Jim had been rocking back and forth easily on two legs of his stool. He now dropped forward squarely on the floor and nodded assent.
“Cut for deal,” he said, quietly. “You!”
The game began. Glover, who evidently found interest in discussions, but none whatever in a game of cards, tilted back against the wall and began to talk, now that the argument was over.
“Zeke tells me,” he began in a nasal voice, tamping the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe reflectively, “as how they’s a bunch o’ Injun renegades movin’ south’ards off the reservation on a hell-toot. I meant to speak of it afore, but forgot, as usual. Jim’s talk here o’ animals lovin’ each other that away reminds me.” He lifted gray eyes to Johnson. “Didn’t Zeke say nothin’ to you about that, neither?” he asked, evidently mindful of some other grave oversight on the part of “Zeke.”
Johnson did not reply until after three or four rounds of the cards. “Zeke told you a lot of things that hour you sat with him alone,” he rejoined, with broad sarcasm. “Zeke must like you!”
“Mebbe,” agreed Glover, accepting the remark with all seriousness. “He says as how Fort Wingate is out, and I remarks that sich a move about terminates the performance. He agrees with me–says fust squint them renegades gits at regular troops they’ll hunt gopher-holes as places o’ ginerous salvation.”
The others remained silent. The game was going decidedly against Jim. It had gone against him from the first–as he had known it would. Yet he continued to play, watchful of his opponent, keen to note any irregularities. Yet he had discovered nothing that might be interpreted as cheating. Still he was losing, and still, despite all beliefs to the contrary, he entertained hope, hope that he might win. If he did win, he told himself, Johnson was enough of a white man to accept the defeat and leave the horse where he was. Yet his chips were steadily dwindling; the cards persistently refused to come his way; only once thus far had he held a winning hand. But he played on, becoming ever more discouraged, until, suddenly awaking to an unexpectedly good hand, he opened the pot. The raises followed back and forth swiftly, but he lost again. And now Johnson, as he mechanically drew the chips toward him, broke the silence.
“Zeke got you all worked up, didn’t he?” he declared, turning his eyes upon Glover. “As for renegades,” he went on, beginning to deal the cards again, “I’ve knowed ’em–hull droves of ’em–to stampede on the whistle of a rattler.” Evidently he was returning to good humor.
Glover took his pipe from his mouth. “Renegades gits stirred up every jest so often,” he observed. “I s’pose it’s because of the way they feel about things. Being run offen the reservations thataway ain’t nowise pleasant, to begin with, and then havin’ to hang around the aidges for what grub their folks sees fit for to sneak out to ’em ought to make it jest that much more monotonous–kind of. Reckon I’d break out myself–like a man that eats pancakes a lot–under sich circumstances. Zeke says this band–the latest gang to git sore–is a-headin’ dead south. Talks like we might run agin trouble down there. More’n one brand, too–the police and the reg’lars all bein’ out thataway. They’re all out–Zeke says.”
The others were absorbed in play, and so made no retort. Whereat Glover, with a reflective light in his eyes, continued: