, he havin’ called on every hand he held whether ’twas good for anything or not.

“It were a fatal mistake, an’ Bascom seen it as soon as he’d done it, for the stranger dug again an’ flashed up a thousand-dollar bill. ’Stead o’ raisin’ Winterbottom, as any other player on earth would ha’ done, he just done his fool act over again an’ called. Then he showed down four deuces an’ scooped in the pot as cool as if ’twas eight dollars instead of a little over two thousand.

“Bascom sort o’ gasped, for he seen what a mistake he’d made, but Winterbottom, he realized that somethin’ had to be did quick, an’ he reached out with one hand for the money. ‘You never got them deuces honest,’ he says, pullin’ his gun, o’ course, as he spoke. He knowed it meant fight, but he wasn’t lookin’ no more than any of us for the kind of a fight that came.

“McCarthy, he was quicker than chain-lightnin’, an’ reachin’ over with one hand he grabbed Winterbottom’s gun while he put the money in his pocket with the other. Then, with a queer sort o’ a twist, he wrenched the gun out o’ Winterbottom’s hand and threw it plumb through the

window. We was all standin’ ready to see that Winterbottom had fair play, not considerin’ it etiquette to interfere unless he should get the worst of it, but, Lord bless you, he hadn’t no show at all. The stranger he just rose out of his chair an’ give a leap like a buckin’ bronco clean over the table. He come down with both heels on Winterbottom’s chest, an’ Winterbottom was out of it. Blaisdell an’ Bascom both drawed on the instant, but ’twa’n’t no use. That stranger was all over the room at once, swattin’ Bascom behind the ear with his fist an’ kickin’ Blaisdell under the chin at the same time. I didn’t think it was worth while to take a hand myself, seein’ how things was goin’, an’ bein’ some in years, so I stepped behind the bar an’ waited.

“Well, them three men tried for a minit or so to get up, but they couldn’t. McCarthy was on top o’ the whole of ’em as fast as they moved, an’ he had ’em all whipped in less time than it takes to tell it. I heerd afterward that he’d lived in Paris some, an’ had learned some outrageous foreign way o’ boxin’ with his feet that no Christian c’d ever stand up against. They all give in after a little, an’ I didn’t blame ’em, havin’ seen for myself what the stranger c’d do.

“Well, that was the end of it. The stranger he walked out after the scrimmage was over, lookin’ as cool as ever. He looked back when he got to the door an’ says, ‘Good night. See you again.’ But we never did. He left town the next mornin’ on an early boat. I’ve often thought, though, that it were a merciful dispensation that he didn’t know enough poker to raise instead o’ callin’.”

XVII

AN EXTRA ACE

“Speakin’ by an’ large,” said old man Greenhut, as he bit off the end of a fresh cigar and settled himself in his favourite seat at the window, “there ain’t no question but what the game o’ draw-poker is about as nigh perfect as anything that was ever devised by the mind o’ man, an’ developed by the constant study o’ countless generations. They say there ain’t no record o’ poker bein’ played in former ages, an’ that faro was played hundreds of thousands of years ago, when a feller named Faro was King of Egypt, but it stands to reason there ain’t no truth in that. Like enough faro is a old game. I ain’t a-sayin’ nothin’ against faro. It suits them that likes it, but it’s gamblin’, an’ naturally it belongs to the heathen that started it.

“But poker’s teetotally different. No such system as that of draw-poker ever growed up in a night like Jonah’s gourd, nor it wa’n’t put together by no single set o’ fellers. Stands to reason it’s the crownin’ development of all the civilization the world ever seen. An’ it don’t seem likely, now that the straight an’ the straight flush has been discovered, an’ universally recognized, that there’s ever goin’ to be no changes into the game. It’s perfect as it is, an’ there ain’t no chanst o’ makin’ it any more perfect.

“An’ yet there is times when even the best players is obliged to rely on outside influences to help ’em out o’ some great emergency o’ the game. That ain’t no fault o’ the game, for as I said, the game is all right, but it goes to show that a man as relies on on’y one thing is goin’ to get left when he stacks up against some feller that relies on the same thing an’ has something else up his sleeve besides. An’ that there somethin’ else is got to be more’n a knowledge o’ cards.

“O’ course if a man reely understands the game as he’d oughter, an’ can handle the cards so’s to give himself what he needs in the draw when it comes to a desprit struggle between him an’ the other feller, an’ can read the backs o’ the cards well enough to have a good general idee o’ what the other feller is holdin’, why he can worry along under ordinary circumstances so’s he can hold his own most o’ the time, an’ make enough over from time to time to pay his livin’ expenses. But that’s all a part o’ draw-poker, same as it’s a part o’ the game not to be found out when you’re obliged to change the natural order o’ the cards. There is folks that has prejudices against them things, an’ if a man is clumsy enough to get found out, why, o’ course he’s goin’ to get hisself in more or less trouble, but I maintain so long as they’re done slick enough to not be seen, they are as legitimate as anything else in draw-poker. That’s the way Arkansas City has come to have the reputation it has. There’s some o’ the slickest players on the river right there in that town, an’ nobody has ever caught ’em usin’ marked cards, or holdin’ out, or dealin’ out o’ the middle or off’n the bottom of the deck.

“But what I mean about outside influences is entirely different. There comes a time, sometimes, when a man is obliged to think quick an’ act quick in order to keep some unscrupulous stranger from sweepin’ away all his hard-earned winnin’s in one fell pot. At such times even a thorough knowledge o’ poker ain’t a goin’ to save a man thouten he’s quick enough to think an’ has sand enough to act on the instant.

“There was an instance o’ that in Arkansas City the time when Hank Fairfax an’ his side-partner, Billy Overton, come up here from Vicksburg to do up the town, an’ come so near doin’ it. It were a great night, an’ on’y for Sam Pearsall’s presence o’ mind an’ prompt action I reckon we’d ha’ lost prestige right then an’ there.

“There couldn’t no one find fault with Hank an’ his partner, for they come in like men an’ said, open an’ above board, just what they’d come for. Hank put it kind o’ brutal, but he was fair an’ square about it. He said: ‘We Vicksburg sports is plumb tired hearin’ about Arkansas City poker, an’ Billy an’ I has come to give you jays a few lessons on how the game reely ought to be played. If any of you has the sand to play up against the real thing, now’s your time, but this ain’t no crossroads proposition. We are out for the stuff an’ we propose to carry it back with us.’

“Well, you know there ain’t nobody from nowhere that can let out a yawp like that in Arkansas City without bein’ took up sudden. ’Twa’n’t eight minutes by the clock after he’d peeped, afore him an’ Billy an’ Sam Pearsall an’ Jake Winterbottom an’ Joe Bassett was sittin’ ’round the table countin’ out their chips. They each put up a thousand an’ made it a table stakes game. ‘We didn’t come here to play old maid,’ said Billy, when somebody asked what the game should be. ‘Let’s have somethin’ worth playin’ for,’ he says, an’ they was all agreed.

“Well, just naturally they all played right up under their collar buttons at first, bein’ anxious to get on to one another’s play. There hadn’t none of our boys even played with Fairfax, but they all knowed him by reputation as one o’ the slickest players in Mississippi, an’ they wa’n’t takin’ no chances on his deal. Overton we didn’t none of us know much about, ’ceptin’ he had the name o’ bein’ a cool hand in a quarrel and a bad man in a fight. We knowed he played poker, course, just as everybody does, but we hadn’t heard o’ his bein’ counted no crack player, such as Hank would be sure to have with him, an’ we was a little slow, too, about sizin’ him up, not knowin’ what his particular graft might be.

“Bein’ for them reasons a trifle more cautious than usual, the boys, as I said, was slow about startin’ in, an’ any way the cards ran small for awhile, but all of a sudden there was somethin’ doin’ on Winterbottom’s deal. It was a jack-pot with thirty dollars in it, an’ Hank havin’ first say, opened it for thirty. Pearsall, he came next an’ he come in. Bassett was the next player an’ he raised it thirty. Overton made it thirty more and Winterbottom h’isted it fifty. Fairfax raised it a hundred an’ Pearsall says: ‘I didn’t want to raise it the first time round for fear o’ scarin’ some of ye out, but as long as I’ve got you all hooked,’ he says, ‘it’ll cost ye two hundred more to draw cards.’

“Just naturally I was lookin’ for some of ’em to drop out after that kind o’ play, but every one of ’em stayed. There wa’n’t no more raisin’ done. I reckon they all thought four hundred an’ forty dollars apiece was enough to put up before the draw, which sure it was in a game o’ that size.

“When it come to the draw there was another surprise. Every man at the table stood pat. Well, just naturally it were pretty thin ice to dance on, an’ nobody seemed to know for a minute or two just how to bet, havin’ nothin’ to guide him but his own hand and the fact that there was four pat hands out against it.

“Fairfax, o’ course, knowed just what to do. He put up a white chip. There was no doubt about his havin’ a chance to play later, an’ he were easy. Pearsall studied a bit, but finally he decided to wait, too, havin’ declared hisself before the draw, so he chipped along. Bassett wasn’t raisin’, neither, for he knowed Pearsall’s play pretty well, an’ havin’ only a small flush he didn’t feel strong, so he chipped along.

“That brought it up to Overton again, an’ he, thinkin’, I reckon, that it was up to him to help Fairfax along whether his own hand was good or not, put up a hundred dollars. It were a queer bet, but I sized it up for the beginnin’ of a seesaw in case Fairfax should want one. That might not ha’ been what was in his mind, but I reckon ’twa’n’t far out o’ the way.

“Winterbottom seen the raise. He were lookin’ for more developments, an’ he wa’n’t ready to play his hand very strong till he found out what was doin’. It were extra cautious play all round, with the advantage lyin’ between Fairfax an’ Pearsall, but mostly on Pearsall’s side.

“Fairfax put up two hundred an’ I seen he were ready for a seesaw. I don’t know what might ha’ happened if there’d been more money on the table, but Pearsall saw his opportunity an’ grabbed it. He counted his chips an’ findin’ six hundred in front of him, threw it all in the pot.

“Bassett throwed down his flush like a man, an’ Overton called for a show for his pile, which wa’n’t quite big enough for a call. That put it up to Winterbottom, an’ he skinned his hand over again, thinkin’ mighty hard. He had a full hand an’ money enough to raise. An’ more than that, he’d dealt the cards hisself, so he wa’n’t worried none on that account, but finally he just made good. He said to me afterward, ‘I would ha’ raised,’ he says, ‘but I reckoned Fairfax was goin’ to raise again, an’ the others was all in, so I gave him the chance.’

“But Fairfax was as rattled as the rest of ’em was, an’ he only called. Then it come out that there was two flushes an’ two fulls in the game, not reckonin’ the flush that Bassett had throwed down. Winterbottom’s flush beat Overton’s, bein’ ace high, an’ Pearsall’s ace full o’ course beat Fairfax’s jack full.

“It were a body blow for fair. Fairfax an’ Overton seen they’d overplayed their hands, an’ they was sore enough to make a beef about it, on’y they knowed it were too late. There wa’n’t nothin’ to say, ’thouten they’d kicked on Jake’s dealin’, an’ they couldn’t do that after they’d played the hand an’ lost. The on’y thing they c’d do was to quit or put up again. They wa’n’t quittin’, so they put up another thousand apiece an’ played along. Bassett had chips left an’ Pearsall was on velvet.

“There wa’n’t no heavy play again right away, but luck run to the Vicksburg fellers for awhile, so’s’t they picked up a few hundred in the next half-hour, mostly on pots they raked in without a call. Our boys was playin’ as careful as they was an’ was layin’ for a chanst at ’em.

“Bimeby then comes a hand where Fairfax an’ Bassett did some crisscross business. Bassett had been playin’ close f’m the first, an’ he had pretty near all o’ his original wad left, spite o’ what he’d lost on that flush, so when he caught three deuces on Pearsall’s deal an’ it were a jack-pot that had been pretty well fattened, he just opened it for fifty without much fear o’ the consequences. All the others laid down except Fairfax, an’ he come in on a pair of aces. He took three cards, but Bassett only drawed one. ’Twa’n’t extry good play, for his threes wa’n’t big enough to play ’em very strong ’thouten he was goin’ to bluff, an’ he might better ha’ drawed two cards, relyin’ on Fairfax thinkin’ his threes was bigger’n they was, but luck was with him in the draw ’n’ he catched the other deuce.

“Just naturally he felt good, an’ thinkin’ mebbe Fairfax might ha’ bettered an’ might raise, he throwed in a chip.

“Fairfax fumbled his cards a minute afore he picked ’em up. I don’t know whether he were a-studyin’ or whether it were a accident, but everybody noticed it, an’ it were lucky they did, as things turned out. But when he did pick up his hands he smiled a bit an’ throwed two fifty in the pot.

“That were just what Bassett were looking for, an’ he shoved all his chips to the centre o’ the table without countin’ ’em. O’ course Fairfax couldn’t raise no more; but he counted up, an’ findin’ it took six hundred to call, he called.

“Bassett showed down his four deuces an’ says: ‘I reckon that’s good,’ an’ he reached for the pot, but Fairfax says, ‘Hold on. That’s a pretty good hand, but aces’ll beat it if you have enough of ’em,’ and he showed down four aces.

“Right there was when Sam Pearsall showed his resources. O’ course, so fur as poker goes, that is, so fur as the reglar game goes, Fairfax won the pot all right, but, as I was sayin’, there is things outside o’ the reglar game that a man can rely on in a emergency if he’s quick to think an’ quick to act, an’ Sam were always as quick as a cat.

“I don’t know how it happened that Sam had a ace o’ diamonds hid away somewheres, but they’d changed the deck several times, an’ I reckon he must ha’ thought it might come in handy to figger on, or somethin’ o’ that sort. Anyway, he had it, an’ it were the same pattern back as the deck they was playin’ with. So he speaks up quick. ‘Hold on you,’ he says. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong here. I discarded the ace o’ diamonds,’ he says, an’ reachin’ over quick, he turns the discard pile face up, an’ spreadin’ out the cards, sure enough there were the ace.

“O’ course that queered Fairfax’s hand right away. They counted the cards, an’ sure enough there were fifty-three cards in the deck. Just naturally Fairfax an’ Overton smelled a mice, an’ they called on me to bring back the cards I’d gathered up every time they’d called for a new deck, an’ I did it.

“They picked out the deck o’ the same pattern they was usin’ an’ counted that, an’ just naturally they found fifty-one cards in it, but no ace o’ diamonds. It was clear enough where the card had come from, but the question was how it come where it was, an’ there was no way o’ tellin’ whether the missin’ card was the one that Fairfax held in his hand, or whether it was the one that Pearsall had showed in the discard pile.

“There wa’n’t much said. Everybody remembered how Fairfax had fumbled his cards, but nobody cared to say nothin’ about it, for there wa’n’t no use o’ havin’ to fight with a man like Fairfax when Overton was along, specially as the pot had to be divided anyhow. It were a foul deck beyond a question, and there wa’n’t no dispute when Bassett took back his chips.

“Fairfax were mad clear through, though. He didn’t say much, but he got up an’ reckoned he didn’t care to play no more in a game where four aces wa’n’t good. It wa’n’t really what one would have expected from a dead game sport such as he had the name o’ bein’, but we had the satisfaction o’ seein’ him an’ Overton go back to Vicksburg without makin’ their bluff good, even if they didn’t leave their money behind ’em.

“Which goes to show, as I said, that there is times when a man has to rely on outside influences even in playin’ poker.”

XVIII

PLAYED BY THE BOOK

“There’s a powerful lot o’ people in this here world,” said old man Greenhut, as he rinsed out a couple of whiskey-glasses and set them away, “that seems to think they is app’inted by a all-wise Providence to set other folks right. It don’t seem to make no difference what’s done, or who does it, or how it’s done, they’re always ready to chip a lot of advice into the pot, an’ tell ’em how they’d oughter done it different.

“Mostly such folks is born fools an’ don’t know no more about things in general than a hound pup in the wilderness knows about the plan o’ salvation, but you couldn’t make one o’ ’em realize what a fool he is if you was to cut his head open an’ try to squirt sense into it. What’s this the Good Book says? It’s somethin’ about if you pound a fool up in a mortar and shoot him out with the bombshells, yet will not his folly depart from him.

“There hain’t nothin’, as I said, but what critters like them will try to put right accordin’ to their own notions, an’ the result, so far as I’ve ever seed it, is tol’able certain to be a mixup of the worst sort. An’ when they gets into a game o’ poker there’s more bad blood stirred up in a hour than good, steady play for six months’d be likely to bring up. Sometimes it’s on’y nasty words, an’ sometimes it’s a gun-play. But when such a critter gets hold o’ one o’ these here poker manuals such as I seed the other day that’s just been published in the East, an’ undertakes to make a civilized community swaller his raw notions just because some feller that never played poker on the Mississippi has had ’em printed in a book, he can just about cover the underside o’ the sky with cobwebs o’ perplexity spun out o’ the brains o’ good men that gets bewildered listenin’ to ’em.

“The way I come to see this here book I’m tellin’ about was through a little game that the boys got up last week to oblige a travellin’ Easterner that stopped over for a few days to look at some plantations up the river a bit, that was offered to a British syndicate at a figger that wouldn’t ha’ paid more’n 100 per cent. profit to the owners if the deal had went through. They said this here Wanderin’ Willie boy was some sort of a big-bug in business matters when he was to home, an’ he was travellin’ in cogs, whatever them is. Anyway, he didn’t want nobody to know who he was, an’ he was called Mr. Hapgood when he was travellin’, an’ the keeper that had him in charge treated him as if he was made o’ glass. Hapgood called him his valet, an’ ordered him round like he was a hired man, an’ the keeper never made no fuss at all about it.

“Hapgood was pokin’ round town ask-in’ all sorts o’ questions of everybody, an’ some o’ the boys referred him to me for general information, so he come in that evenin’ an’ chinned with me for half an hour. He bought liquor for the house two or three times, an’ somehow or another there was quite a crowd in here after the first round. I seen there was some o’ the crack players in the place, an’ it kind o’ reminded me o’ the popularity o’ the game here, so when Hapgood ast me, as he did, what the leadin’ industries o’ Arkansas City was, I mentioned draw-poker among ’em. He kind o’ laughed as if I’d said somethin’ funny, an’ said he hadn’t been in the habit o’ thinkin’ of it as a industry, but he’d given considerable study to the game an’ had come to the conclusion that it was just about the real thing. I ast him if he played it much an’ he said no, not exactly, but him an’ four or five o’ his friends had got hold o’ this here manual, as he called it, an’ had practised quite a lot, so’s’t he considered himself a first-class player.

“Well, just naturally I gave him to understand that we had some players in town that we thought was able to hold up their end against any ordinary player, an’ that they would consider it a privilege to make up a game most any time if they could get a first-class player to give them points. They was always anxious to learn, I said, an’ if he would like to get the benefit of a little practice, I thought they would arrange it so’s’t he could have the opportunity.

“You’d ha’ thought he was a bullfrog jumpin’ for a piece o’ red flannel if you’d ha’ seen how quick he took it up. He was more than ready, an’ the boys seein’ how eager he was kind o’ hung back to be coaxed, but old Jake Winterbottom, he pleaded with ’em till he got Jim Blaisdell an’ Sam Pearsall an’ Joe Bassett to set in with him an’ make a five-handed game.

“They set down at the table as they was in the habit of doin’, just takin’ any old place that happened, an’ Hapgood he says, kind o’ surprised, ‘We’ll have to cut for choice o’ seats, won’t we?’

“The boys was more surprised than he was, and Winterbottom, he says, ‘I don’t see no objection to that, but if anybody has any choice o’ seats he can have it as fur as I’m concerned. I don’t see no use o’ cuttin’.’

“‘Well,’ says Hapgood, ‘the rules says we must cut for choice. You’re goin’ to play accordin’ to the rules, ain’t you? As I understand it, poker ought to be played strict under the rules.’

“‘You’re dead right on that, stranger,’ says Joe Bassett, givin’ Winterbottom a kick in the shins under the table. ‘You can bet this game is goin’ to be played accordin’ to rules if I’m in it. An’ it won’t be healthy for the man that breaks the rules.’

“So they cuts for choice o’ seats, and Pearsall cut low. That give him the choice o’ seats, and he said he’d set where he was. Winterbottom was next lowest man an’ he said he’d set where he was, too. He was suited well enough. But Hapgood, he spoke up again an’ he says that won’t do. The second lowest man must set next on the left o’ the low man, an’ the third lowest next on his left, an’ so on.

“Winterbottom started in to cuss a little, not because he cared a cuss, but just because he was surprised, but he got another kick in the shins, an’ takin’ a sudden tumble to hisself, he jumped up an’ took his proper seat. When they’d all got seated again Joe Bassett ast in a general sort o’ way what good all that did, an’ Hapgood says, ‘Why, that’s one o’ the laws in the International Code. You have to do it before you play or else the game wouldn’t be regular.’

“‘That’s right,’ says Joe Bassett. ‘We must play by the rules, but, stranger, we ain’t exactly posted on this here International Code. We play the old Mississippi River rules, the Mississippi River bein’ the place where the game was born an’ growed up. If there’s a International Code we’d like to know about it, an’ if you’ll tell us all about it as we play, we’d think it monstrous kind o’ you.’

“Well, Hapgood says he’ll do it with pleasure, ’n’ he spoke to his keeper an’ tells him to go over to the hotel an’ get the manual out of his portmanteau. ‘The code is in that,’ he says. So the keeper he starts, an’ the boys cut for deal accordin’ to custom, an’ Jake gets it. He shuffles an’ offers the deck to Pearsall, who sits on his right, to cut, but Hapgood speaks up an’ says that ain’t right. ‘The ante man is the man that cuts the cards,’ he says. ‘I don’t know as it makes any great difference,’ he says, ‘who cuts ’em, but that’s what the book says.’

“Winterbottom, he’s gettin’ a little bit old, an’ he’s kind o’ sot in his ways, an’ I c’d see that he was gettin’ sort o’ rattled, but before he c’d say anything, Bassett, he spoke up again. ‘It don’t really make no difference, I reckon,’ he says, ‘but if the book says that the ante man must cut, why, he’s goin’ to cut. On’y you see, stranger, we hain’t familiar with that book an’ we been in the habit o’ lettin’ the feller on the dealer’s right cut the cards. It’s on’y our ignorance, you know. We’re willin’ to learn better.’ An’ he, bein’ the age himself, reaches over and cuts the cards.

“Jake, he kind o’ shakes his head a little, but he don’t say nothin’ an’ he starts to deal, but Hapgood he speaks up again. ‘Before we start,’ he says, ‘we must have it understood whether we are going to play any of the variations in the game. We play straights, don’t we, and straight flushes?’

“‘Oh, yes,’ says Bassett.

“‘And straights beat three of a kind, don’t they?’

“‘Well, yes,’ says Bassett, ‘they commonly do, when you get ’em.’

“‘And blazers, do we play them, and jumpers? And do we play with a joker?’

“Bassett was puzzled for a moment, an’ before he could get started Winterbottom busted loose. ‘No!’ he hollered, just like he were mad. ‘No, we don’t play with a joker, nor big an’ little casino, nor right and left bower, nor his nobs, nor his heels. We play draw-poker. An’ we don’t play blazers nor jumpers, because we don’t know what they are and we don’t care a darn. We wouldn’t play them if we did know.’

“‘Well, well,’ says Hapgood, ‘that’s all right. I only asked because they’re in the book, and we have to know, you know, before we play, you know.’

“‘Well, we know,’ growled Jake and he started to deal again. While he was dealing Bassett put up his ante an’ Hapgood, who set next, he says, ‘I straddle,’ an’ throws in two chips. That makes it four to play, an’ Blaisdell he throws down his cards. Pearsall comes in an’ so does Winterbottom. Bassett makes good an’ Hapgood raises it eight. They was playin’ table stakes.

“Pearsall, havin’ next say, he says, ‘I raise you eight,’ an’ shoves up his chips.

“‘Oh!’ says Hapgood, speakin’ up quick. ‘Then you don’t play the doublin’ game?’

“‘What in thunder is the doublin’ game?’ says Pearsall.

“‘Why you can’t raise less than double what the last bet was,’ says Hapgood.

“‘Is that in the book?’ asked Bassett, sudden like.

“‘Yes,’ says Hapgood.

“‘Then we play it,’ says Bassett very determined.

“‘Well,’ says Pearsall, ‘I raise you sixteen chips.’

“Winterbottom he studies for a minute an’ he says, ‘I’ll come in,’ but he says it kind o’ slow.

“It were Bassett’s turn next, an’ he says, ‘I raise it thirty-two chips.’

“Things was gettin’ interestin’ about then. It were quick poker even for Arkansas City, an’ I looked to see some layin’ down, but they all had pretty good cards as it happened an’ they all made good. In the draw Bassett took one card, Hapgood took two, Pearsall stood pat, an’ Winterbottom took two.

“Then they all waited for a minute or so, an’ finally Winterbottom says to Hapgood, ‘It’s your bet.’

“‘Oh, no,’ says Hapgood, ‘it isn’t my bet, I straddled.’

“‘Well, what in blue blazes has that got to do with it?’ says Pearsall.

“‘Why, if I straddled I get the age,’ says Hapgood, an’ the boys was struck dumb for a minute or so.

“Finally, Bassett he caught his breath, an’ he says, ‘Is that in the book?’

“‘Why, certainly,’ says Hapgood, an’ just then his keeper come in with the book in his hand. It was a monstrous pretty little red book, too, with a fancy cover an’ gilt edges on the leaves.

“Well, Bassett he were gettin’ sort o’ weak by this time, but he managed to say, ‘I ain’t doubtin’ your word, stranger, but this here is kind o’ strong liquor for us. We ain’t used to it. Don’t you think you’re mistaken? Do you think that any man that knowed enough about poker to write a book about it would put that in?’

“‘Well, it’s right here,’ says Hapgood, opening the book. ‘It’s law 44 in the International Code. You’ll see it on page 100. It says: “The straddle transfers the age from the ante man to the straddler,”’ and he read it and showed it.

“The boys looked at one another for a little, as if nobody could say anything, an’ I reckon they couldn’t right away, but finally Bassett he spoke up, an’ he says: ‘We’ve started to play this here game accordin’ to the rules, an’ I reckon we’d better see it through for one deal, anyhow. Pearsall, it’s your bet.’

“Pearsall he looked kind o’ faint, but he throwed in a chip, an’ Winterbottom seed it, an’ Bassett he come in, an’ Hapgood he raised it ten. Then the boys seen their duty, an’ they done it for fair. The chips was a dollar, an’ Pearsall he raised it twenty, an’ Winterbottom he raised it forty, an’ Bassett he raised it eighty, makin’ about half a million dollars on the table. Hapgood he throwed down his cards, an’ Pearsall an’ Winterbottom did likewise, so nobody found out what anybody had.

“The next deal was about the same story, on’y they all come in, an’ after they’d coaxed Hapgood along till he’d put up a fair-sized stake, they doubled upon him four times instead of three, an’ he throwed down again.

“That brought it up to Hapgood’s deal, an’ I reckon he must ha’ been a little rattled, seein’ how he wa’n’t likely to get much of a show, for instead o’ dealin’ cards to all five players he on’y dealt out four hands. O’ course, they all seen what he was doin’, but they kind o’ watched him to see if it wa’n’t some new sort of a trick out o’ that book o’ his’n, an’ when he finished nobody moved to pick up his cards. An’ still Hapgood didn’t seem to notice nothin’ out o’ the way, so Bassett spoke up very mild an’ subdued like, ‘Ain’t that a misdeal, stranger? You haven’t dealt Winterbottom any cards. He’s in the game, ain’t he?’

“Then Hapgood seen what he’d done an’ picked up the deck again. ‘Oh, no,’ he says, ‘it ain’t a misdeal. I’ll give him a hand,’ and he dealt him one card off the top of the deck, another off the bottom, the next off the top, the next off the bottom, and the next and last off the top.

“Then Winterbottom turned to me an’ says: ‘Greenhut, I wish you’d bring me a drink o’ red liquor. I think I’m going to faint.’ I brought it to him quick, for he did look pale, an’ he ain’t as young as he was. After he’d swallowed it he says to Hapgood: ‘What in blue blazes is that sort o’ monkey business you was just puttin’ up? Is there anything in that extraordinary thing you call a book that says for you to do a thing like that?’

“‘Why, certainly,’ says Hapgood. ‘You’ll find it in law 34 of the International Code, on page 98. “If too few hands have been dealt or a player has been omitted, the dealer shall supply the omission by dealing the necessary number of cards alternately from the top and bottom of the pack.” There it is. You can read it for yourself.’

“And he handed the book to Jake. Jake took it and looked at it curiously while the rest of us looked over his shoulders. The rule was there and so were the other things he told us about. And the book was published by some firm in London and another firm in New York. It looked like a sure enough book. It even had the author’s name printed as Templar. I was almost stunned. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Neither could the rest of the boys for a few minutes, but finally Jake handed the book back to Hapgood an’ he says, mighty serious like, ‘I don’t find no fault with you, stranger. You mean well, an’ I don’t reckon you’re the man that wrote this book, but I want to give you a little good advice. If you’re thinkin’ o’ playin’ poker much while you’re in the country, an’ think o’ takin’ that book along with you, the best thing you can do is to take out an all-fired big policy o’ life insurance. Your heirs, if you have any, is liable to get rich monstrous sudden that way. As for me, I think I’ll cash in. I’m open to play draw-poker at any time, but this here game is too rich for my blood.’

“An’ that broke up the game. I don’t know whether they really do play any such poker as that book tells about in the East, but ’tain’t never likely to be played in this country. It does beat all how some folks can get things printed, but I remember hearing it said once that it stood to reason that nobody would ever write a book on how to play poker if he knowed, ’cause if he knowed he’d play enough not to need to write for a livin’.”

XIX

ONLY ONE SURE WAY TO WIN

“‘Pears to me,” said old man Greenhut, as he leaned his elbows on the bar and pulled viciously at a very black cigar to keep it alight, “like there was a monstrous lot o’ foolishness talked about the game o’ draw-poker. Fellers’ll tell you with tears in their mouth about gettin’ beat at the game an’ about the hard mess of luck they have an’ how some other player’ll always hold over ’em or pull out against their pat flushes an’ wipe up the floor with ’em when they’d oughter have the pot cinched according to all laws. Oh, there ain’t no end to hard luck stories. They’re thicker than cold molasses, but there hain’t no sense into ’em. O’ course, a man may get hit hard now an’ again when he ain’t lookin’ for it--he may get kicked by a mule sometimes when he thinks he’s out o’ the mule’s reach; but a man that gets kicked all the time is either a jackass or else he don’t know mules.

“So with poker. No man that knows poker is goin’ to get beat at it all the time, an’ the man that does get beat nine times out o’ ten beats hisself. ’Tain’t the other fellers’ play half as much as it is takin’ fool chances that makes men walk home ’stead o’ takin’ the cars. There’s a heap o’ talk about one man playin’ better poker than another man, but my experience tells me that the principal trouble is not that one man plays better than another, but that one man don’t play so well as another. An’ it stands to reason that when a man don’t play as well as the other feller he’s goin’ to beat hisself.

“There was Jake Winterbottom,” continued the old man, as he straightened himself up and walked around to his favourite seat by the window. Winterbottom wasn’t in the room at the time, or probably Greenhut would not have mentioned him by name.

“There was Jake Winterbottom. Jake is a powerful good player now, an’ I reckon he can hold his end up in the most select circles. He’s played steady with the best talent of Arkansas City for a good many years, an’ any man that can do that don’t have to have no trepidation about settin’ in with the best of ’em.

“But I remember the time when Jake was about the easiest proposition there was to be found all up an’ down the river. ’Peared like there wa’n’t no possible way o’ losin’ money at the game that he hadn’t studied out an’ practised till he had ’em all down pat. He c’d lay down three of a kind against aces up with the same monotonous regularity that he’d bet a straight against a full. An’ he didn’t have no sense about the draw. He’d pull for a flush every time he got four of a suit, an’ sometimes when he had only three, no matter what the odds was in the bettin’. An’ when he did happen to have the winnin’ hand, if he bet it at all, which he wouldn’t half the time, he never got nothin’ to speak of out of it.

“I used to reason with him. There wa’n’t no reason as I know on why I should, for he wa’n’t nothin’ to me, more’n a fair, average customer, but somehow or other I allus cottoned to Jake f’m the time he struck the town till he’d come to be recognized as one o’ the leadin’ citizens. ’Peared like he made a impression on me f’m the first. Anyway, I felt kind o’ sorry to see him everlastin’ly buckin’ up ag’in a game that was too much for him, an’ I told him so, many’s the time.

“‘Jake,’ I used to say to him, ‘you hain’t no business playin’ with the Arkansas City crowd. They’ll do you, sure.’ But he’d always say: ‘Greenhut, I’m learnin’, an’ learnin’ is allus expensive. One o’ these days I’ll do ’em.’ So I let him alone.

“‘Peared like he learned all of a sudden. He’d been pikin’ along, playin’ a fiddlin’ game whenever he got a chance to stick his nose in, but givin’ no evidence o’ talent till this one night, when there was two strangers come in to do the talent. Jake was here an’ he had about seven dollars in his clothes when they made up a table stake game an’ each man put up fifty dollars. There was six playin’, too, so there was three hundred dollars on the table when they started. Jake, he looked on for awhile an’ never peeped. Didn’t think he’d be let in an’ consequent said nothin’ till three of the home talent dropped out, busted. That left Sam Pearsall playin’ agin the two strangers, an’ he were nervous. He wa’n’t much more’n holdin’ his own, an’ he looked round to see if there wasn’t somebody to set in. Joe Bassett an’ Jim Blaisdell was willin’ enough, but they had no money left, an’ Jake seein’ how things stood, he spoke up kind o’ timid like, an’ he says: ‘I don’t reckon I’d last more’n a few minutes, but I’ll take a hand if you’ll let me play for what I’ve got.’

“Sam spoke up quick an’ says, ‘I hain’t no objections,’ an’ the two strangers says, kind o’ careless, ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ so down he sets. But they was disgusted enough when they seen what his pile was. He dug up seven dollars an’ two bits, an’ bought his chips an’ took a hand.

“It were a dollar jack an’ one o’ the strangers opened it for four dollars, an’ Jake he throwed down. The stranger he win it, an’ the next deal it were Jake’s ante. He put up two bits, call four, an’ the others all come in an’ he wouldn’t make good. That left him just six dollars, but it were his deal.

“When I seen that deal I kind o’ says to myself that mebbe I’d sorter mistook Winterbottom, an’ mebbe he’d been practisin’ some. It were Pearsall’s ante, an’ he made it a dollar to play. The first stranger, he were a little cross-eyed man, he come in, an’ the other feller raised it two dollars. Jake he made good, takin’ three dollars, an’ Sam he raised it five. Then the cross-eyed man made it five more to play, an’ the other one stayed, an’ Jake called for a sight for his pile.

“Sam took two cards an’ the cross-eyed man took one. The next man took two, an’ Jake took two. Well, they all filled. Sam made a full, the cross-eyed man filled a flush, though it wa’n’t the straight flush he were after; the next man made a seven full, Sam’s bein’ nines, an’ Jake caught a fourth deuce.

“O’ course, all the bettin’ was amongst the other three, Jake on’y havin’ a show for the twenty-four dollars his six called for, but Sam raked in considerable over a hundred on the show-down.

“The next pot were a jack on the fours, an’ Sam made it five dollars to play. Neither one o’ the strangers opened, so it were up to Jake, an’ he busted it for nineteen dollars, bein’ his pile. Sam stayed out an’ the cross-eyed man came in, but he failed to fill, an’ Jake was on velvet with forty-eight dollars in front of him, havin’ opened on two jacks.

“There was nothin’ doin’ on the next deal, so that made it a dollar jack, an’ Jake’s first say. He opened it again for the size o’ the pot an’ got h’isted twice, so it cost him twenty more to play. When it come to the draw, he said he reckoned he’d split his openers, an’ he laid aside a queen, holdin’ up four spades.

“Well, that made a rippin’ good pot, for he filled his flush an’ bet all he had before he looked at his draw. Just naturally, Pearsall an’ the cross-eyed man both saw the bet, Sam havin’ three aces an’ the other man three kings.

“By this time they was all gettin’ pretty sore to think they’d let Jake in with his seven dollars, but it were too late to kick, an’ when it come his deal again, as it were, the next hand, I says to myself that I’d just about make up my mind accordin’ to what he did with the cards. If he was to lose, I’d consider it a streak o’ luck that he’d been havin’, but if he was to deal ’em as well as he had afore, I’d conclude that he was a-learnin’ the game.

“Well, after that deal was over, I never had no more doubts about Winterbottom. O’ course, havin’ as much money as he had to play with, ’twa’n’t necessary nor proper to look after Sam’s interest in the pot, so he didn’t deal Sam nothin’, but he gave the cross-eyed man three aces an’ the other feller a pat straight, takin’ care to have a seven spot handy when it would just fit into his sevens up on the draw. An’ the bettin’ just come so’s’t he had a chance to give the second raise an’ he scooped about a hundred an’ forty dollars on that pot.

“That left him winnin’ tol’able near all there was on the table, but the two strangers they both dug, an’ Sam stayed along with about thirty dollars that he had left, an’ the game went on.

“But, Lord bless ye, them fellers didn’t have no show. They couldn’t win, no matter what they did, an’ the game broke up in about twenty minutes, with Pearsall forty dollars ahead, an’ Jake winnin’ all the other money in sight.

“I ast him about it next day an’ he told me that he’d been a-studyin’ the game all the time since he’d first begun to play, an’ the way he sized it up it were no use for a man to bet on any cards unless he had a pretty good notion what was out against him. ‘Some fellers seems to know it by instinct,’ he says, ‘an’ some has luck, but I never had no luck to speak of, an’ when I come to tryin’ to judge of another man’s cards by instinct, I didn’t never seem to strike it right, so I made up my mind that the on’y thing for me to do was to study the cards an’ get so’s’t I c’d tell ’em by the feelin’. It takes a heap o’ work learnin’, but I worked, an’ if I do say it, Greenhut, I don’t reckon there’s any man on the river that can come nearer’n I can to tellin’ what cards is out, specially when I’ve dealt ’em.’

“Well, just naturally, a man with such talents as that ain’t a-goin’ to have his light hid under no bushel basket not for very long. The boys reco’nized his talents as quick as I did, an’ there ain’t no man in Arkansas City as is more respected an’ more thought of than Jake is. The best of it is that he’s square an’ don’t never play it low down on the home talent. But when it comes to a difficult proposition, such as sometimes has to be tackled when there’s a couple o’ clever strangers in town, I never feel safe without thinkin’ Jake Winterbottom is in the game. An’ if he is, why, the strangers don’t never get away with no alarmin’ amount of Arkansas City money.”

XX

KENNEY’S ROYAL FLUSH

“It’s a most surprisin’ thing,” said old man Greenhut as he set the bottles away behind the bar, “that folks don’t seem to ’preciate the importance o’ bein’ persistent. Now, that there Si Walker, ’t just come in here an’ took a drink an’ went out ’thout sayin’ a word to no one, is a bright an’ shinin’ example o’ never doin’ nothin’ worth while, ’cause he don’t never stick to it. Gits discouraged like an’ sets down an’ thinks about it, when if he’d on’y spit on his hands an’ take a fresh grip he mought come out a four-time winner. Why, I tell you that man might ’a’ been a justice o’ the peace an’ married the Widow Baker with four hundred acres o’ good farm land, no end o’ stock an’ utensils, an’ money in the bank, on’y fer that fatal habit o’ his o’ not stickin’ to it. Just give up, he did, ’cause he got beat out in two ’lections an’ wouldn’t run fer office no more, an’ when the widow said no three or four times, he ’lowed she didn’t want him an’ got out o’ the game, when the blame fool’d oughter knowed that all she wanted was a man with gumption enough to keep on courtin’.”

The old man turned his back for a moment, while he slyly poured a little water into a whiskey bottle in which the liquor was running low, and then placing it with the other bottles he came out to his favourite seat by the window and sat smoking for some minutes.

“Beats all,” he said, after awhile, “how folks lets go like that. Don’t seem to have no sense o’ religion. The Good Book says, ‘Go to the ant,’ you sluggers. Consider her ways and be wise. Now, there ain’t no p’ints about a ant that’s worth considerin’, ’cept their almighty stick-to-it-iveness. Stands to reason, it means fer us to keep peggin’ away till we git there. ’F Si Walker’d on’y pegged like the ants does, he mought ’a’ been rich an’ respected.

“There was Pete Kenney that dropped off’n a boat here some thirty year ago an’ just stayed. There didn’t seem to be no reason why he should ’a’ come here in the first place, or why he should ’a’ stayed after he arrove, but he did. Some said he must ’a’ dropped on to the boat by accident somewheres up the river, an’ the captain put him off at the first landin’, him not havin’ the regulation fare in his jeans. However ’twas, he come, an’ he remained. More’n that, he’s well fixed now an’ pays taxes.

“There warn’t no reason fer it, fer as anybody could see, ’ceptin’ Pete’s all-fired persistency. He was a bright enough sort o’ man an’ might ’a’ settled down in business fer himself, fer he got a job as bartender down to the hotel an’ made money. They do say as how a steady, industrious bartender in a hotel where there’s a good run o’ business an’ a boss that drinks some himself, can have a saloon of his own in a few years, an’ I reckon it’s pretty near true. I kept bar in a hotel myself when I was young.

“That wa’n’t Pete’s lay, though. Pete used to say that there was one way of establishin’ yourself in life that laid over any other, an’ that was to hold a royal flush in a good stiff game o’ draw-poker. Then, he says, it’s on’y a question o’ how much the others has got to inspire their confidence, an’ how much they has to bet with that fixes the amount to be gathered in, so’s’t a man can retire an’ be respectable fer the rest of his natural life.

“Some on us reasoned with Pete at times about this. We told him that royal flushes was sca’ce game, an’ that four of a kind was good enough fer a careful player to get rich on, but Pete ’lowed that a royal flush was the on’y thing a man could be dead sure of. Seems he’d had four queens beat when he was young, an’ he’d l’arned consid’able caution from th’ experience.

“‘As to a royal flush bein’ sca’ce,’ Pete says, ‘it stands to reason that a man’s goin’ to get it sometime, if he plays long enough. Stick to it,’ he says, ‘an’ sooner or later yer goin’ to git a royal flush. The on’y thing needed is to stick to it.’