The Quadroon: Adventures in the Far West

“I guess you know the game as well as I do,” replied the one who had proposed it.

“I hain’t played a rubber o’ whist for many a year, but if we can’t make up the set at Euchre, let’s try one.”

“Oh! if you’re goin’ to play whist,” interposed the gentleman who had seceded from the game of Euchre – “if you’re going to play whist, I don’t mind taking a hand at that– it may change my luck – and if this gentleman has no objection, I’d like him for my partner. As you say, sir, Englishmen are good whist-players. It’s their national game, I believe.”

“Won’t be a fair match, Mr Chorley,” said the dealer in hog-meat; “but since you propose it, if Mr Hatcher here – your name, sir, I believe?”

“Hatcher is my name,” replied the person addressed, the same who suggested whist.

“If Mr Hatcher here,” continued white-hat, “has no objection to the arrangement, I’ll not back out. Doggoned, if I do!”

“Oh! I don’t care,” said Hatcher, in a tone of reckless indifference, “anything to get up a game.”

Now, I was never fond of gambling, either amateur or otherwise, but circumstances had made me a tolerable whist-player, and I knew there were few who could beat me at it. If my partner knew the game as well, I felt certain we could not be badly damaged; and according to all accounts he understood it well. This was the opinion of one or two of the bystanders, who whispered in my ear that he was a “whole team” at whist.

Partly from the reckless mood I was in – partly that a secret purpose urged me on – a purpose which developed itself more strongly afterwards – and partly that I had been bantered, and, as it were, “cornered” into the thing, I consented to play – Chorley and I versus Hatcher and the pork-merchant.

We took our seats – partners vis-à-vis– the cards were shuffled, cut, dealt, and the game began.

Chapter Forty Eight

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.

Chapter Forty Nine

The Sportsmen of the Mississippi

Before things had reached this point, I had gained an explanation of the mysterious alarm. I alone knew it, along with the individual who had caused it.

On hearing the shots, I had run forward under the front awning, and stood looking over the guards. I was looking down upon the boiler-deck – for it appeared to me that the loud words that preceded the reports had issued thence, though I also thought that the shots had been fired at some point nearer.

Most of the people had gone out by the side entrances, and were standing over the gangways, so that I was alone in the darkness, or nearly so.

I had not been many seconds in this situation, when some one glided alongside of me, and touched me on the arm. I turned and inquired who it was, and what was wanted. A voice answered me in French —

“A friend, Monsieur, who wishes to do you a service.”

“Ha, that voice! It was you, then, who called out – ”

“It was.”

“And – ”

“I who fired the shots – precisely.”

“There is no one killed, then?”

“Not that I know of. My pistol was pointed to the sky – besides it was loaded blank.”

“I’m glad of that, Monsieur; but for what purpose, may I ask, have you – ”

“Simply to do you a service, as I have said.”

“But how do you contemplate serving me by firing off pistols, and frightening the passengers of the boat out of their senses?”

“Oh! as to that, there’s no harm done. They’ll soon got over their little alarm. I wanted to speak with you alone. I could think of no other device to separate you from your new acquaintances. The firing of my pistol was only a ruse to effect that purpose. It has succeeded, you perceive.”