Chapter 48 - Adventures in the Far West by Mayne Reid
The Game Interrupted
We played the first two or three games for low stakes—a dollar each. This was agreeable to the desire of Hatcher and the pork-merchant—who did not like to risk much as they had nearly forgotten the game. Both, however, made “hedge bets” freely against my partner, Chorley, and against any one who chose to take them up. These bets were on the turn-up, the colour, the “honours,” or the “odd trick.”
My partner and I won the two first games, and rapidly. I noted several instances of bad play on the part of our opponent. I began to believe that they really were not a match for us. Chorley said so with an air of triumph, as though we were playing merely for the honour of the thing, and the stakes were of no consequence. After a while, as we won another game, he repeated the boast.
The pork-dealer and his partner seemed to get a little nettled.
“It’s the cards,” said the latter, with an air of pique.
“Of coorse it’s the cards,” repeated white-hat. “Had nothing but darned rubbish since the game begun. Thar again!”
“Bad cards again?” inquired his partner with a sombre countenance.
“Bad as blazes! couldn’t win corn-shucks with ’em.”
“Come, gentlemen!” cried my partner, Chorley; “not exactly fair that—no hints.”
“Bah!” ejaculated the dealer. “Mout show you my hand, for that matter. Thar ain’t a trick in it.”
We won again!
Our adversaries, getting still more nettled at our success, now proposed doubling the stakes. This was agreed to, and another game played.
Again Chorley and I were winners, and the pork-man asked his partner if he would double again. The latter consented after a little hesitation, as though he thought the amount too high. Of course we, the winners, could not object, and once more we “swept the shin-plasters,” as Chorley euphoniously expressed it.
The stakes were again doubled, and possibly would have increased in the same ratio again and again had I not made a positive objection. I remembered the amount of cash I carried in my pocket, and knew that at such a rate, should fortune go against us, my purse would not hold out. I consented, however, to a stake of ten dollars each, and at this amount we continued the play.
It was well we had not gone higher, for from this time fortune seemed to desert us. We lost almost every time, and at the rate of ten dollars a game. I felt my purse grow sensibly lighter. I was in a fair way of being “cleared out.”
My partner, hitherto so cool, seemed to lose patience, at intervals anathematising the cards, and wishing he had never consented to a game of “nasty whist.” Whether it was this excitement that caused it I could not tell, but certainly he played badly—much worse than at the beginning. Several times he flung down his cards without thought or caution. It seemed as if his temper, ruffled at our repeated losses, rendered him careless, and even reckless, about the result. I was the more surprised at this, as but an hour before at Euchre I had seen him lose sums of double the amount apparently with the utmost indifference.
We had not bad luck neither. Each hand our cards were good; and several times I felt certain we should have won, had my partner played his hand more skilfully. As it was, we continued to lose, until I felt satisfied that nearly half of my money was in the pockets of Hatcher and the pork-dealer.
No doubt the whole of it would soon have found its way into the same receptacles, had not our game been suddenly, and somewhat mysteriously, interrupted.
Some loud words were heard—apparently from the lower deck—followed by a double report, as of two pistols discharged in rapid succession, and the moment after a voice called out, “Great God! there’s a man shot!”
The cards fell from our fingers—each seized his share of the stakes, springing to his feet as he did so; and then players, backers, lookers-on, and all, making for front and side entrances, rushed pell-mell out of the saloon.
Some ran down stairs—some sprang up to the hurricane-deck—some took aft, others forward, all crying out “Who is it?” “Where is he?” “Who fired?” “Is he killed?” and a dozen like interrogatories, interrupted at intervals by the screams of the ladies in their cabins. The alarm of the “woman overboard” was nothing to this new scene of excitement and confusion. But what was most mysterious was the fact that no killed or wounded individual could be found, nor any one who had either fired a pistol or had seen one fired! no man had been shot, nor had any man shot him!
What the deuce could it mean? Who had cried out that some one was shot? That no one could tell! Mystery, indeed. Lights were carried round into all the dark corners of the boat, but neither dead nor wounded, nor trace of blood, could be discovered; and at length men broke out in laughter, and stated their belief that the “hul thing was a hoax.” So declared the dealer in hog-meat, who seemed rather gratified that he no longer stood alone as a contriver of false alarms.