Winston of the Prairie eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 373 pages of information about Winston of the Prairie.

Winston of the Prairie eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 373 pages of information about Winston of the Prairie.

“Show you how a gentleman can stand up, boys.  Throw them out again.  Two hundred this time on the game!”

There was silence and the rustle of shuffled cards; then once more the voices went up.  “Against him!  Better let up before he takes your farm.  Oh, let him face it and show his grit—­the man who slings around his hundreds can afford to lose!”

The lad’s face showed a trifle paler through the drifting smoke, though a good many of the cigars had gone out now, and once more there was the stillness of expectancy through which a strained voice rose.

“Going to get it all back.  I’ll stake you four hundred!”

Winston rose and moved forward quietly, with Dane behind him, and then stood still where he could see the table.  He had also very observant eyes, and was free from the excitement of those who had a risk on the game.  Still, when the cards were dealt, it was the gambler’s face he watched.  For a brief space nobody moved, and then the lad flung down his cards and stood up with a grayness in his cheeks and his hands shaking.

“You’ve got all my money now,” he said.  “But I’ll play you doubles if you’ll take my paper.”

The gambler nodded and flung down a big pile of bills.  “I guess I’ll trust you.  Mine are here.”

The bystanders waited motionless, and none of them made a bet, for any stakes they could offer would be trifles now; but they glanced at the lad, who stood tensely still, while Winston watched the face of the man at the table in front of him.  For a moment he saw a flicker of triumph in his eyes, and that decided him.  Again, one by one, the cards went down, and then while everybody waited in strained expectancy the lad seemed to grow limp suddenly and groaned.

“You can let up,” he said hoarsely.  “I’ve gone down!”

Then a hard brown hand was laid upon the table, and while the rest stared in astonishment, a voice which had a little stern ring in it said, “Turn the whole pack up, and hand over the other one.”

In an instant the gambler’s hand swept beneath his jacket, but it was a mistaken move, for as swiftly the other hard brown fingers closed upon the pile of bills, and the men, too astonished to murmur, saw Winston leaning very grim in face across the table.  Then it tilted over beneath him and the cards were on the gambler’s knees, while, as the two men rose and faced each other, something glinted in the hands of one of them.

It is more than probable that the man did not intend to use it, and trusted to its moral effect, for the display of pistols is not regarded with much toleration on the Canadian prairie.  In any case, he had not the opportunity, for in another moment Winston’s right hand had closed upon his wrist and the gambler was struggling fruitlessly to extricate it.  He was a muscular man, with, doubtless, a sufficiency of nerve, but he had not toiled with his arms and led a Spartan life for eight long years.  Before another few seconds had passed he was wondering whether he would ever use that wrist again, while Dane picked up the fallen pistol and put it in his pocket with the bundle of bills Winston handed him.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Winston of the Prairie from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.