Claim Number One Read online

  CHAPTER IX

  DOUBLE CROOKEDNESS

  Comanche was drying up like a leaky pail. There remained only the dregsof the thronging thousands who had chopped its streets to dust beneaththeir heels; and they were worked out, panned down to scant profit, andgrowing leaner picking every day.

  The ginger was gone out of the barker's spiel; the forced gaiety wasdying out of the loud levees where the abandoned of the earth held theirnightly carousals. Comanche was in the lethargy of dissolution; itstents were in the shadow of the approaching end.

  Most of the shows had gone, leaving great gaps in the tented streetswhere they had stood, their debris behind them, and many of the saloonswere packing their furnishings to follow. It had been a seasonablereaping; quick work, and plenty of it while it lasted; and they weredeparting with the cream of it in their pouches. What remained ran in astream too thin to divide, so the big ones were off, leaving the littlefellows to lick up the trickle.

  A few gambling-joints were doing business still, for men will gamblewhen they will neither eat nor drink. Hun Shanklin had set up a tent ofhis own, the big one in which he had made his stand at the beginninghaving been taken down. To make sure of police protection, he hadestablished himself on Main Street, next door to headquarters.

  Ten-Gallon, the chief, now constituted the entire force, all his specialofficers having been dropped to save expense to the municipality, sincethe population had begun to leak away so rapidly and the gamblers' trusthad been dissolved.

  The chief slept until the middle of each afternoon. Then he went on dutyin Hun Shanklin's tent, where he usually remained the rest of the day,his chair tilted back against the pole at the front end. It wasgenerally understood that he had a large interest in the game, which wasthe same old one of twenty-seven.

  On the side there was an army-game outfit at which a pimple-faced youngman presided, small whiskers growing between his humors where they hadescaped the razor, like the vegetation of that harsh land in the lowplaces, out of the destroying edge of the wind. For army-game was heldso innocuous in Comanche that even a cook might run it.

  It was the third day after the drawing, and the middle of the afternoon.That short-time had seen these many changes in Comanche, and every hourwas witnessing more. Mrs. Reed and her party had gone that morning inthe wagon sent for them from the Governor's ranch. The Hotel Metropole,now almost entirely without guests for its many tents and cots, wasbeing taken down.

  The red-nosed proprietor was loading cots into a wagon, his large wife,in a striped kimono with red ruffles at the sleeves and a large V ofbare bosom showing, standing in the door of the office-tent directinghis labors in a voice which suggested a mustache and knee-boots. Adangling strand of her greasy black hair swung in the wind across hercheek, at times lodging in the curve of it and obscuring her eye. As thelady's hands were both employed, one in holding up the train of herflorescent garb, the other in supporting her weight against thetent-pole, she had no free fingers to tuck the blowing wisp in place.So, when it lodged she blew it out of the way, slewing her mouth aroundto do so, and shutting one eye as if taking aim.

  All these employments left her no time for the man who had approachedwithin a few feet of her and stood with an inquiring poise as if askingpermission to speak. She went on with her directing, and skirt-holding,and leaning against the tent-pole, and blowing, without giving him afull look, although she had taken his appraisement with the corner ofher eye.

  The man was not of an appearance to inspire the hope of gain in thebosom of the hostess. His band-less slouch-hat flapped down over hisforehead and face, partly hiding a bandage, the sanguine dye of whichtold what it concealed. A black beard of some days' growth, the dust ofthe range caught in it, covered his chin and jowls; and a greasy khakicoat, such as sheep-herders wear, threatened to split upon his wideshoulders every time he moved his arms.

  His trousers were torn, and streaked with the stain of rain and clay. Hehad pinned the rents about his knees together, but he seemed soinsecurely covered that a strong wind might expose him, or a suddenstart burst his seams and scant contrivances to shield his nakedness. Hetouched his hat in a moment when he caught the quick eye of thelandlord's wife upon him again, and moved a little nearer.

  "Can you tell me, madam," said he respectfully, "what has become of theparty that was camped in the tent around on the other side--four ladiesand several men?"

  "We don't lodge either sheep-herders or sheep-shearers unless they takea bath first," said she, turning from him disdainfully.

  "But I am neither a herder nor a shearer," he protested, "although Imay----"

  "May be worse," she finished, though perhaps not in the way heintended.

  "Suit yourself about it," he yielded. "I don't want lodging, anyhow."

  The landlord came staggering in with an armload of cheap bed-covers andthrew them down where his dragoon of a wife directed with imperiousgesture.

  "Just look at all that money invested and no return!" she lamented.

  The battered stranger appealed to the landlord, repeating his question.

  "None of your business," the landlord replied crabbedly. "But they'regone, if that'll do you any good."

  "Did they leave two grips--a suitcase and a doctor's instrument-case--withyou?" inquired the man.

  "They left a pie-anno and a foldin'-bed, and a automobile and asafety-razor!" said the landlord, looking reproachfully at his big wife,who was motioning him out to his labors again.

  "Or any word for Dr. Slavens?" the stranger pursued with well-containedpatience.

  "What do you want to know for?" asked the woman, turning upon himsuddenly.

  "Because the grips belonged to me, madam; I am Dr. Slavens."

  The landlord looked at him sharply.

  "Oh, you're the feller that went off on a drunk, ain't you? I rememberyou now. Well, they didn't leave no grips here."

  "And no word either that I know of," added the woman.

  She swept Dr. Slavens with wondering eyes, for she had held a prettygood opinion of him before his sudden, and evidently heavy, fall.

  "But where in this world have you been, man?" she asked.

  "Nowhere in _this_ world," he answered. "I've been taking a littleside-trip to hell!"

  "You cert'nly look like it, mister!" the woman shuddered, closing thewide V at her bosom, the flaring garment clutched in her greatring-encumbered hand.

  "Will you tell me, then, about my friends?" he asked.

  "Gone; that's all we know," said she.

  "Part went on the train, two or three days ago; some went on the stage;and the rest left in a wagon this morning," said the landlord.

  But he couldn't tell who went on the train, the stage, or the wagon. Itwas none of his business, he said. They paid their bill; that was all heknew, or cared.

  "May I take a look around the tent to see if they left any written wordfor me there?" the doctor requested.

  "Go on," said the woman, a little softening of sympathy coming into herhard eyes.

  Dr. Slavens went back to the tent, which stood as it had been left thatmorning when the last of the party went away. The canvas under whichtheir table stood stretched there hospitably still, and the stove withthe morning's ashes cold upon its little hearth. Inside, the cots wereall in place, but there was not a line of writing from any friendly handto tell him where they had gone, or where his property had been left.

  He walked toward the business part of the town and turned down MainStreet, considering with himself what turn to make next. His head bentin meditation, he passed along lamely, his hands in the pockets of historn trousers, where there was nothing, not even the thickness of adime, to cramp his finger-room. Pausing in the aimless way of one whohas no unfinished business ahead of him, he looked around, marking thechanges which had come upon the street during those few days.

  The litter of broken camp was on every hand; broken barrels, piles ofboxes, scattered straw, bottles sown as thickly upon the ground as ifsomeone had planted
them there in the expectation of reaping a harvestof malt liquors and ardent spirits. Here the depression of a few inchesmarked where a tent had stood, the earth where the walls had protectedit from the beating feet showing a little higher all around; there inthe soft ground was the mark of a bar, the vapors of spilled liquorsrising sharply in the sun.

  Bands of boys and camp-dregs, of whom he might have been one from hisappearance, scraped and dug among the debris, searching for what mighthave been dropped from careless or drunken hands and trampled out ofsight. That they were rewarded frequently was attested by the sharpexclamations and triumphant cries.

  Across from where he stood was the site of a large place, its litteredleavings either already worked over or not yet touched. No one scratchedand peered among its trash-heaps or clawed over its reeking straw. Dr.Slavens took possession of the place, turning the loose earth and heapedaccumulations with his feet as he rooted around like a swine. It musthave been worked over and exhausted, he concluded, for it turned noglint of silver to the sun. Persisting, he worked across the space whichthe tent had covered, and sat down on a box to rest.

  The sun was low; the tops of two tall, round tents across the way camebetween it and his eyes when he sat down. That was the luck of somepeople, thought he, to arrive too late. The pay-dirt was all worked out;the pasturage was cropped; the dry sage was all gathered and burned.

  No matter. A man had but one moment of life to call his own, wroteMarcus Aurelius. The moment just passed into the score of time's count,the moment which the hand of the clock trembles over, a hair's breadthyet to go--these are no man's to claim. One is gone forever; the othermay mark the passing of his soul. Only this moment, this throb of theheart, this half-drawn breath, is a living man's to claim. The beggarhas it; the monarch can command no more. Poor as he was, Dr. Slavensthought, smiling as he worked his foot, into the trampled dust, he wasas rich in life's allotment as the best.

  The sole of his cut and broken shoe struck some little thing whichresisted, then turned up white beneath his eye. Broken porcelain, orbone fragment, it appeared. He would have pushed it aside with his toe;but just then it turned, showing the marking of a die.

  Here was a whimsical turn of circumstance, thought he. An outcast diefor a broken man, recalling by its presence the high games of chancewhich both of them had played in their day and lost, perhaps. It was alittle, round-cornered die, its spots marked deep and plain. As it layin his hand it brought reminiscences of Hun Shanklin, for it was of hispattern of dice, and his size, convenient for hiding between the fingersof his deceptive hand.

  Dr. Slavens rolled it on the box beside him. It seemed a true and honestdie, for it came up now an ace, now trey; now six, now deuce. He rolledit, rolled it, thinking of Hun Shanklin and Hun's long, loose-skinnedhand.

  For a place of wiles, such as Comanche had been and doubtless was still,it was a very honest little die, indeed. What use would anybody have forit there? he wondered. The memory of what he had seen dice do theremoved him to smile. Then the recollection of what had stood on that spotcame to him; the big tent, with the living pictures and variety show,and Hun Shanklin's crescent table over against the wall.

  That must have been the very spot of its location, with the divided wallof the tent back of him, through which he had disappeared on the nightthat Walker lost his money and Shanklin dropped his dice. Of course.That was the explanation. The little cube in Slavens' palm was one ofShanklin's honest dice, with which he tolled on the suckers. He had lostone of them in his precipitate retreat.

  Dr. Slavens put the cube in his pocket and got up, turning the debris ofthe camp again with his foot, watching for the gleam of silver. As heworked, a tubby man with whiskers turned out of the thin stream oftraffic which passed through the street and sat on one of the boxesnear at hand. He sat there wiping his face, which was as red andsweat-drenched as if he had just finished a race, holding his hat inhis hand, exclaiming and talking to himself.

  He was so self-centered in his overflowing indignation that he did notnotice the man kicking among the rubbish just a few feet away. Presentlythe little man drew out a roll of money and counted it on his knee, tolook up when he had finished, and shake his fist at the tent which stoodshoulder-to-shoulder by the police station. The gesture was accompaniedby maledictions upon crooks and robbers, and the force of hisexpressions made necessary the use of the handkerchief again. This theman took from his hat, which he held in his hand ready to receive itagain like a dish, and scrubbed his fiery face, set over with fierywhiskers and adorned with a fiery nose. When he had cooled himself a bithe sat watching the doctor at his labor, lifting his eyebrows every timehe blinked.

  "Lost something?" he asked.

  "Yes," replied the doctor, kicking away, not even looking at hisquestioner.

  "Well, if you dropped it out of your hand or through a hole in yourpocket you're lucky!" said the little man, shaking his fist at the tentwhere his wrath appeared to center. "This place is full of crooks.They'll rob you when you're asleep and they'll skin you when you'reawake, with both eyes open."

  The doctor had nothing to add to this, and no comment to append. The manon the box put on his hat, with a corner of handkerchief dangling fromit over his ear.

  "You live here?" he inquired.

  "Yes; right now I do," the doctor replied.

  "Well, do you know anything about a long, lean, one-eyed man that runs adice-game over there in that tent?"

  "I've heard of him," said the doctor.

  "Well, he skinned me out of two hundred dollars a little while ago,blast his gizzard!"

  "You're not the first one, and it's not likely that you'll be the last,"the doctor assured him, drawing a little nearer and studying the victimfrom beneath his hanging hat-brim.

  "No; maybe not," snapped the other. "But I'll even up with him before Igo away from here."

  "Would you be willing to risk ten dollars more on a chance to get itback?" asked the doctor.

  "Show me the man who can tell me how to do it, and watch me," bristledthe victim.

  "I know that man, and I know his scheme," said the doctor, "and I've gotone that will beat it."

  The whiskered man put his hand into the pocket where the remainder ofhis roll was stored, and looked at the battered stranger with adisfavoring scowl.

  "How do I know you ain't another crook?" he asked.

  "You don't know, and maybe I am a crook in a small way. I'm in hard luckright now."

  "What's your scheme?"

  "That's my capital," the doctor told him. "If I had a few dollars I'dput it through without splitting with anybody; but I haven't a cent.I've been kicking this straw and trash around here for the last hour inthe hope of turning up a dime. I'll say this to you: I'll undertake torecover your two hundred dollars for you if you'll put up ten. If I getit back, then you are to give me twenty-five of it, and if I win moreI'm to keep all above the two hundred. And you can hold on to your tendollars till we stand up to the table, and then you can hold to my coat.I can't get away with it, but I don't guarantee, you understand, thatI'll win."

  The little man was thoughtful a spell. When he looked up there was theglitter of hope in his sharp scrutiny.

  "It'd take a crook to beat that old man's game," said he, "and maybe youcan do it. As long as I can hold on to the money I don't see how I standto lose it, and I've got a notion to go you."

  "Suit yourself," said the doctor, turning again to his exploration ofthe straw.

  "Ain't much in that," commented the gambler's victim, watching him withpuzzled face.

  No comment from the searching man.

  "You're a funny feller, anyhow, and I got a notion to take you up.Crook, heh?"

  "Oh, a sort of a tin-horn," answered the doctor apparently indifferentabout the whole matter.

  Slavens was working farther away now, so the man left his place on thebox to draw within the range of confidential conversation.

  "If I was to put up the ten, would you be willing to go over there now
and put that scheme of yours in motion?" he asked.

  "No; not now. There would be some preliminaries. In the first place,that old man knows me, although he might not spot me at the first lookin this rig. I'd have to get a pair of goggles to hide my eyes. And thenthere would be supper."

  "Sure," agreed the little man. "I was going to ask you about that,anyhow."

  "Thank you. The crowd will be thicker in there about ten o'clocktonight, and he'll have more money on the table. It will be better forme and for my scheme to wait till about that time. It's a long shot,partner; I'll tell you that before you take it."

  "One in five?" asked the man, looking around cautiously, leaningforward, whispering.

  "Not one in twenty," discounted the doctor. "But if it goes, it goes assmooth as grease."

  The man stood considering it, looking as grave as a Scotch capitalist.Suddenly he jerked his head.

  "I'll take it!" said he.

  Over a greasy supper, in a tent away out on the edge of things, theyarranged the details of their plot against Hun Shanklin's sure thing.What scheme the doctor had in mind he kept to himself, but he toldhis co-conspirator how to carry himself, and, with six small billsand some paper, he made up as handsome a gambler's roll as could havebeen met with in all Comanche that night. Out of the middle of itsalluring girth the corner of a five-dollar note showed, and around theoutside Slavens bound a strip of the red handkerchief upon which thelittle man had mopped his sweating brow. It looked bungling enough forany sheep-herder's hoard, and fat enough to tempt old Hun Shanklin tolead its possessor on.

  After he had arranged it, the doctor pushed it across to his admiringcompanion.

  "No," said the little man, shaking his head; "you keep it. You may be acrook, but I'll trust you with it. Anyhow, if you are a crook, I'm onetoo, I reckon."

  "Both of us, then, for tonight," said the doctor, hooking the smokedgoggles behind his ears.