Winston of the Prairie Part 19

The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the lad, who stood tensely still, while Winston watched the face of the man at the table in front of him. For a moment he saw a flicker of triumph in his eyes, and that decided him. Again, one by one, the cards went down, and then while everybody waited in strained expectancy the lad seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned.

"You can let up," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I've gone down!"

Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it said, "Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one."

In an instant the gambler's hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard brown fingers closed upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw Winston leaning very grim in face across the table. Then it tilted over beneath him and the cards were on the gambler's knees, while, as the two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of one of them.

It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie. In any case, he had not the opportunity, for in another moment Winston's right hand had closed upon his wrist and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to extricate it. He was a muscular man, with, doubtless, a sufficiency of nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for eight long years. Before another few seconds had pa.s.sed he was wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle of bills Winston handed him.

"Now," said the latter, "I want to do the square thing. If you'll let us strip you and turn out your pockets, we'll see you get any winnings you're ent.i.tled to when we've straightened up the cards."

The gambler was apparently not willing, for, though it is possible he would have found it advisable to play an honest game across the frontier, he had evidently surmised that there was less risk of detection among the Canadian farmers. He probably knew they would not wait long for his consent, but in the first stages of the altercation it is not as a rule insuperably difficult for a fearless man to hold his own against an indignant company who have no definite notion of what they mean to do, and it was to cover his retreat he turned to Winston.

"And who the ---- are you?" he asked.

Winston smiled grimly. "I guess you have heard of me. Any way, there are a good many places in Montana where they know Lance Courthorne.

Quite sure I know a straight game when I see it!"

The man's resistance vanished, but he had evidently been taught the necessity of making the best of defeat in his profession, and he laughed as he swept his glance around at the angry faces turned upon him.

"If you don't there's n.o.body does," he said. "Still, as you've got my pistol and 'most dislocated my wrist, the least you can do is to get a partner out of this."

There was an ominous murmur, and the lad's face showed livid with fury and humiliation, but Winston turned quietly to the hotel keeper.

"You will take this man with you into your side room and stop with him there," he said. "Dane, give him the bills. The rest of you had better sit down here and make a list of your losses, and you'll get whatever the fellow has upon him divided amongst you. Then, because I ask you, and you'd have had nothing but for me, you'll put him in his wagon and turn him out quietly upon the prairie."

"That's sense, and we don't want no circus here," said somebody.

A few voices were raised in protest, but when it became evident that one or two of the company were inclined to adopt more Draconic measures, Dane spoke quietly and forcibly, and was listened to. Then Winston reached out and grasped the shoulder of the English lad, who made the last attempt to rouse his companions.

"Let them alone, Ferris, and come along. You'll get most of what you lost back to-morrow, and we're going to take you home," he said.

Ferris turned upon him hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion, flushed in face, and swaying a trifle on his feet, while Winston noticed that he drew one arm back.

"Who are you to lay hands on a gentleman?" he asked. "Keep your distance. I'm going to stay here, and, if I'd had my way, we'd have kicked you out of Silverdale."

Winston dropped his hand, but the next moment the ornament of a distinguished family was seized by the neck, and the farmer glanced at Dane.

"We've had enough of this fooling, and he'll be grateful to me to-morrow," he said.

Then his captive was thrust, resisting strenuously, out of the room, and with Dane's a.s.sistance conveyed to the waiting wagon, into which he was flung almost speechless with indignation.

"Now," said Dane quietly, "you've given us a good deal more trouble than you're worth, Ferris, and if you attempt to get out again I'll break your head for you. Tell Courthorne how much that fellow got from you."

In another ten minutes they had jolted across the railroad track and were speeding through the silence of the lonely prairie. Above them the clear stars flung their cold radiance down through vast distances of liquid indigo, and the soft beat of hoofs was the only sound that disturbed the solemn stillness of the wilderness. Dane drew in a great breath of the cool night air, and laughed quietly.

"It's a good deal more wholesome here in several ways," said he. "If you're wise, you'll let up on card playing and hanging around the settlement, Ferris, and stick to farming. Even if you lose almost as many dollars over it, it will pay you considerably better. Now, that's all I'm going to tell you, but I know what I'm speaking of, because I've had my fling--and it's costing me more than I care to figure out still. You, however, can pull up, because by this time you have no doubt found out a good deal, if you're not all a fool. Curiosity's at the bottom of half our youthful follies, isn't it, Courthorne? We want to know what the things forbidden actually taste like."

"Well," said Winston dryly, "I don't quite know. You see, I had very little money in the old country and still less leisure here to spend either on that kind of experimenting. Where to get enough to eat was the one problem that worried me."

Dane turned a trifle sharply. "We are, I fancy, tolerably good friends. Isn't it a little unnecessary for you to adopt that tone with me?"

Winston laughed, but made no answer, and their companion said nothing at all. Either the night wind had a drowsy effect on him, or he was moodily resentful, for it was not until Winston pulled up before the homestead whose lands he farmed indifferently under Barrington's supervision, that he opened his mouth.

"You have got off very cheaply to-night, and if you're wise you'll let that kind of thing alone in future," said Winston quietly.

The lad stepped down from the wagon and then stood still. "I resent advice from you as much as I do your--uncalled for insolence an hour or two ago," he said. "To lie low until honest men got used to him would be considerably more becoming to a man like you."

"Well," said Winston, stung into forgetfulness, "I'm not going to offend in that fas.h.i.+on again, and you can go to the devil in the way that most pleases you. In fact, I only pulled you out of the pit to-night because a lady, who apparently takes a quite unwarranted interest in you, asked me to."

Ferris stared up at him, and his face showed almost livid through the luminous night.

"She asked you to!" he said. "By the Lord, I'll make you sorry for this."

Winston said nothing, but shook the reins, and when the wagon lurched forward Dane looked at him.

"I didn't know that before," he said.

"Well," said Winston dryly, "if I hadn't lost my temper with the lad, you wouldn't have known now."

Dane smiled. "You miss the point of it. Our engaging friend made himself the laughing-stock of the colony by favoring Maud Barrington with his attentions when he came out. In fact, I fancy the lady in desperation had to turn her uncle loose on him before he could be made to understand that they were not appreciated. I'd keep my eye on him, Courthorne, for the little beast has shown himself abominably vindictive occasionally, though I have a notion he's scarcely to be held accountable. It's a case of too pure a strain and consanguinity.

Two branches of the family--marriage between land and money, you see."

"It will be my heel if he gets in my way," said Winston grimly.

It was late when they reached his homestead, where Dane was to stay the night, and when they went in a youthful figure in uniform rose up in the big log-walled hall. For a moment Winston's heart almost stood still, and then holding himself in hand by a strenuous effort, he moved forward and stood where the light of a lamp did not s.h.i.+ne quite fully upon him. He knew that uniform, and he had also seen the lad who wore it, once or twice before, at an outpost six hundred miles away across the prairie. He knew the risk he took was great, but it was evident to him that if his ident.i.ty escaped detection at first sight, use would do the rest, and while he had worn a short-pointed beard on the Western prairie, he was cleanly shaven now.

The lad stood quite still a moment staring at him, and Winston returning his gaze steadily felt his pulses throb.

"Well, trooper, what has brought you here?" he said.

"Homestead visitation, sir," said the lad, who had a pleasant English voice. "Mr. Courthorne, I presume--accept my regrets if I stared too hard at you--but for a moment you reminded me of a man I knew. They've changed us round lately, and I'm from the Alberta squadron just sent into this district. It was late when I rode in, and your people were kind enough to put me up."

Winston laughed. "I have been taken for another man before. Would you like anything to drink, or a smoke before you turn in, trooper?"

"No, sir," said the lad. "If you'll sign my docket to show I've been here, I'll get some sleep. I've sixty miles to ride to-morrow."

Winston did as he was asked, and the trooper withdrew, while when they sat down to a last cigar it seemed to Dane that his companion's face was graver than usual.

"Did you notice the lad's astonishment when you came in?" he asked.

"He looked very much as if he had seen a ghost."

Winston smiled. "I believe he fancied he had. There was a man in the district he came from, who some folks considered resembled me. In reality, I was by no means like him, and he's dead now."

"Likenesses are curious things, and it's stranger still how folks alter," said Dane. "Now, they've a photograph at Barrington's of you as a boy, and while there is a resemblance in the face, n.o.body with any discernment would have fancied that lad would grow into a man like you.

Still, that's of no great moment, and I want to know just how you spotted the gambler. I had a tolerably expensive tuition in most games of chance in my callow days, and haven't forgotten completely what I was taught then, but though I watched the game, I saw nothing that led me to suspect crooked play."

Winston laughed. "I watched his face, and what I saw there decided me to try a bluff, but it was not until he turned the table over I knew I was right."