Part 16

"A couple of months after he quit Baltimore he turned up at The Dalles in Western Oregon and settled down to the career of a short poker player. Where he had picked up the game it would be hard to say; but he certainly was a daisy at it. There wasn't a kink in the game that he didn't have the hang of. Now, The Dalles isn't any bad man's camp; it is a very beautiful health resort in the Cascade Mountains, on the south bank of the Columbia River; there wasn't a hard character in the place until this educated buck established his headquarters there; and it suited his game to a T. He made it his business to nail young tourists who didn't have any more sense than to sit into a poker game with a stranger, much less an Indian, and an educated Indian at that; and he just stripped them in sets of fours for several years. He was a splendid-looking buck and he dressed as men dress who've got the money to tog themselves out right back this way. When he was engaged in the act of getting a new victim he knew how to throw much cordiality and some grace into his manners; but ordinarily he was a sulky, morose, bad Indian. 'Way down in the deeps of him he was a rank coward, for he never tried to twist his tentacles about a man who he thought would make a stand, much less a scrap, upon discovering that he was being done; he always picked out palpable lily-livers who looked, to his shrewd eye, as if they would stand for anything rather than mix it up with him.

"It did not take the square people of The Dalles long to get next to the fact that this educated Indian, who had coolly taken up his abode among them, was a cheat and a swindler, and that his sole occupation consisted in fleecing pulp-headed young tourists. They talked a great deal of giving him the razzle-dazzle and chasing him out, but somehow or other this suggestion never came to a head. The men at The Dalles who had the interest of the place at heart would point the swellerino buck out to young strangers who looked as if they might be likely victims of the Indian short-card fleecer, and tell the young goslings just where and how the buck stood. It may sound incredible, but even after being warned in this fashion a whole lot of the young addlepates fell into the buck's mesh and got themselves done to a proper turn by him. They were able to take care of themselves, they would reply chestily to their warners, and, just to prove it, they'd take a hack at the Indian's game. When they got through they'd be smoking punk tobacco in pipes while the Indian would be blowing the smoke of perfectos in their faces, and they'd stand for their craggy end of it without a whistle. The buck was 6 feet 3 inches high and weighed 235 pounds, and he looked like a macerator from the high ridges. So he was never called by any of his Dalles victims, even when they knew the details of how they'd been plucked. One poor little devil of a rich man's son from Omaha whimpered one night when the Indian had removed about $800 from him by dealing from both ends and the middle of the deck, and he said to the buck piteously:

"'I just hope you've played fair, that's all.'

"The Indian reached over and struck the pollywog with all of his force on both sides of the face with his two open palms, leaving the blood-red welt marks of his fingers on the lamb's fair cheeks. The whining victim drilled for his life up the hotel stairs to his room, and the Indian looked after him sardonically. There wasn't a man about that didn't know that the Indian had scandalously cheated the lad, but not a one of them said a word. There was a keen-eyed, big-framed, prematurely gray-haired man, a stranger, standing at the hotel desk reading a just-arrived letter, when the thing happened. His face flushed angrily when he saw the burly Indian slap the undersized fool of a boy, and he turned to the hotel clerk and remarked:

"'Is this the real thing here? Does the gang stand for that kind of work on the part of a mud-hided raw-meater?' There was plenty of contempt in the way the stranger spoke.

"The clerk shrugged his shoulders. 'We can't undertake to cut in on any of the plays of our guests,' he replied. 'We just board and lodge 'em, that's all. If they're jays enough to mix up with grafters, it's their game, and we're not asking for any rake-off, one way or the other.'

"The stranger muttered something about a chicken-livered population, and strolled out. He took his train an hour or so later.

"At certain seasons of the year, when there wasn't must doing in his line at The Dalles, owing to periodical scarcities of pluckable tourists, the Indian would hit up Baker City, Pendleton, and other Oregon towns in search of good things, and a couple of times a year he included Olympia and Walla Walla in his itinerary. He sung somewhat smaller in those places than he did at The Dalles, but by keeping his eye skinned for men liable to call the turn on him and working quietly he generally succeeded in pulling apart at least one jelly-fish in each of the towns he took in on these off-season tours.

"About three months after he had left the marks of his fingers on the lamb's face at The Dalles--this was in the fall of '92--he turned up one day at Walla Walla. He strolled around the hotel corridors with an eye to business, and along toward night he met with a young fellow named Hellen, whose father, a wealthy Chicago man, had recently foreclosed a mortgage on a big ranch about sixty miles from Walla Walla. The son, a rather raw young chap, had come out to look the ranch over, and the Indian got next to him as soon as he struck the town. The buck was an expert billiard player, and he suggested a game of pin billiards to the young Hellen chap. He played off on the youth, and soon got him to betting on shots. After losing about a dozen $5 bets on shots, the Indian socked it to the young man from Chicago by betting $300 that he could execute a certain difficult shot. It looked like board and lodging to the young man that the Indian's $300 would spin into his clothes, so he put up $300. The Indian made the shot with consummate ease and took down the pot.

"'Fluke!' said young Hellen. 'I'll go you another $300.'

"The buck got this bunch, too, without half trying. It would naturally be thought that the tenderfoot would have smelt a rat by this time. But he didn't. He had plenty of money, and probably he considered it piquant to lose his coin to a swagger-looking, educated Indian. Anyhow, the two were playing poker in the card-room of Walla Walla's stag hotel half an hour later.

"There were plenty of men in that card-room who knew that the Indian was a short-carder, but men out that way aren't garrulous, and they pay a heap of attention to the job of minding their own business. The youth from Chicago was the merest mutt in the hands of the Indian, and he lost from the jump. He would stand pat on a full house, and the buck, drawing three cards, would still beat him after sky-scraping betting. A number of onlookers at the game may have seen the little side-plays of the Indian, but they only grinned at each other over the hopeless imbecility of the young man from Chicago.

"Finally the Indian, perhaps losing some of his dexterity from the drinks he was steadily absorbing, over-stepped himself. He filled two pairs from the discard and he did it clumsily. The young man with whom he was playing saw the move.

"'I say, there,' said he, 'what are you doing there, you know?' pointing to the discard. 'Didn't you--er--didn't you make a mistake and take a card out of that pile?'

"The Indian, who was about $1,600 to the good, had cold feet, anyhow, and so he threw his hand face downward on the table and glared at the Chicago boy. The Chicago boy quailed.

"'Er--well, maybe I made the mistake myself'--he started to say, when a big voice cut in with:

"'No, you didn't son. You didn't make any mistake at all. You're up against the real thing in the way of a mud-skinned short-riffler, that's all.'

"A keen-eyed, big-framed, prematurely gray-haired man was the speaker. As he spoke he reached down from behind the Indian's chair and got two huge hands around the buck's neck. The onlookers formed a clearing. The Chicago youth got himself on the outskirts of the bunch.

"'About three months ago,' said the keen-eyed man, dragging the huge, half-choked Indian to his feet, 'I saw you at The Dalles leave the prints of your dirty fingers on the face of a little whiffet you had just fleeced. I hankered then to confer a few personally conducted slaps of my own make and manufacture on your coppery jowls, but for some reason or other I passed the hanker up on that occasion. Well, the slaps are coming to you now. It's better late than never, and I'm going to slap you into jerked beef just for luck.'

"The buck was finally up against the real thing, and he knew it. I'll bet that his face was whiter than mine is now when the big-framed man, who had the devil of anger lurking in his eyes, suddenly loosed his right hand from around the Indian's neck, and, still clutching him by the left, swept the loose arm back for the momentum and brought his heavy palm smack against the buck's left cheek with a noise that sounded like the explosion of a charge of blasting powder. The slap rattled the Indian's teeth and made his big head joggle from side to side like the head of an automaton. Clutching the Indian's throat again then with his right hand, the big-framed man repeated the slapping performance on the Indian's right cheek with his left hand, and left a welt there that might have been made by a cat-o'-nine tails. The buck was too dazed, in the first place, by the suddenness of it all, to make a move: in the second place, he was too cowardly. The big-framed man--he was an expert mining engineer from Nevada, and his name was Varus Pryor--slapped the Indian's face, first with his right and then with his left, for three minutes, with all his might, and then, getting behind the buck, proceeded to slap him into the street. With first one hand and then the other clutching the collar of the Indian's coat, he slapped him out to the front door of the hotel. Then he gave the buck the knee in the small of the back, and hoisted him across the pavement to the middle of the street, where the Indian spun around and fell for a moment.

"'I don't care what the Indian Bureau says about it,' said the keen-eyed man, standing in the doorway of the hotel. 'God Almighty never intended that white men should stand for such alligators as that copper-mugged swindler, and'----

"'Stand clear, pard, he's going to plug you!' shouted a man from a second-story window of the hotel.

"The Indian, pretending to be hurt, and only half risen to his feet in the obscurity of the middle of the street, had got his gun out, and the yell from the second story reached Pryor just in time. As it was, the buck planted a ball in the front door of the hotel, only two inches above the big-framed man's head. By that time Pryor's gun was working, and he drilled six holes forty-eight hundredths of an inch in diameter plumb through the swindling Umatilla's chest. Forty-five minutes later he was acquitted by a coroner's jury on the grounds of self-defense and justifiable homicide--a two-in-one verdict.

"This," concluded the traveling Inspector of Indian Agencies, "was the finish of just one mentally-burnished buck Indian, and I know of several others."

THE UNCERTAIN GAME OF STUD POKER.

_Story of a Seance at Stud Between Two Oregon Contractors and the Close Finish Thereof._

"Somehow or another, I don't like the game of stud," said a Government contractor from Portland, Ore. "It's too much of a strain to play stud. There are too many heart-breaking and headache-producing possibilities attached to the mysterious card the other fellow has got in the hole. I'd rather take the chance of guessing what all of his five cards are than to engage in the perspiring business of trying to figure out the horrible possible value of the one blind card, especially if the four cards he has exposed are capable of being amplified into a hand of the topper kind by the addition of that bit of pasteboard in the pit. I can't get away from the impression that it's like putting all of your money in one bet to play stud. Now, there's a good deal to the game of draw besides mere bluffing. In fact, bluffing is almost an obsolete feature of the game among the experts at draw poker. The man that plays his hand in draw will beat the bluffer every time in year-in-and-year-out play.

"The folks out my way had the stud-poker fad pretty badly about eight or ten years ago, but now they've got back to their first love and stick pretty generally to the game of California draw--which, by the way, is a whole lot different game from the draw you people back here play. For example, a man sprung a thing on me last night that he called a pat straight. I had three aces, but he said his pat straight topped me, and as he had his gang with him, I had to look pleasant and let him rake in the money. If a man out on the Slope were to talk pat straight to a party of aborigines, they'd conduct him to the Alcalde's calaboose and have him locked up to await a commission's decision as to his responsibility.

"But to get back to the period when the stud-poker fad got hold of us out in Oregon. I was a witness of a heart-disease finish of a game of that kind a few years back that caused me to decide that ordinary draw was good enough for my money right along. It was right after the big fire that ate up the best part of The Dalles eight years ago. As soon as the building contractors of Portland got word to the effect that The Dalles was being licked up by the flames, they hopped aboard trains and made for The Dalles with an eye to business. They knew that The Dalles, which was chiefly a wooden layout before the fire, would be immediately rebuilt in brick and stone, and that the contractors who got on the scene of ruin first would scoop in the bulk of the business. Two of these contractors were--well, I'll have to side-step on their names, for they're two of the most prominent citizens out on the banks of the Willamette, and both of 'em walk up the middle aisle on Sunday as if they never heard of such a thing as stud poker. Both of them are Irishmen, which is why neither of 'em could see that he was licked on this occasion.

"One of them, we'll say, was Dan Carmody, and the other was Tim Feeney. Carmody got into The Dalles a few hours ahead of Feeney, and he made those few hours count. He went around to the business men of The Dalles who had been wiped out by the fire and asked them what they wanted with him. They hadn't burned the wires up telegraphing for Carmody to come to them, but Carmody about convinced them that they had done just this thing, and he began making estimates for 'em with pencil and pad. He corralled them in the one remaining hall of the town and told them to go ahead and just let him know what they wanted of him. Carmody's cyclonic nerve appealed to their fancy, and they found themselves juggling with the figures Carmody was putting down on his pad. Three hours after Carmody struck The Dalles from Portland he had in his inside coat pocket rough drafts of contracts to build a new stone business block, including a theater, and also to erect a large, ornate hotel, the cost of both buildings to be not more than $350,000. Oh, Carmody was a hustler all right.

"He had an idea that his friend and business rival, Tom Feeney, would be down on the next train from Portland, and he went to the station to receive him. Sure enough, Feeney stepped off the next incoming train. Carmody had his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and a big cigar stuck aggravatingly in his teeth when Feeney ran into him. Feeney's jaw fell.

"'When did you get in, Dan?' he asked Carmody.

"'Three hours ago,' replied Dan, with a grin.

"Feeney made a funny motion, as if to jump aboard a train that was just pulling out for Portland, but he came back to his cheerful rival and asked him:

"'Anything doing, Dan?'

"Carmody executed two very shifty jig steps in token of his happiness, and then reassumed his dignity.

"'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Tim,' he said. 'These people here are pretty badly chewed up, y' see. Now, maybe they'll be wanting to rebuild a few chicken coops and outhouses--I don't know but what they will. Now, there's a chance for you, Tim.'

"Feeney didn't look very merry over this. Says he: 'Chicken coops, is it? And who's going to throw up the new business building and the opera house, and the hotel, and the like?'

"Carmody was laying for that question. He drew the two rough contracts out of his pocket.

"' Looks as if I'm It over here, don't it, Tim?' he asked Feeney, as the latter read over the two contracts with a gloomy countenance. 'Nice work, hey? That's what you get for monkeying around in bed all the morning, Tim. Why don't you be like me, now? I never go to bed,' etc. Carmody couldn't refrain from working that nice edge of his, and strung the dismal-faced Feeney for keeps. Feeney finally walked away, the picture of dejection, to see if there were any crumbs to be picked up in the way of rebuilding. He found, however, that all of the business men that had not already been got by Carmody were disposed to wait awhile for the disposition of insurance, and he didn't get a smell of the rebuilding. He walked around the still-smoking Dalles for the remainder of the day, figuring on how much Carmody was going to make out of his two big contracts. Carmody himself started in to open wine by way of celebration, so that by the time the night boat for Portland was ready to leave her slip he was pretty comfortable. Both he and Feeney took the night boat and I happened to be going down to Portland on the boat myself that night. Feeney had taken the bowl himself a bit during the day to assuage his depression over his lack of success, and he was pretty mellow when the boat pulled out. Carmody, with about a dozen quarts under his belt, dug Feeney up as soon as he got aboard, and the two walked up and down the main deck, arm in arm, Carmody keeping up his merciless stringing of his friend. Then Carmody heard the clatter of the chips in a $10 limit game of stud that had already started in the card-room, and suggested a two-handed game of stud to Feeney, with some accommodating non-player to deal the cards. Feeney was agreeable, and Carmody, seeing that I wasn't mixing up with the game in the card-room, asked me if I wouldn't dish 'em out for an hour or so of stud between himself and Feeney. It was to be $100 limit and $10 ante. The two men didn't get up to the $100 limit at all until after they had played for half an hour, and Carmody was $600 or $700 winner. Then Feeney found himself with kings up on tens in front of him and a card that he either liked or elected to bluff on in the hole, while Carmody had three aces face up and a card in the hole that he appeared to think a heap of, judging from the way he bet.

"'These kings of mine,' said Feeney, with the transparent air of a man making a win-out bluff, 'may not look very pretty alongside those three bullets of yours, Carmody, but they suit me, at that. You can have a peep at the blind for $100.'

"'I wouldn't think of paying so little money for the privilege of gazing at such a good card as you think you've got, Tim,' said Carmody. 'Now, having already got you beat on the show-up, I guess I can afford to charge you another $100 for a glimpse of the other one-spot that I've got in the pit.'

"This kind of talk went on for ten minutes, the two men raising each other back at $100 a clip until there was $3800 in the pot. Feeney talked and acted like a bluffer all the time, but nevertheless Carmody began to suspect that, after all, Tim might have something in the hole to beat him. So when Carmody called Feeney's last $100 raise the latter knew that his friend with the contracts in his pocket didn't have any four aces, and he just scooped in the pot before he showed up what he had in the hole. It was the third king, completing a nice full hand, that Feeney had in the hole, and the money was his. Carmody turned up a deuce, that he had tried to make the bluff was another ace, and looked properly crestfallen.

"'For a Mulligan that knows so little about business as you, Tim,' said Carmody, 'you've got a mighty crafty way about you of making it appear that you're bluffing. We'll try it again, and from now on I'll know that when you look and talk like you're bluffing you've got the hand.'

"Both men had been ringing up the steward's boy a good deal, during the progress of the game, and they were not, therefore, any more sober than was necessary. On the very next hand Feeney took a big hunk out of his rival. He had three deuces face up and Carmody had three jacks on top. Feeney began to bet $100 with so much natty confidence that Carmody decided that his compatriot was adopting new tactics in bluffing, and, quite naturally, with his three nice-looking jacks plainly in sight, he not only stood every raise but raised back the limit every time.

"'I figure it this way,' said Carmody, abstractedly to himself, when there was nigh onto $4000 in chips in the center of the baize. 'This Harp from Connemara across the table can't turn two of these tricks one right after the other. The percentage of the game is against such a thing as that. And he's just perky and sassy because he thinks I'm on to his first exhibited system of bluffing. Tim, another $100, if you want to feast your Mulligan blue eyes on this other knave of mine in the hole.'

"'And $100,' said Feeney, with all the confidence in life.

"Thus they went on for fully fifteen minutes, until the proportions of the pot were really alarming, considering that neither of the men was a millionaire or anything like it. There was $7200 in the middle of the table when Carmody wilted. He attempted to put his wilt on philanthropic grounds.

"'With a drink or two in you, Tim,' he said, 'you're an incautious and unwise citizen for a man humping along toward 60 years of age'--Feeney wasn't more than 48, and didn't look that. 'And Mrs. Feeney's been telling my wife for the past twelve years that she's aching to have a look at the old sod, but that her man Tim considers himself too poor for the journey. So I won't be the means of casting gloom around your household, Tim. I see your $100, and what's the color of that cheap ten or eight spot you've got in the hole?'

"Feeney turned over his fourth deuce and hauled down the money. That sort o' took Carmody's nerve and he had to have several big drinks of the hard stuff to set him right again. While he was drinking Feeney took up the end of the stringing that Carmody had abandoned.

"'How much do you figure you'll pull down from those two contracts, Dan?' he asked his rival in business.

"'About $75,000,' answered Carmody quickly, 'which is just about $75,000 more than The Dalles fire has been worth to you, eh, Tim?'

"'What's the use of depleting the capital that you've already got in bank?' asked Feeney, with a twinkle in his eye. 'Just play me stud for those contracts. I'll say they're worth $60,000, and I'm good for that if I'm good for a cent.'

"Carmody studied for a moment. He was already out $11,000 in this poker game, and he wanted that money back. The idea of playing his contracts against Feeney's hard cash rather appealed to his imagination, which was not less active on account of the huge quantity of stuff he had been drinking.