Ben Blair. Will Lillibridge
held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk eyes were bloodshot.
A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vandyke, was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table.
"Pass, damn it!" growled the man at the left.
"Pass," came from the next man.
"Pass," echoed the last of the quartette.
Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth.
"I open it."
The dealer took up the pack lovingly.
"Cards?"
The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots.
"Give me five."
The point of the Vandyke beard was aimed straight past the speaker.
"Cards?" repeated the dealer.
"Five! Can't you hear?"
The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the face of the dealer turned.
"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe me forty blues, Blair."
The long figure stiffened, the face went pale.
"You—mean—you—" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?"
For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the player next beyond.
"Cards?" for the third time.
Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors.
"Three."
A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt; then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar.
"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!"
Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board with a mighty crash.
"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of 'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."
Another pause, momentary but effective.
"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."
Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.
"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"
The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move. Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.
"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered bully, put up that gun!"
Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,—all but the terrible Cyclopean eye,—and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, his face protruding over it.
"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it was a woman, you coward!"
For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a mistake, had sized his man correctly.
"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice. "Make it as easy as you can."
Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.
"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up to everybody here for a week on your face."
"Can't you give me just a little more credit, Mick?" An expression meant to be a smile formed upon the haggard face. "Just for old time's sake? You know I've always been a good customer of yours, Kennedy."
"Not a cent."
"But I've got to have liquor!" One hand, ill-kept, but long of fingers and refined of shape, steadied the speaker. "I can't get along without it!"
"Sell something, then, and pay up."
The man thought a moment and shook his head.
"I haven't anything to sell; you know that. It's the wrong time of the year." He paused, and the travesty of a smile reappeared. "Next Winter—"
"You've got a horse outside."
For an instant Blair's gaunt face darkened at the insult; he grew almost dignified; but the drink curse had too strong a grip upon him and the odor of whiskey was in the air.
"Yes, I've a good horse," he said slowly. "What'll you give for him?"
"Seventy dollars."
"He's a good horse, worth a hundred."
"I'm glad of that, but I'm not dealing in horses. I make the offer just to oblige you. Besides, as you said, it's an off season."
"You won't give me more?"
"No."
Blair looked impotently about the room, but his former companions had returned to their game. Filling in the silence, the dull clatter of chips mingled with the drunken snores of the man on the floor.
"Very well, give me forty," he said at last.
"You accept, do you?"
"Yes."
"All right."
Blair waited a moment. "Aren't you going to give me what's coming?" he asked.
Slowly the single eye fixed him as before.
"I didn't know you had anything coming."
"Why, you just said forty dollars!"
There was no relenting in Kennedy's face.
"You owe that gentleman over there at the table for forty blues. I'll settle with him."
Instinctively, as before, Blair's thin hand went to his throat, clutching at the coarse flannel. He saw he was beaten.
"Well, give me a drink, anyway!"
Silently Mick took a big flask from the shelf and set it with a decanter upon the bar. Filling the glass, Blair drained it at a gulp, refilled and drained it—and then again.
"A little drop to take along with me," he whined.
Kennedy selected a pint bottle, filled it from the big flask, and silently proffered it over the board.
Blair took the extended favor, glanced once more about the room, and stumbled toward the exit. Mick busied himself wiping the soiled bar with a towel, if possible, even more filthy. At the threshold, his hand upon the knob, Blair paused, stiffened, grew livid in the face.
"May Satan blister your scoundrel souls, all of you!" he cursed.
Not a man within sound of his voice gave sign that he had heard, as the opened door returned to its casing with a crash.