CHAPTER XXV.

THE MAN IN THE NEXT ROOM.

Gentle Willie Touch, of the Outlaws, was an inveterate poker player. He was likewise a constant loser, but the more he lost the keener became his desire to play; and so whenever he was paid his salary or could borrow money to get into a game, he might be found trying to “hatch up something.”

At the Sunset House, as the members of Harrison’s ball team lounged around after dinner, Willie sought to inveigle some of his comrades into tempting fortune with the pasteboards.

“Oh, come on, you sick kittens,” he pleaded softly. “Come ahead up to my room and rob me. I’ve got twenty bucks all in hard money that’s too heavy for me to carry around. The weight of so much silver is a severe strain upon my delicate strength, and some one will be doing me a favor by taking it away from me.”

“Get out!” growled Grouch Kennedy. “I’m ashamed to play with you, you’re such a thundering mark. Every time I get into a game and you go broke I want to hand you back anything I’ve won, and that causes me intense pain; for I can’t seem to give up money without distress. I’ve sworn off, Willie boy; I’ll play with you no more.”

“Cruel old Groucher!” sighed Touch. “Now you know you’re welcome to my dough when you win it honestly.”

“Talk about honesty in a poker game!” sneered Kennedy. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“You know there’s supposed to be honesty even among thieves.”

“‘Supposed to be’ is good! You’ll have to find somebody else, Willie. Your twenty doesn’t tempt me. I’m sore because these locals got cold feet, and I’d be poor company, anyhow. I might growl.”

“Goodness!” said Willie. “If you didn’t, everybody would think you sick. You’re always sore about something, you old groucher. Tell you what I think, I have a notion that you’re afraid of me. You’re not willing to give me a chance to get even. That’s a mean disposition.”

But he could not taunt Kennedy into playing. Nevertheless, in time he found three men who were willing to sit into a game for a while--Buzzsaw Stover, Warwhoop Clinker, and South-paw Pope. They followed him up to his room, where the quartette peeled off their coats, rolled up their sleeves, and seated themselves around a table upon which Willie tossed a well-thumbed pack of cards.

“Too bad we couldn’t find one more man,” said Touch. “Five players make a better game than four. Shall we use chips?”

“Nix,” said Warwhoop. “Let’s play with real money, and then there won’t be any disagreement and chewing the rag over settling up. Every time chips are used the banker finds himself short. Cold cash is better, and out in this country there’s always plenty of coin floating around. I’ve got a pocket full of chicken feed.”

“Haven’t you better cards than these, Willie?” asked South-paw, looking the pack over disdainfully.

“Dunno,” was the answer. “Mebbe I have in my clothes somewhere. I’ll see.”

Touch opened the door of a closet at the back of the room and went through a suit of clothes hanging inside that closet.

“Nothing doing,” he called. “Those are all the cards I have. Perhaps I’d better go out and get a new pack.”

“Aw, forget it!” rasped Buzzsaw. “These’ll do. Come on, let’s get down to business.”

Seated at the table, they produced fists full of silver and gold money and cut the cards for the first deal.

“Dollar limit?” inquired Warwhoop.

“Let’s make it a little lighter,” urged Touch. “With that limit my twenty wouldn’t last long if luck ran against me as usual. Luck--Grouch says you’re all thieves. He doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as honesty among poker players.”

“Grouch judges everybody by himself,” said Stover, who had cut “low” and was shuffling the cards. “Still, I’m willing to call it a half, with a dime limit; there seems to be plenty of dimes. Cut, Clinker. Your ante, South-paw.”

Touch piled up his silver dollars in front of him, kissing them, one after another.

“Good-by, boys,” he murmured. “I know we must part. You’ll soon be scattered among my good friends, these thieves. I love money, but, oh, you little game of draw!”

“Hark!” rasped Buzzsaw. “What’s that?”

To a sad and doleful tune some one in the adjoining room was singing:

“We from childhood played together, Heap fine comrade, Jack and I; We would fight each other’s battles, To each other’s aid we’d fly.”

“Oh, cut it out!” roared Buzzsaw. “Go file your voice.”

“That’s the tune the old cat died on,” cried South-paw.

“Something awful!” growled Warwhoop. “It would drive a man to murder.”

“These partitions are very thin,” said Gentle Willie. “I don’t think much of the old man bunking us in this place, when he might have put us up at the Antlers, the Alamo, or the Alta Vista.”

“Oh, what do you want, anyhow?” cried Warwhoop. “Do you want to be a howling swell? If he had put us up at any one of those places it would have cost him two or three times as much as it does here. Here the feed is good, the bed is fair, and I’m not kicking for some of the places we’ve bunked in. Let’s play poker.”

As the game got under way they were still further disturbed by a doleful, wailing chant which floated in from the adjoining room. Listening in spite of themselves, they heard something like this:

“No booka lo go dana, No booka lo go dana, No booka lo go dana-- Happy he away yah!”

“What the blazes is it,” snarled Buzzsaw; “Chinese, Hottentot, or----”

“Injun,” said South-paw. “If that ain’t an Injun dirge I’ll eat my hat.”

“Sure it is,” agreed Warwhoop. “They’ve put a couple of Injuns into that room, a crazy old brave and a tall young buck.”

“They seem to be celebrating,” laughed Gentle Willie. “I should say they had been indulging in fire water.”

“Don’t talk of it,” entreated Warwhoop. “You make me thirsty, and I have to be careful to let the booze alone while the baseball season is in swing.”

Clinker’s besetting weakness was his taste for liquor. Started on a toot by a single drink, he invariably went the limit, which meant a protracted spree from which he always recovered in a shaky condition.

The doleful singing continuing, they yelled threats at the singer and threw things against the partition. The result was a sudden burst of fierce and startling whoops and yells, followed by a return thumping on that same partition.

“Wow!” gasped Warwhoop, his eyes bulging. “I think mebbe we’d better let that party alone. He may break through and attempt to scalp us if we continue to irritate him.”

“Close the door to the closet, Willie,” directed South-paw. “That’s what makes us hear it so plain.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Touch, as he rose and peered into the closet. “The old partition is only boarded up part way. There’s an opening two feet wide at the top.”

Closing the door, he returned to his seat and the game continued. To the delight of Touch, luck favored him from the first, and it was not long before his twenty became forty.

“I know my hoodoo now,” he laughed; “it’s old Groucher. I always lose with him in the game. We wanted a fifth man to play.”

The door of the closet swung open, and old Joe Crowfoot stepped softly into the room.

“You like-um ’nother man to play?” he asked eagerly. “Shangowah, he play poke’ sometime. He sit in now. He take little hand.”