The Winds of Chance | Page 6

table.
Pierce had no intention of surrendering his place, and now the satisfaction of triumphing over these crooks excited him. He continued to cover the walnut-shell while with his free hand he drew his own money from his pocket. He saw that the owner of the game was suffering extreme discomfort at this checkmate, and he enjoyed the situation.
"I watched you trim that farmer a few minutes ago," Phillips' companion chuckled. "Now I'm going to make you put up or shut up. There's my three hundred. I can use it when it grows to six."
"How much are you betting?" the dealer inquired of Phillips.
Pierce had intended merely to risk a dollar or two, but now there came to him a thrilling thought. That notice at Healy
"Business appears to be picking up," murmured the proprietor of the game.
Phillips' neighbor continued to hold the boy's hand in a vicelike grip. Now he leaned forward, saying:
"Look here! Are you going to cover our coin or am I going to smoke you up?"
"The groans of the gambler is sweet music in their ears!" The dealer shrugged reluctantly and counted out four hundred and thirty-five dollars, which he separated into two piles.
A certain shame at his action swept over Phillips when he felt his companion's grasp relax and heard him say, "Turn her over, kid."
This was diamond cut diamond, of course; nevertheless, it was a low-down trick and--
Pierce Phillips started, he examined the interior of the walnut- shell in bewilderment, for he had lifted it only to find it quite empty.
"Every now and then I win a little one," the dealer intoned, gravely pocketing his winnings. "It only goes to show you that the hand--"
"Damnation!" exploded the man at Phillips' side. "Trimmed for three hundred, or I'm a goat!"
As Pierce walked away some one fell into step with him; it was the sullen, black-browed individual he had seen at the trading-post.
"So they took you for a hundred and thirty-five, eh? You must be rolling in coin," the man observed.
Even yet Pierce was more than a little dazed. "Do you know," said he, "I was sure I had the right shell."
"Why, of course you had the right one." The stranger laughed shortly. "They laid it up for you on purpose, then Kid Bridges worked a shift when he held your hand. You can't beat 'em."
Pierce halted. "Was he--was THAT fellow with the pack a booster?"
"Certainly. They're all boosters. The Kid carries enough hay on his back to feed a team. It's his bed. I've been here a week and I know 'em." The speaker stared in surprise at Phillips, who had broken into a hearty laugh. "Look here! A little hundred and thirty-five must be chicken feed to you. If you've got any more to toss away, toss it in my direction."
"That's what makes it so funny. You see, I haven't any more. That was my last dollar. Well, it serves me right. Now I can start from scratch and win on my own speed."
The dark-browed man studied Phillips curiously. "You're certain'y game," he announced. "I s'pose now you'll be wanting to sell some of your outfit. That's why I've been hanging around that game. I've picked up quite a bit of stuff that way, but I'm still short a few things and I'll buy--"
"I haven't a pound of grub. I came up second-class."
"Huh! Then you'll go back steerage."
"Oh no, I won't! I'm going on to Dawson." There was a momentary silence. "You say you've been here a week? Put me up for the night--until I get a job. Will you?"
The black-eyed man hesitated, then he grinned. "You've got your nerve, but--I'm blamed if I don't like it," said he. "My brother Jim is cooking supper now. Suppose we go over to the tent and ask him."
CHAPTER II
The headwaters of the Dyea River spring from a giant's punch-bowl. Three miles above timber-line the valley bottom widens out into a flinty field strewn with boulders which in ages past have lost their footing on the steep hills forming the sides of the cup. Between these boulders a thin carpet of moss is spread, but the slopes themselves are quite naked; they are seamed and cracked and weather-beaten, their surfaces are split and shattered from the play of the elements. High up toward the crest of one of them rides a glacier--a pallid, weeping sentinel which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of