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"Ah, Seattle," the brassbound official murmured. Then he looked into the now smiling face before him. "You ain't for Snake's Fall?"
"Guess I shouldn't have paid for a ticket to Seattle if I were," Gordon retorted with some sarcasm.
"That's so," observed the official, quite undisturbed. "I knew one guy was for Seattle. I was kind o' wondering 'bout him. Se-attle," he murmured reflectively.
"On the coast. A seaport. Puget Sound," said Gordon objectionably.
"A low down sailor town on the side of a hill, wher' if you ain't climbin' up you're mostly fallin' down. Wher' it rains nigh six months o' the year, an' parboils you the rest. Wher' every bum going to or coming from the Yukon gets thoroughly soused and plays the fool gener'ly."
The man's retort was as pointedly objectionable as Gordon's had been, and the challenge of it stirred the latter's sense of humor.
"Guess I'm one of the bums 'going to,'" he said cheerfully. The man's fat-surrounded eyes ceased to grin.
"Startin' fer the Yukon in – July? Never heard of it," he said, with a shake of the head. "It's as ridiculous as startin' fer hell in summer time. You'll make Alaska when she freezes up, and sit around till she opens next spring. Say – "
"You mean I'll get hung up for – ten months?" cried Gordon aghast.
"Jest depends on your business."
"Yes, of course."
Gordon's heart sank as the man grunted up from his seat, and handed him back his mutilated ticket. He watched him pass on down the car and finally vanish through the doorway of the parlor-car beyond. Then his eyes came back to his surroundings. He stared at the heads of his fellow travelers dotting the tops of the seats about him. Then his eyes dropped to his grip on the opposite seat lying under his overcoat, and again, later, they turned reflectively towards the window. Ten months. Ten months, and he only had six before him in which to accomplish his purpose. Was there ever a more perfect imbecile? Was there ever such a fool trick?
A smile of chagrin grew in his eyes as he remembered how he had arrived at the Pennsylvania Depot, and had studied the list of places to which he could go, seeking to find in the names an inspiration for the accomplishment of his purpose. There had been so many that his amazed head had been set whirling. There he had stood, wondering and gawking like some foolish country "Rube," without one single idea beyond the fact that he must go somewhere and make one hundred thousand dollars in six months' time.
Then had come that one illuminating flash. He saw the name in great capital letters in an advertisement. "The Yukon." Of course. It was the one and only place in the world for quick fortunes, and forthwith he had booked his passage to Seattle.
Nor was he likely to forget his immense satisfaction when he heard Harding's respectful "Yes, sir," in response to his information. Now he certainly was convinced that he was own brother to the finest bred jackass in the whole wide world. However, there was nothing to be done but go on to Seattle. He had paid for his ticket, and, Providence willing, to Seattle he would go.
But Providence had its own ideas upon the matter. Furthermore, Providence began at once to set its own machinery working in his behalf. It was the same Providence that looks after drunken men and imbeciles. Half an hour later it impelled him to gather up his traps and pass forward into the smoker, accompanied by one of his own big, expensive cigars.
He pushed his way into the car through the narrow door of communication. A haze of tobacco smoke blurred his view, but at once he became aware of a single, melancholy, benevolent eye gazing steadily at him.
It was an amiable eye and withal shrewd. Also it was surrounded by a shaggy dark brow. This had a fellow, too, but the eye belonging to the fellow was concealed beneath what was intended to be a flesh-tinted cover, secured in place by elastic round its owner's head.
The surrounding face was rugged and weather tanned. And it finished with a mop of iron-gray hair at one end, and an aggressively tufted chin beard at the other. But the thrusting whisker could not disguise the general strength of the face.
Below this was a spread of large body clad in a store suit of some pretensions, but of ill fit, and a heavy gold watchchain and a large diamond pin in the neckwear suggested opulence. Furthermore, One Eye suggested the prime of middle life, and robust health and satisfaction.
There was only one other occupant of the car. He was two or three seats away, across the aisle. He promptly claimed Gordon's attention. He was amusing himself by shooting "crap" on a baize-covered traveling-table. Both men were smoking hard, and, by the density of the atmosphere, and the aroma, the newcomer estimated that they, unlike himself, were not five-cent-cigar men.
He paused at the dice thrower's seat and watched the proceedings. The man appeared not to notice his approach at all, and continued to labor on with his pastime, carrying on a muttered address to the obdurate "bones."
"Come 'sev,'" he muttered again and again, as he flung the dice on the table with a flick of the fingers.
But the "seven" would not come up, and at last he raised a pair of keen black eyes to Gordon's face.
"Cussed things, them durned bones," he said briefly, and went on with his play.
Gordon smiled.
"It's like most things. It's luck that tells."
The player grinned down at the dice and nodded agreement, while he continued his muttered demands. Gordon flung his traps into another seat, and sat himself down opposite the man. Crap dice never failed to fascinate him.
The melancholy benevolence of One Eye remained fixed upon the pair.
The seven refused to come up, and finally the player desisted.
"Sort of workin' calculations," he explained, with an amiable grin. "An' they don't calc worth a cent. As you say, the hull blamed thing is chance. Sevens, or any other old things 'll just come up when they darned please, and neither me nor any other feller can make 'em come – playin' straight."
The man bared his gold-filled teeth in another amiable grin. And Gordon fell.
His unsuspicious mind was quite unable to appreciate the obvious cut of the man. The rather flashy style of his clothes. The keen, quick, black eyes. The disarming ingenuousness of his manner and speech. These things meant nothing to him. The men he knew were as ready to win or lose a few hundred dollars on the turn of a card as they were to drink a cocktail. The thought of sharp practice in gambling was something which never entered their heads.
He drew out a dollar bill and laid it on the table. The sight of it across the aisle made One Eye blink. But the black-eyed stranger promptly covered it, and picked up the dice. He shook them in the palm of his hand and spun them on the baize, clipping his fingers sharply.
"Come 'sev,'" he muttered.
The miracle of it. The seven came up and he swept in the two dollars. In a moment he had replaced them with a five-dollar bill. Gordon responded.
"I'll take two dollars of that," he said, and staked his money.
The man spun the dice, and a five came up. Then it was Gordon's turn to talk to the dice, calling on them for a seven each time the man threw. The play became absorbing, and One Eye, from across the aisle, craned forward. The seven came up before the five, and Gordon won, and the dice passed.
The game proceeded, and the luck alternated. Then Gordon began to win. He won consistently for awhile, and nearly twenty dollars had passed from the stranger's pocket to his.
It was an interesting study in psychology. Gordon was utterly without suspicion, and full of boyish enthusiasm. His blue eyes were full of excited interest. He followed each throw, and talked the jargon of the game like any gambler. All his boredom with the journey was gone. His quest was thrust into the background. Nothing troubled him in the least. The joy of the rolling dice was on him, and he laughed and jested as the wayward "bones" defied or acquiesced to his requirements.
The stranger was far more subtle. For a big powerful man he possessed absurdly delicate hands. He handled the dice with an expert touch, which Gordon utterly lacked. He talked to the dice as they fell in a manner quite devoid of enthusiasm, and as though muttering a formula from mere habit. He grumbled at his losses, and remained silent in victory, and all the while he smoked, and smoked, and watched his opponent with furtive eyes.
One Eye watched the game from the corner without a sign.
A stranger, on his way through the car, paused to watch the game. Presently he passed on, and then returned with another man.
After awhile Gordon's luck began to wane. His twenty dollars dropped to fifteen. Then to ten. Then to five. The stranger threw a run of "sevens." Then the dice passed. But Gordon lost them again, and presently the five dollars he was still winning passed out of his hands.
From that moment luck deserted him entirely. The stranger threw a succession of wins. Gordon increased his stakes to five-dollar bills. Now and again he pulled in a win, but always, it seemed, to lose two successive throws immediately afterwards. There were times when it seemed impossible to wrest the dice from his opponent. Whenever he held them himself he lost them almost immediately.
"Seventy-five dollars, that makes," he said, after one such loss. "They're going your way, sure."
"It's the luck of things," replied the stranger laconically.
One Eye across the aisle smiled to himself, and abandoned his craning.
Gordon plunged. He doubled his bets with the abandon of youth and inexperience. And the stranger never failed to tempt him that way when they were his dice. He always laid more stake than he believed his opponent would accept.
The hundred dollars was reached and passed in Gordon's losses. Still the game went on. He passed the hundred and fifty – and then Providence stepped in.
By this time a number of onlookers had gathered in the car. The place was full of smoke. They were standing in the aisle. They were sitting on the arms of the seats of the two players. One or two were leaning over the backs of the seats.
Suddenly the speeding train jolted heavily over some rough points. It swayed for a moment with a sort of deep-sea roll. The onlooker seated on the arm of the stranger's seat was jerked from his balance and sprawled on the player. In his efforts to save himself he grabbed at the table, which promptly toppled. The gambler made a lunge to save it, and, in the confusion of the moment, a second pair of crap dice, identical with the pair Gordon was about to shoot, rolled out of his hand.
Just for an instant there was a breathless pause as Gordon pounced on them. Then one word escaped him, and his face went deathly white as he glared furiously at the man across the table.
"Loaded!"
One Eye again craned forward. But now the patch was entirely removed from his second eye.
The next part of Providence's little game was played without a single word. One great fist shot out from Gordon's direction, and its impact with its object sounded dull and sodden. The gambler's head jolted backwards, and he felt as though his neck had been broken. Then the baize-covered table was projected across the car by Gordon's other great hand, while the spectators fled in the direction of the doorways, and pushed and scrambled their ways through.
Then ensued a wild scene. The animal was stirred to offense with a sublime abandon.
One Eye remained in his corner, his eyes alight with an appreciation hardly to have been expected, contemplating humorously the tangle of humanity as it moved, with lightning rapidity, all over the car. Once, as the battle swayed in his direction, he even moved his traps under the seat, lest their bulk should incommode the combatants.
For a moment, at the outset, the two men appeared to be a fair match. But the impression swiftly passed. The youth, the superb training, the skill of Gordon became like the sledge-hammer pounding of superior gunnery in warfare. He hit when and where he pleased, and warded the wilder blows of his opponent with almost unconcern. But the narrowness of the aisle and the presence of the seats saved the gambler, and both men staggered and bumped about in a way that deprived Gordon of much of the result of his advantage.
The train began to slow up. One Eye glanced apprehensively out of the window. He gathered up his belongings, and picked up the litter of money scattered on the floor.
Then he sat watching the fight – and his opportunity.
The men had closed. Regardless of all, they fought with a fury and abandon as cordial as it now became unscientific. The gambler, clinging to his opponent, strove to ward off the blows which fell upon his features like a hailstorm. Gordon, with superlative ferocity, was bent on leaving them unrecognizable. It was a bloody onslaught, but no more bloody than Gordon intended it to be. He was stirred now, a young lion, fighting for the only finish that would satisfy him.
One Eye's opportunity came. He made a run for the door as the train pulled up with a jolt.
But the fight went on. The stopping of the train conveyed nothing to the fighting men. Neither saw nor cared that one of the doors was suddenly flung open. Neither saw the rush of men in uniform. The invasion of their ring by the train crew meant nothing to them.
Then something happened.
CHAPTER IV
GORDON LANDS AT SNAKE'S FALL
Gordon sat up and rubbed his eyes. Then one blood-stained hand went up to his head, and its fingers passed through his ruffled hair. It smoothed its way down one cheek, and finally dropped to the ground on which he was sitting.
Where was he?
Suddenly he became aware of the metal track in front of him, and – remembered. He glanced down the track. Far in the distance he could see the speeding train. Then his eyes came back to his immediate surroundings, and discovered that he was sitting on the boarded footway of a small country railroad depot.
How did he get there? How on earth did he get there?
As no answer to his mute inquiry was forthcoming he explored further. He discovered that his grip and overcoat were beside him, also his hat. And some distance away a number of loungers were idly watching him, with a smile of profound amusement on every face.
The latter discovery filled him with a swiftly rising resentment, and, grabbing his hat and thrusting it on his head, he leaped to his feet. He had no intention of permitting amusement at his expense.
"I guess you sure had some good time," said a deep, musical voice at his elbow.
Gordon swung about and stood confronting the man, One Eye, whom he had seen in the train. For a moment he had it in mind to make some furiously resentful retort. But the man's appearance held his curiosity and diverted his purpose. The patch had been removed from his second eye, which now beamed upon him in company with its fellow.
"Guess these are yours," the man went on, thrusting a roll of bills out towards him. "That 'sharp' dropped his wad during the scrap. I hated to think a grafting train boss was goin' to collect it. You see, I guessed how that scrap would end."
"Are they mine?" Gordon was not quite sure he wasn't dreaming.
"Mostly."
The stranger's reply was full of dry humor. Suddenly Gordon's eyes lit.
"Where is that 'sharp'? I haven't done with – "
The stranger pointed after the train.
"You'll need to hustle some."
The anger died out of Gordon's eyes and he began to laugh. With some diffidence he accepted the money.
"Say, it's – mighty decent of you," he cried cordially. Then, for want of better means of expression, "Mighty decent."
The two men stood steadily regarding each other. Tall and broad as Gordon was, the stranger was no less. But he added to his stature the massiveness of additional years.
Gordon's feelings were under perfect control now. His eyes began to brighten with their native humor. He was longing to solve the mystery of that eye-shade which had disappeared from his companion's face, but was constrained to check his curiosity.
"You said you guessed how the scrap would end?" he said. "There's a sort of blank in my – memory. I mean about the finish."
The big stranger began to rumble in his throat. To Gordon the sound was comforting in its wholesome enjoyment.
"It don't need a heap of guessing when a train 'sharp,' who's got the conductor grafted from his brassbound cap to the soles of his rotten feet, gets into a scrap how things are going to end. I'd sort of hoped you'd 'out' him before the crew come along. Guess you'd have done it if there'd been more room. That's the worst of scrappin' in a railroad car," he added regretfully. "That train boss got along with his crew and threw you out – on your head. They kept the 'sharp' aboard, being well grafted, and figgered to hold up your baggage. I guessed diff'rently. That all your baggage?" he inquired anxiously.
Gordon gazed down at the grip and coat.
"That's all," he said. Then he impulsively threw out a hand, and the stranger took it. "It's decent – mighty decent of you." Again his buoyant laugh rang out. "Say, I surely do seem to have had some good time."
The twinkling eyes of the stranger nearly closed up in a cordial grin.
"Seems to me you're fixed here till to-morrow, anyway. There ain't any sort of train west till then. You best come along over to the hotel. They call it 'hotel' hereabouts. I'm goin' that way."
Gordon agreed, gathered up his property, and fell in beside his companion.
They moved across the track, and as they went he caught some impression of the ragged little prairie town at which he had so inadvertently arrived. There seemed to him to be but a single, unpaved street, consisting of virgin prairie beaten bare and hard by local traffic. This was lined on one side by a fringe of wooden houses of every size and condition, with gaps here and there for roads, yet to be made, turning out of it. These houses were mostly of a commercial nature. Back of this he vaguely understood there to be a sparse dotting of other houses, but their purpose and arrangement remained a mystery to him. Still farther afield he beheld the green eminence of foothills, and still farther on, away in the distance, the snowy ramparts of the Rocky Mountains. The town seemed to occupy only one side of the track – the south side. The depot was beyond it, on the other.
They picked their way across the track and debouched upon the Main Street, the name of which Gordon discovered painted in indifferent characters upon a disreputable signboard. Then they turned westwards in the direction of an isolated building rather larger than anything else in the village.
After awhile, as his companion made no further effort at conversation, Gordon's interest and curiosity refused to permit the continued silence.
"What State are we in?" he inquired.
"Montana."
Gordon glanced quickly at his companion.
