CHAPTER X
HUN SHANKLIN'S COAT
Several sheep-herders, who had arrived late to dip into the vanishingdiversions of Comanche, and a few railroad men to whom pay-day had justsupplied a little more fuel to waste in its fires, were in HunShanklin's tent when Dr. Slavens and his backer arrived.
Shanklin was running off about the same old line of talk, for he wasmore voluble than inventive, and never varied it much. It served just aswell as a new lecture for every occasion, for the memory of suckers iseven shorter than their judgment.
Gents were invited to step up and weigh the honesty of those dice,and gaze on the folly of an old one-eyed feller who had no more sensethan to take such long chances. If anybody doubted that he took longchances, let that man step up and put down his money. Could he throwtwenty-seven, or couldn't he? That was the question, gents, and theodds were five to one that he could.
"I ain't in this business for my health, gents," he declared, pouringthe dice out on his table, shaking them, and pouring them again. "I'm agambler, and I'm here to make money, and make it as easy as I can; butif I'd been takin' my pay in sheepskins since I've been in this man'stown I wouldn't have enough of them to make me a coat. Live and let liveis my motto, and if you can't let 'em live let 'em die.
"Five times one dollar is five dollars, and five times five istwenty-five. Did any of you fellers ever make that much in a minute?Look at them dice. Take 'em in your hand; roll 'em on the table. Don'tthey run true and straight? Twenty-seven comes up for you sometimes, andit comes up for me. But it comes up oftener for me than it does for you,because I've got it charmed. That's m' lucky number. I was borned on the27th of Jannewarry, in Range 27, Township 27, twenty-seven mile fromTurkey Trail, Montaney, where the wind blows circles and the water runsup-hill.
"You win, friend," pushing stake and winnings to a sheep-herder who hadventured a dollar. "Five times one is five."
Interest in the game began to show rising temperature; the infection ofeasy money was working through the bystanders' sluggish blood. Shanklinkept the score of loss and gain a little in his own favor, as he wasable to do from his years of practice, while still leaving theimpression among the players that collectively they were cleaning himout. Some who felt sudden and sharp drains dropped out, but others tooktheir places, eyes distended, cheeks flushed, money in hand.
Dr. Slavens and his backer made their way to the front. Slavens notedthat Shanklin was making an extraordinary spread of money, which he hadbeside his hand in a little valise. It was craftily disposed in themouth of the half-open bag, which seemed crammed to the hinges with it,making an alluring bait. The long, black revolver of Shanklin's otherdays and nights lay there beside the bag asserting its large-caliberoffice of protection with a drowsy alligator look about it.
Slavens was as dirty and unwashed as the foulest in that crowd. Hiskhaki coat bore a varnish of grease, his hat was without band orbinding, and the growth of beard which covered his face like thebristles of a brush gave him the aspect of one who had long been thecompanion and warder of sheep upon the hills. With the added disguise ofthe smoked-glass goggles, common to travelers in that glaring, dustyland, it would have required one with a longer and more intimateacquaintance with him than Hun Shanklin could claim to pick him out of acrowd.
Slavens pulled out his roll and stood against the table, holding it inhis hand with a loutish display of excitement and caution, as if unableto make up his mind whether to risk it on the game or not. When Shanklinsaw it he began to direct his talk with a view to charming it out of thesupposed sheep-herder's hand.
With nervous fingers Slavens untied the strip of handkerchief, turnedhis back, and slipped off a dollar bill. This he put on the table with acautious leaning forward and a suspicious hovering over it with thehand, playing the part so well that Shanklin's sharp old eye wasentirely deceived.
"You win, friend," said Shanklin, pushing five dollars across the table."This is like takin' money away from a child."
There was some tolling to be done on both sides in that game. Slavensturned his back again, with a true pastoral show of secrecy concerninghis money, although he bungled it so that Shanklin could see him pullingthe five-dollar note from the middle of his roll, as if searching forthe next smallest bill. This he put on the table.
There was too much under his eye that throw for old Hun to let it getaway. So the magic twenty-seven came rattling out of the box, and Hunraked over his winnings with doleful face and solemn shaking of thehead, according to his way. He predicted feelingly that his luck couldnot last, and that the next time his number came up there would be onlytwo dollars on the table.
From the little pile of one-dollar bills under his hand--the five whichhe had won and the one that he had first staked--the doctor counted fiveslowly, and then counted it over again, to make sure. He won.
The others were watching him as he pushed the twenty-five dollars out inthe middle of the table with a defiant snort. He crouched over his stakewith guarding mien as old Hun took up the box and shook the dice. Theyfell near his hand, scattering a little, rolling over to the edge of hismoney as they settled down. He had won again.
This extraordinary luck seemed to turn the bettor's head. He spread outhis fingers, leaning lower over his stake, as if to prevent its beingswept away by violence or mistake.
"I won, I tell you! I won!" said he.
"You won, friend," said Hun, counting out the money to him, a look oftriumph in his greedy little eye. For, according to all the signs, thepoison was so deep in the supposed sheep-herder's blood that nothing butthe loss of all his hoard would cool it again.
Slavens nervously counted down twenty-five dollars again, keeping theremainder of his winnings in his hand, as if ready to take chance on thejump.
A man must have it given to him both ways in order to key him up to theright place, Hun Shanklin knew. All winning would no more do than allloss. So this time the loaded dice were switched into the box, and thecharmed number came out again.
"Hold on! Hold on!" protested the bettor as Shanklin started to sweepthe money away with one hand and gather in his tricky dice with theother. For Hun never left those dice any longer on the board thannecessary.
Slavens threw himself forward on the table, his elbows spread,scrutinizing the dice as if he had not yet figured the total.
"Yes; you win this time," said he grudgingly, removing his hand from hisstake, but dropping the money which he clutched in his fist at the sametime.
With fatherly kindness Shanklin admonished him to hold on to his money,and helped him pick it up. And, sharp as his old eye was, he did not seethat one of his precious dice, hidden under a bill, had changed placeswith another, which had waited that moment in the doctor's hand.
The others around the table had given the game over to the amazingsheep-herder who seemed to have so much cash. They stood by, gaping andexclaiming, growing hotter and hotter with the fever all the timethemselves, licking their dry lips, feeling of their money, gettingready to pitch into it as soon as the film of chance had thickened alittle on their eyes, shutting out reason entirely.
Slavens straightened up and gave his backer two gentle prods in theribs, which was the signal agreed upon to let the other know that thescheme was in working order, and that something was due to happen. Hecounted down one hundred dollars and stood expectant, while Shanklinheld his hand over the mouth of the dicebox and looked at him withcontemptuous reproach.
"No, you don't! No, you don't!" said Hun. "If you want to play thisman's game you got to shove up some money of your own. That money's mymoney, and you've been shovin' it on and draggin' it off so much I'mafraid you'll wear it out if you keep on.
"It's mine, I tell you! Every cent of it's mine! If you got any of yourown put it up, and then I'll roll 'em. If you got a hundred to pile ontop of that, or five hundred, or ten hundred, come on and pile it up.Then I'll roll 'em. But I ain't a goin' to stand here and speculate inmy own money all night!"
So there they
were, caught in a blind canyon when they thought they werecoming into the clear. That was an unlooked-for and unprepared-for turnthat Shanklin had given to their plans. Right when they had himunsuspectingly loaded up so he could no more throw twenty-seven than hecould fly, except by the tremendously long chance that the good diewould fall right to make up the count, he sat down on his hind legs andbalked.
Slavens was at the end of his rope. There appeared nothing for it but towithdraw the stake and sneak off with only half of his backer's loss ofthe afternoon retrieved. He was reaching out his hand to pull the moneyaway, when the little fellow with whiskers caught his arm.
Slavens thought he read a signal in the touch, and turned as if toconsult his roll again. As he did so the little man thrust a comfortablewad of bills into his hand, and Slavens faced the table, counting downfive one-hundred-dollar bills.
Hun Shanklin's eye was burning the backs of those aristocrats of thecurrency as he lifted his box.
"That's more like it," he commended. "I can play with a _gentleman_ thatcarries them things around with him all night, even if I lose at everythrow."
"Hold on!" said the doctor as Hun was tilting the box to throw. "Coverthat money before you throw. I've got six hundred dollars down there,and I want you to count out three thousand by the side of it."
"Well, I've got the money, friend, if that's what you doubt," saidShanklin, with a lofty air of the injured gentleman.
He drew a sheaf of bills from the valise and, in the stillness of awewhich had come over the crowd, counted down the required amount.
"I've won fortunes, gentlemen, and I've lost 'em," said Shanklin, takingup the box again. "Keep your eye on the dice."
He was so certain of what would come out of the box that he reached forthe money before the dice had settled, ready to sweep it away. But achange came over his face, as of sudden pain, when he saw the result ofthe throw, and with a little dry snort his hand shot out toward therevolver which lay beside his valise.
The little man with whiskers, admirably cool, got there first. HunShanklin was looking into the end of his own gun, and unloading, throughthe vent of his ugly, flat mouth, the accumulated venom of his life. Hewas caught in his own trap by a sharper man than himself, a being thatup to that minute he had believed the world could not produce.
Dr. Slavens quickly gathered the money. The others around the table,blazing now in their desire to get a division of fortune's favors, putdown their bets and called loudly for the gamekeeper to cover them.
"Game's closed," Shanklin announced, shutting up his valise, into whichhe had tossed both dice and box.
He made a move as if to part the tent-wall behind him.
"Hold on!" said the doctor, snatching off his goggles and pushing up thebrim of his hat. "I've got another score to settle with you, Shanklin.Do you know me now?"
Shanklin didn't wait to reply. He dropped to his knees just as Slavensreached for him, catching the collar of his coat. In an instant thegambler was gone, but his coat was in Dr. Slavens' hand, a circumstancefrom which the assembled men drew a great deal of merriment.
The chief of police, remiss in his high duty, should have been there tosustain Shanklin's hand, according to their gentlemanly agreement whenthe partnership was formed. He arrived too late. Shanklin was gone, andfrom the turmoil in the tent the chief concluded that he had trimmedsomebody in his old-fashioned, comfortable way. So his duty, as he sawit in that moment, lay in clearing them out and dispersing them, andturning deaf ears to all squeals from the shorn and skinned.
Dr. Slavens and his friend had nothing to linger for. They were thefirst to leave, the doctor carrying Shanklin's coat under his arm, thepockets of his own greasy makeshift bulging with more money than he everhad felt the touch of before. As they hurried along the dark street awayfrom the scene of their triumph, the little man with fiery whiskers didthe talking.
"Mackenzie is my name," said he, all of the suspicion gone out of him,deep, feeling admiration in its place, "and if you was to happen up tosouthern Montana you'd find me pretty well known. I've got fiftythousand sheep on the range up there, average four dollars a head, andI'd hand half of 'em over to you right now if you'd show me how youturned that trick. That was the slickest thing I ever saw!"
"It wouldn't do you any good at all to know how it was done," saidSlavens, "for it was a trick for the occasion and the man we worked iton. The thing for us to do is to go to some decent, quiet place anddivide this money."
"Give me my two hundred and the stake," said Mackenzie, "and keep therest. I don't need money; I've got two national banks full of it upthere in Montana now."
"Lord knows I need it!" said the doctor, beginning to sweat over thenearness to visions which he once believed he should never overhaul.
He stepped along so fast in his eagerness to come up with and lay handson them that Mackenzie was thrown into a trot to keep up.
"I don't know who you are or where you came from," said Mackenzie, "butyou're not a crook, anyhow. That money's yours; you got it out of him asbeautiful as I ever saw a man skinned in my day. But if you don't wantto tip it off, that's your business."
"It was a chance," said the doctor, recalling a night beside the riverand the words of Agnes when she spoke of that theme, "and I had thesense and the courage for once to take it."
In the cafe-tent where they had taken their supper they sat with a stewof canned oysters between them, and made the division of the money whichthe lost die had won. Mackenzie would accept no more than the twohundred dollars which he had lost on Shanklin's game, together with thefive hundred and ten advanced in the hope of regaining it.
It was near midnight when they parted, Mackenzie to seek hislodging-place, Dr. Slavens to make the rounds of the stores in thehope of finding one open in which he could buy a new outfit ofclothing. They were all closed and dark. The best that he could dotoward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done,he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment tohimself, and even an oil-lamp to light him to his rest.
Sitting there on the side of his bed, he explored the pockets of HunShanklin's coat. There were a number of business cards, advertisingvarious concerns in Comanche, which Shanklin had used for recording hismemoranda; two telegrams, and a printed page of paper, folded into smallspace. There was nothing more.
The paper was an extra edition of _The Chieftain_, such as the doctorhad grown sadly familiar with on the day of the drawing. With a returnof the heartsickness which he had felt that day, he unfolded it farenough to see the date. It was the day of the drawing. He dropped thehalf-folded sheet to the floor and took up the telegrams.
One, dated the day before, was from Meander. The other was evidentlyShanklin's reply, which perhaps had not been filed, or perhaps was acopy. The first read:
Can close with Peterson if you are sure he will be Number One. Be certain on numbers N. W. quar. 6-12-33. Repeat. Jerry.
The reply which Shanklin had written and perhaps sent, preserving a copyin his crafty, cautious way, was:
Peterson is Number One. N. W. quarter 6-12-33 is right.
There was neither name nor address on the telegram, but it was easy tosee that it was for "Jerry" at Meander. Some deal was on foot, a crookeddeal, no doubt, between Shanklin and somebody for something in whichPeterson and Number One----
Hold on! Slavens sat up with a quickening of interest in those two wordswhich he thought he never should feel again. Peterson! That was the nameof the winner of Number One. Certainly! Queer that he didn't put two andtwo together at the first glance, thought he. He wondered how much theywere paying Peterson for his relinquishment, and what there was in thenorthwest quarter of Section Six, Township Twelve, Range Thirty-three,that Hun Shanklin wanted to get his hands on.
Well, it was interesting, at any rate, even though he didn't drawhimself. In a flash he thought of Agnes and of her hopes, and her highnumber, and wondered whether she had gone
to Meander to file. Slavensheld up Shanklin's coat by the collar and ran through the pockets in thehope of finding something that would yield further particulars.
There was nothing else in the coat. It didn't matter, he reflected; hisinterest in Claim Number One was gone forever. He didn't care who hadit, or what was done with it, or whether Hun Shanklin and the man calledJerry gave ten thousand dollars for it or ten cents.
But that was a pretty good coat. It was a great deal better and morerespectable than the one he had on, and it looked as if it might comenearer fitting. True, Shanklin was a thin man; but he was wide.
The doctor put on the garment. It was a very comfortable fit; thesleeves were a little long, but there was room enough in the shoulders.Surprising, said he, how wide that old rascal was in the chest. Hetransferred his money to Hun Shanklin's pockets, chuckling at thethought that he was returning it whence it came. In conscience, said he,if conscience required such a palliative, he had made restitution.
On the floor at his foot lay the extra. In falling it had presented tohis view the other side of the fold. The ruled, double-column box, withthe surrounding type lifted irregularly around it, attracted hisattention. He picked it up, sat again on the edge of the bed, and readhis own name printed there as the winner of Number One.
He couldn't make it out. He turned the paper, looking again at the date."Owing to a mistake in transmitting the news," he read. He got up andwalked the length of his compartment, the paper in his hand. How wasthat? Number One--he was the winner of Number One! How was that? How_was_ that?
There was fortune's caper for you! Number One! And the time past--or buta few hours between then and the limit--for stepping up and claiming it!And Hun Shanklin had a hand in it. Wait a minute--wait!
Hun Shanklin, and a man called Jerry, and Peterson, the Swede. ButShanklin, who sent telegrams assuring somebody that Peterson was NumberOne--Shanklin most of all. Slavens passed his hand with tentativepressure over the soiled bandage which bound his brow, feeling withfinger and thumb along the dark stain which traced what it hid fromsight. Shanklin! That would explain some things, many things. Perhapsall things.
He stood there, counting on his fingers like a schoolboy, frowning as hecounted. One--two--three. The third day--that was the third day. And hewas Number One. And he had lost!
* * * * *
Out in the office of the lodging-place a lamp burned smokily at theelbow of an old man who read a paper by its light.
"This should be the twenty-eighth, according to my reckoning," saidSlavens, appearing before him and speaking without prelude.
The old man looked up, unfriendly, severe.
"You're purty good at figures," said he.
He bumped his bony shoulders over his paper again.
Undaunted, Slavens asked him the hour. The old clerk drew out a cheapwatch and held it close to his grizzled face.
"Time for all honest men but me and you to be in bed, I reckon. It's aquarter to one."
A quarter to one! Next morning--no; that very morning at nine o'clock,Peterson would step up to the window of the land-office in Meander andfile on Claim Number One--_his_ claim--Dr. Warren Slavens' claim, theseed of his dead hope. That is, if the long chance that lay between himand that hour should be allowed to pass unimproved.
"Do you want to sell that watch?" asked the doctor suddenly.
The old man looked up at him sharply, the shadow of his nose fallinglong upon his slanting paper.
"You go to thunder!" said he.
"No," said Slavens without showing offense. "I want that watch for a fewhours, and I'll pay you for it if you want to let me have it."
He drew out a roll of money as thick as the old man's thin neck, andstood with it in his hand. The old man slipped the leather thong fromhis buttonhole and laid the watch on the board in front of him.
"It cost me a dollar two or three years ago"--what was a year to him inhis fruitless life, anyway?--"and if you want to give me a dollar for itnow you can take it."
Slavens took up the timepiece after putting down the required price.
"I paid for my bed in advance, you remember?" said he.
The old clerk nodded, his dull eye on the pocket into which all thatmoney had disappeared.
"Well, I'm going out for a while, and I may not be back. That's all."
With that the doctor passed out into the street.
Eight hours between him and the last chance at Claim Number One--eighthours, and sixty miles. That was not such a mighty stretch for a goodhorse to cover in eight hours--nothing heroic; very ordinary in truth,for that country.
With a clearly defined purpose, Slavens headed for the corral oppositethe Hotel Metropole, beside which the man camped who had horses forhire. A lantern burned at the closed flap of the tent. After a littleshaking of the pole and rough shouting, the man himself appeared,overalled and booted and ready for business.
"You must weigh a hundred and seventy?" said he, eying his customer overafter he had been told what a horse was wanted for. "What's your hurryto git to Meander?"
"A hundred and eighty," corrected the doctor, "and none of yourbusiness! If you want to hire me a horse, bring him out. If you don't,talk fast."
"I ain't got one I'd hire you for that ride, heavy as you are," said theman; "but I've got one a feller left here for me to sell that I'd sellyou."
"Let me see him," said the doctor.
The man came out of the straw-covered shed presently, leading a prettyfair-looking creature. He carried a saddle under his arm. While thedoctor looked the beast over with the lantern the man saddled it.
"Well, how much?" demanded the doctor.
"Hundred and fifty," said the man.
"I'll give you a hundred, and that's fifty more than he's worth," thedoctor offered.
"Oh, well, seein' you're in such a rush," the man sighed.
As he pocketed the price he gave the directions asked.
"They's two roads to Meander," he explained; "one the freighters usethat runs over the hills and's solid in most all kinds of weather, andthe stage-road, that follows the river purty much. It's shorter by a fewmiles and easier to foller; but it's got some purty loose ground hereand there."
"Much obliged," said the doctor, striking his heels to his horse's sidesand galloping off, following the road which he had seen the stages taketo Meander, in the days when Claim Number One was farther off even thaneight hours and sixty miles.