The Coming of Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

dollars. He was mildly surprised that he had won, but explained it to himself by thinking that the stakes were not yet high enough. From then on he was keenly alert, for the crookedness would come soon if it ever did, but he strung small sums on the next dozen turns and waited for a new deal before plunging.

As the dealer shuffled the cards the door opened and closed noisily and a surprised and doubting voice exclaimed: “Ain’t you Hopalong Cassidy? Cassidy, of th’ Bar-20?”

Hopalong glanced up swiftly and back to the cards again: “Yes; what of it?”

“Oh, nothin’. I saw you onct an’ I wondered if I was right.”

“Ain’t got time now; see you later, mebby.

You might stick around outside so I can borrow some money if I go broke.” The man who knew Mr. Cassidy silently faded, but did not stick around, thereby proving that the player knew human nature and also how to get rid of a pest.

When the dealer heard the name he glanced keenly at the owner of it, exchanged significant looks with the case-keeper and faltered for an instant as he shoved the cards together. He was not sure that he had shuffled them right, and an anxious look came into his eyes as he realized that the deal must go on. It was far from reassuring to set out to cheat a man so well known for expert short-gun work as the Bar-20 puncher and he wished he could be relieved. There was no other dealer around at that time of the day and he had to go through with it. He did not dare to shuffle again and chance losing the card beyond hope, and for the reason that the player was watching him like a hawk.

A ten lay face up on the deck and Hopalong, tallying against it on his sheet, began to play small sums. Luck was variable and remained so until the first twenty dollar bet, when he reached out excitedly and raked in his winnings, his coat sleeve at the same time brushing the cuecard off the table. But he had forgotten all about the tally sheet in his eagerness to win and played several more cards before he noticed it was missing and sought for it. Smothering a curse he glanced at the case-keeper’s tally and went on with the play. He did not see the look of relief that showed momentarily on the faces of the dealer and his associates, but he guessed it.

He had no use for cuecards when he felt like doing without them; he liked to see them in use by the players because it showed the game to be more or less straight, and it also saved him from over-heating his memory. When he had brushed his tally sheet off the table he knew what he was doing, and he knew every card that had been drawn out of the box. So far he had seen no signs of cheating and he wished to give the dealer a chance. There should now remain in the deal box three cards, a deuce, five and a four, with a Queen in sight as the last winner. He knew this to be true because he had given all his attention to memorizing the cards as they showed in the deal box, and had made his bets small so he would not have to bother about them. As he had lost three times on a four he now believed it was due to win.

Taking all his money he placed it on the four: “Two hundred and seventy on th’ four to win,” he remarked, crisply.

The dealer sniffed almost inaudibly and the case-keeper prepared to cover him on the cuerack under cover of the excitement of the turn. If the four lay under the Queen, Cassidy lost; if not he either won or was in hock. The dealer was unusually grave as he grasped the deal box to make the turn and as the Queen slid off a fivespot showed.

The dealer’s hand trembled as he slid the five off, showing a four, and a winner for Hopalong. He went white he had bungled the shuffle in his indecision and now he didn’t know what might develop. And in his agitation he exposed the hock card before he realized what he was doing, and showed another five. He had made the mistake of showing the “odd.”

Hopalong, ready for trouble, was more prepared than the others and he was well under way before they started. His left hand swung hard against the case-keeper’s jaw, his Colt roared at the drawing bartender, crumpling the troublehunter into a heap on the floor dazed from shock of a ball that “creased” his head. He had done this as he sprang to his feet and his left hand, dropping swiftly to the heavy table, threw it over onto the lookout and the dealer at the instant their hands found their guns. Caught off their balance they went down under it and before they could move sufficiently to do any damage, Hopalong vaulted the table and kicked their guns out of their hands. When they realized just what had happened a still-smoking Colt covered them. Many of Hopalong’s most successful and spectacular plays had been less carefully thought out beforehand than this one and he laughed sneeringly as he looked at the men who had been so greedy as to try to clean him out the second time.

“Get up!” he snarled.

They crawled out of their trap and sullenly obeyed his hand, backing against the wall. The case-keeper was still unconscious and Hopalong, disarming him, dragged him to the wall with the others.

“I wondered where that deuce had crawled to,” Mr. Cassidy remarked, grimly, “an’I was goin’ to see, only it’s plain now. I knowed you was clumsy, but my G-d! Any man as can’t deal ‘single-odd’ ought to quit th’ business, or play straight. So you had five fives agin me, eh? Instead of keepin’ th’ five under th’ Queen, you bungled th’ deuce in its place. When you went to pull off th’ Queen an’ five like they was one card, you had th’ deuce under her. You see, I keep cases in my old red head an’ I didn’t have to believe what th’ cuerack was all fixed to show me. An’ I was waitin’, all ready for th’ play that’d make me lose.

“As long as this deal was framed up, we’ll say it was this mornin’. You cough up th’ hundred an’ ten I lost then, an’ another hundred an’ ten that I’d won if it wasn’t crooked. An’ don’t forget that two-seventy I just pulled down, neither. Make it in double eagles an’ don’t be slow ‘bout it. Money or lead with you callin’ th’ turn.” It was not a very large amount and it took only a moment to count it out. The eleven double eagles representing the mornin’s play seemed to slide from the dealer’s hand with reluctance but a man lives only once, and they slid without stopping.

The winner, taking the money, picked up the last money he had bet and, distributing it over his person to equalize the weight, gathered up the guns from the floor. Backing toward the door he noticed that the bartender moved and a keen glance at that unfortunate assured him that he would live.

When he reached the door he stopped a moment to ask a question, the tenseness of his expression relaxing into a broad, apologetic grin. “Would you mind tellin’ me where I can find some more frame-ups? I shore can use th’ money.”

The mumbled replies mentioned a locality not to be found on any map of the surface of the globe, and grinning still more broadly, Mr. Cassidy side-stepped and disappeared to find his horse and go on his way rejoicing.

VIII THE NORTHER

JOHNNY knew I had a notebook crammed with the stories his friends had told me; but Johnny, being a wise youth, also knew that there was always room for one more. Perhaps that explains his sarcasm, for, as he calmly turned his back on his fuming friend, he winked at me and sauntered off, whistling cheerfully.

Red spread his feet apart, jammed his fists against his thighs and stared after the youngster. His expression was a study and his open mouth struggled for a retort, but in vain. After a moment he shook his head and slowly turned to me. “Hear th’ fool? He’s from Idyho, he is. It never gets cold nowhere else on earth. Ain’t it terrible to be so ignorant?” He glanced at the bunkhouse, into which Johnny had gone for dry clothing. “So I ain’t never seen no cold weather?” he mused thoughtfully. Snapping his fingers irritably, he wheeled toward the corral. “I’m goin’ down to look at th’ dam there’s been lots of water leanin’ ag’in it th’ last week. Throw th’ leather on Saint, if you wants, an’ come along. I’ll tell you about some cold weather that had th’ Idyho brand faded. Cold weather! Huh!”

As he swung past the bunkhouse we saw Johnny and Billy Jordan leaning in the doorway ragging each other, as cubs will. Johnny grinned at Red and executed a one-hand phrase of the sign language that is universally known, which Red returned with a chuckle. “Wish he’d been here th’ time God took a hand in a big game on this ranch,” he said. “I’m minus two toes on each foot in consequence thereof. They can’t scare me none by preachin’ a red-hot hell. No, sir; not any.”

He was silent a moment. “Mebby it ain’t so bad when a feller is used to it; but we ain’t. An’ it frequent hits us goin’ over th’ fence, with both feet off th’ ground. Anyhow, that Norther wasn’t no storm it was th’ attendant agitation caused by th’ North Pole visitin’ th’ Gulf.

“Cowan had just put Buckskin on th’ map by buildin’ th’ first shack. John Bartlett an’ Shorty Jones, d—n him, was startin’ th’ Double Arrow with two hundred head. When th’ aforementioned agitation was over they had less ‘n one hundred. We lost a lot of cows, too; but our range is sheltered good, an’ that rock wall down past Meeker’s bunkhouse stopped our drifts, though lots of th’ cows died there.

“We’d had a mild winter for two weeks, an’ a lot of rain. We was chirpin’ like li’l fool birds about winter bein’ over. Ever notice how many times winter is over before it is? But Buck didn’t think so; an’ he shore can smell weather. We was also discussin’ a certain campin’ party Jimmy had discovered across th’ river. Jimmy was at th’ bunkhouse that shift an’ he was a great hand for snoopin’ around kickin’ up trouble. He reports there’s twelve in th’ party an’ they’re camped back of Split Hill. Now, Split Hill is no place for a camp, even in th’ summer; an’ what got us was th’ idea of campin’ at all in th’ winter. It riled Buck till he forgot to cross off three days on th’ calendar, which we later discovered by help of th’ almanac an’ th’ moon. Buck sends Hoppy over to scout around Split Hill. You know Hoppy. He scouted for two days without bein’ seen, an’ without discoverin’ any lawful an’ sane reason why twelve hardlookin’ fellers should be campin’ back of Split Hill in th’ winter time. He also found they; had come from th’ south, an’ he swore there wasn’t no cow tracks leadin’ toward them from our range. But there was lots of hoss tracks back and forth. An’ when he reports that th’ campers had left an’ gone on north we all feel better. Then he adds they turned east below