his sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick,
his body sawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship.
He drained another glass to the dregs, whilst the cards
were being dealt.
He took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up for a moment.
The gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification by
hardly perceptible signs.
‘How many cards?’
‘None! ‘ said Backus.
One villain–named Hank Wiley–discarded one card, the others three each.
The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been trifling–
a dollar or two; but Backus started off with an eagle now,
Wiley hesitated a moment, then ‘saw it’ and ‘went ten dollars better.’
The other two threw up their hands.
Backus went twenty better. Wiley said–
‘I see that, and go you a hundred better!’ then smiled and reached
for the money.
‘Let it alone,’ said Backus, with drunken gravity.
‘What! you mean to say you’re going to cover it?’
‘Cover it? Well, I reckon I am–and lay another hundred on top
of it, too.’
He reached down inside his overcoat and produced the required sum.
‘Oh, that’s your little game, is it? I see your raise,
and raise it five hundred!’ said Wiley.
‘Five hundred better.’ said the foolish bull-driver,
and pulled out the amount and showered it on the pile.
The three conspirators hardly tried to conceal their exultation.
All diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp exclamations
came thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew higher and higher.
At last ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on
the table, and said with mocking gentleness–
‘Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts–
what do you say NOW?’
‘I CALL you!’ said Backus, heaving his golden shot-bag on the pile.
‘What have you got?’
‘Four kings, you d–d fool!’ and Wiley threw down his cards and surrounded
the stakes with his arms.
‘Four ACES, you ass!’ thundered Backus, covering his man
with a cocked revolver. ‘I’M A PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER MYSELF,
AND I’VE BEEN LAYING FOR YOU DUFFERS ALL THIS VOYAGE!’
Down went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the long trip was ended.
Well–well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus’s ‘pal.’
It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an understanding with
the two victims, he was to have given Backus four queens, but alas, he didn’t.
A week later, I stumbled upon Backus–arrayed in the height of fashion–
in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting–
‘Ah, by-the-way, you needn’t mind about those gores. I don’t really
know anything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up
in a week’s apprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed.
My cattle-culture and cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn–
I shan’t need them any more.’
Next day we reluctantly parted from the ‘Gold Dust’ and her officers,
hoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day.
A thing which the fates were to render tragically impossible!
Chapter 37
The End of the ‘Gold Dust’
FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these
foregoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram–
A TERRIBLE DISASTER.
SEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER ‘GOLD DUST.’
‘NASHVILLE, Aug. 7.–A despatch from Hickman, Ky., says–
‘The steamer “Gold Dust” exploded her boilers at
three o’clock to-day, just after leaving Hickman.
Forty-seven persons were scalded and seventeen are missing.
The boat was landed in the eddy just above the town,
and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers,
officers, and part of the crew and deck passengers were
taken ashore and removed to the hotels and residences.
Twenty-four of the injured were lying in Holcomb’s dry-goods
store at one time, where they received every attention before
being removed to more comfortable places.’
A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the seventeen dead,
one was the barkeeper; and among the forty-seven wounded, were the captain,
chief mate, second mate, and second and third clerks; also Mr. Lem S. Gray,
pilot, and several members of the crew.
In answer to a private telegram, we learned that none of these was