Rimrock Jones | Page 5

he quavered, "the bank is broke." And he turned the box on its side.
A shout went up--the glad yell of the multitude--and Rimrock rose up grinning.
"Who said to pull out?" he demanded arrogantly, looking about for the glowering L. W. "Huh, huh!" he chuckled, "quit your luck when you're winning? Quit your luck and your luck will quit you--the drinks for the house, barkeep!"
He was standing at the bar, stuffing money into his pockets, when Ike Bray, the proprietor, appeared. Rimrock turned, all smiles, as he heard his voice on the stairs and lolled back against the bar. More than once in the past Bray had taken his roll but now it was his turn to laugh.
"Lemme see," he remarked as he felt Bray's eyes upon him, "I wonder how much I win."
He drew out the bills from his faded overalls and began laboriously to count them out into his hat.
Ike Bray stopped and looked at him, a little, twisted man with his hair still rumpled from the bed.
"Where's that dealer?" he shrilled in his high, complaining voice. "I'll kill the danged piker--that bank ain't broke yet--I got a big roll, right here!"
He waved it in the air and came limping forward until he stood facing Rimrock Jones.
"You think you broke me, do you?" he demanded insolently as Rimrock looked up from his count.
"You can see for yourself," answered Rimrock contentedly, and held out his well-filled hat.
"You're a piker!" yelled Bray. "You don't dare to come back at me. I'll play you one turn win or lose--for your pile!"
A hundred voices rang out at once, giving Rimrock all kinds of advice, but L. W.'s rose above them all.
"Don't you do it!" he roared. "He'll clean you, for a certainty!" But Rimrock's blue eyes were aflame.
"All right, Mr. Man," he answered on the instant, and went over and sat down in his chair. "But bring me a new pack and shuffle 'em clean, and I'll do the cutting myself."
"Ahhr!" snarled Bray, who was in villainous humor, as he hurled himself into his place. "Y'needn't make no cracks--I'm on the square--and I'll take no lip from anybody!"
"Well, shuffle 'em up then," answered Rimrock quietly, "and when I feel like it I'll make my bet."
It was the middle of the night, as Bray's days were divided, and even yet he was hardly awake; but he shuffled the cards until Rimrock was satisfied and then locked them into the box. The case-keeper sat opposite, to keep track of the cards, and a look-out on the stand at one end, and while a mob of surging onlookers fought at their backs they watched the slow turning of the cards.
"Why don't you bet?" snapped Bray; but Rimrock jerked his head and beckoned him to go on.
"Yes, and lose half on splits," he answered grimly, "I'll bet when it comes the last turn."
The deal went on till only three cards remained in the bottom of the box. By the record of the case-keeper they were the deuce and the jack--the top card, already shown, did not count.
"The jack," said Rimrock and piled up his money on the enameled card on the board.
"You lose," rasped out Bray without waiting for the turn and then drew off the upper card. The jack lay, a loser, in the box below and as he shoved it slowly out the deuce appeared underneath.
"How'd you know?" flashed back Rimrock as Bray reached for his money, but the gambler laughed in his face.
"I outlucked you, you yap," he answered harshly. "That dealer--he wasn't worth hell room!"
"Gimme a fiver to eat on!" demanded Rimrock as Bray banked the money, but he flipped him fifty cents. It was the customary stake, the sop thrown by the gambler to the man who has lost his last cent, and Bray sloughed it without losing his count.
"Go on, now," he said, still keeping to the formula, "go back and polish a drill!"
It was the form of dismissal for the hardrock miners whose earnings he was wont to take, but Rimrock was not particular.
"All right, Ike," he said and as he drifted out the door his prosperity friends disappeared. Only L. W. remained, a scornful twist to his lips, and the sight of him left Rimrock sick. "Yes, rub it in!" he said defiantly and L. W., too, walked away.
In his sober moments--when he was out on the desert or slugging away underground--Rimrock Jones was neither childish nor a fool. He was a serious man, with great hopes before him; and a past, not ignoble, behind. But after months of solitude, of hard, yegging work and hopes deferred, the town set his nerves all a-tingle--even Gunsight, a mere dot on the map--and he was drunk before he took his first drink. Drunk with mischief and spontaneous laughter, drunk with good