exaggerated tone. Kearns was coolly dispassionate and
noncommittal, while Elam Harnish appeared as quizzical and
jocular as ever. Eleven thousand dollars were already in the
pot, and the markers were heaped in a confused pile in the centre
of the table.
“I ain’t go no more markers,” Kearns remarked plaintively. “We’d
best begin I.O.U.’s.”
“Glad you’re going to stay,” was MacDonald’s cordial response.
“I ain’t stayed yet. I’ve got a thousand in already. How’s it
stand now?”
Burning Daylight
12
“It’ll cost you three thousand for a look in, but nobody will
stop you from raising.”
“Raise–hell. You must think I got a pat like yourself.”
Kearns looked at his hand. “But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mac.
I’ve got a hunch, and I’ll just see that three thousand.”
He wrote the sum on a slip of paper, signed his name, and
consigned it to the centre of the table.
French Louis became the focus of all eyes. He fingered his cards
nervously for a space. Then, with a “By Gar! Ah got not one
leetle beet hunch,” he regretfully tossed his hand into the
discards.
The next moment the hundred and odd pairs of eyes shifted to
Campbell.
“I won’t hump you, Jack,” he said, contenting himself with
calling the requisite two thousand.
The eyes shifted to Harnish, who scribbled on a piece of paper
and shoved it forward.
“I’ll just let you-all know this ain’t no Sunday-school society
of philanthropy,” he said. “I see you, Jack, and I raise you a
thousand. Here’s where you-all get action on your pat, Mac.”
“Action’s what I fatten on, and I lift another thousand,” was
MacDonald’s rejoinder. “Still got that hunch, Jack?”
“I still got the hunch.” Kearns fingered his cards a long
time. “And I’ll play it, but you’ve got to know how I stand.
There’s my steamer, the Bella–worth twenty thousand if she’s
worth an ounce. There’s Sixty Mile with five thousand in stock
on the shelves. And you know I got a sawmill coming in. It’s at
Linderman now, and the scow is building. Am I good?”
“Dig in; you’re sure good,” was Daylight’s answer. “And while
we’re about it, I may mention casual that I got twenty thousand
in Mac’s safe, there, and there’s twenty thousand more in the
ground on Moosehide. You know the ground, Campbell. Is they
that-all in the dirt?”
“There sure is, Daylight.”
“How much does it cost now?” Kearns asked.
“Two thousand to see.”
“We’ll sure hump you if you-all come in,” Daylight warned him.
Burning Daylight
13
“It’s an almighty good hunch,” Kearns said, adding his slip for
two thousand to the growing heap. “I can feel her crawlin’ up
and down my back.”
“I ain’t got a hunch, but I got a tolerable likeable hand,”
Campbell announced, as he slid in his slip; “but it’s not a
raising hand.”
“Mine is,” Daylight paused and wrote. “I see that thousand and
raise her the same old thousand.”
The Virgin, standing behind him, then did what a man’s best
friend was not privileged to do. Reaching over Daylight’s
shoulder, she picked up his hand and read it, at the same time
shielding the faces of the five cards close to his chest. What
she saw were three queens and a pair of eights, but nobody
guessed what she saw. Every player’s eyes were on her face as
she scanned the cards, but no sign did she give. Her features
might have been carved from ice, for her expression was precisely
the same before, during, and after. Not a muscle quivered; nor
was there the slightest dilation of a nostril, nor the slightest
increase of light in the eyes. She laid the hand face down again
on the table, and slowly the lingering eyes withdrew from her,
having learned nothing.
MacDonald smiled benevolently. “I see you, Daylight, and I hump
this time for two thousand. How’s that hunch, Jack?”
“Still a-crawling, Mac. You got me now, but that hunch is a
rip-snorter persuadin’ sort of a critter, and it’s my plain duty
to ride it. I call for three thousand. And I got another hunch:
Daylight’s going to call, too.”
“He sure is,” Daylight agreed, after Campbell had thrown up his
hand. “He knows when he’s up against it, and he plays accordin’.
I see that two thousand, and then I’ll see the draw.”
In a dead silence, save for the low voices of the three players,
the draw was made. Thirty-four thousand dollars were already in
the pot, and the play possibly not half over. To the Virgin’s
amazement, Daylight held up his three queens, discarding his
eights and calling for two cards. And this time not even she
dared look at what he had drawn. She knew her limit of control.
Nor did he look. The two new cards lay face down on the table
where they had been dealt to him.
“Cards?” Kearns asked of MacDonald.
“Got enough,” was the reply.
“You can draw if you want to, you know,” Kearns warned him.
Burning Daylight
14
“Nope; this’ll do me.”
Kearns himself drew two cards, but did not look at them.
Still Harnish let his cards lie.
“I never bet in the teeth of a pat hand,” he said slowly, looking
at the saloon-keeper. “You-all start her rolling, Mac.”
MacDonald counted his cards carefully, to make doubles sure it
was not a foul hand, wrote a sum on a paper slip, and slid it
into the pot, with the simple utterance:-
“Five thousand.”
Kearns, with every eye upon him, looked at his two-card draw,
counted the other three to dispel any doubt of holding more than
five cards, and wrote on a betting slip.
“I see you, Mac,” he said, “and I raise her a little thousand
just so as not to keep Daylight out.”
The concentrated gaze shifted to Daylight. He likewise examined
his draw and counted his five cards.
“I see that six thousand, and I raise her five thousand…just to
try and keep you out, Jack.”
“And I raise you five thousand just to lend a hand at keeping
Jack out,” MacDonald said, in turn.
His voice was slightly husky and strained, and a nervous twitch
in the corner of his mouth followed speech.
Kearns was pale, and those who looked on noted that his hand
trembled as he wrote his slip. But his voice was unchanged.
“I lift her along for five thousand,” he said.
Daylight was now the centre. The kerosene lamps above flung high
lights from the rash of sweat on his forehead. The bronze of his
cheeks was darkened by the accession of blood. His black eyes
glittered, and his nostrils were distended and eager. They were
large nostrils, tokening his descent from savage ancestors who
had survived by virtue of deep lungs and generous air-passages.
Yet, unlike MacDonald, his voice was firm and customary, and,
unlike Kearns, his hand did not tremble when he wrote.
“I call, for ten thousand,” he said. “Not that I’m afraid of
you-all, Mac. It’s that hunch of Jack’s.”
“I hump his hunch for five thousand just the same,” said
Burning Daylight
15
MacDonald. “I had the best hand before the draw, and I still
guess I got it.”
“Mebbe this is a case where a hunch after the draw is better’n
the hunch before,” Kearns remarked; “wherefore duty says, ‘Lift
her, Jack, lift her,’ and so I lift her another five thousand.”
Daylight leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the kerosene
lamps while he computed aloud.
“I was in nine thousand before the draw, and I saw and raised
eleven thousand–that makes thirty. I’m only good for ten more.”
He leaned forward and looked at Kearns. “So I call that ten
thousand.”
“You can raise if you want,” Kearns answered. “Your dogs are
good for five thousand in this game.”
“Nary dawg. You-all can win my dust and dirt, but nary one of my
dawgs. I just call.”
MacDonald considered for a long time. No one moved or whispered.
Not a muscle was relaxed on the part of the onlookers. Not the
weight of a body shifted from one leg to the other. It was a
sacred silence. Only could be heard the roaring draft of the
huge stove, and from without, muffled by the log-walls, the
howling of dogs. It was not every night that high stakes were
played on the Yukon, and for that matter, this was the highest in
the history of the country. The saloon-keeper finally spoke.
“If anybody else wins, they’ll have to take a mortgage on the
Tivoli.”
The two other players nodded.
“So I call, too.” MacDonald added his slip for five thousand.
Not one of them claimed the pot, and not one of them called the
size of his hand. Simultaneously and in silence they faced their
cards on the table, while a general tiptoeing and craning of
necks took place among the onlookers. Daylight showed four