Queer Luck: Poker Stories from the New York Sun

by David A. Curtis

“I noticed that the scout looked at me a little curiously, but he evidently thought it was not his business to educate tenderfeet, and he only grunted. My two companions were as fresh as I was, and we told the scout we would go along if he had no objection.

“‘It’s a free country, and I reckon you can travel wherever you like,’ he said with a grin that I understood better afterward.

“We started before dawn, and had some thirty odd miles to go to strike the trail where the company was expected to camp that night. There were still some ten miles to go when, as we were rounding a small hill, the scout suddenly leaped from his horse and called to us to do the same.

“He had seen Indians, and, to cut it short, we camped that night in a place where the scout said that four men could hold out for a while, even against the hundred or so in the party that had surrounded us. It was a certainty, though, that we would all lose our scalps unless help came, for there was no water to be had, and the Indians knew it and made themselves comfortable just out of range of our rifles. The scout didn’t say much for a long time, but we could see that he was thinking as hard as any of us, and we were all pretty busy at it. There didn’t seem to be anything to suggest, or at least there was nothing that I could think of excepting to make a dash and try to break through. Nobody said anything in reply when I spoke of that, and the scout gave me a look of disgust that made me angry enough, but shut me up all the same. Finally he said:

“‘It’s just this way. These devils have caught us, and they know it. They won’t make a rush, for they know we will shoot, and an Indian will never risk being shot if he can get his man without. We can’t fight our way out. There’s too many of ’em. And we can’t stay here any longer than we can live without water.’

“I asked him if the Captain wouldn’t make a search for him, and he said the Captain didn’t know he was coming. ‘He’s on his way south,’ he said, ‘and the trail he is on is ten miles to the east of us. There’s only one thing that I see, and that means certain death for somebody, I reckon. It’s certain death for all of us, though, if something ain’t done.’ We asked him what it was, and he said:

“‘If one man can make his way south-east far enough, so that the noise of the firing will reach the company, the Captain will send a searching party. It all depends on how far the man gets before he is killed. If we all ride out, we will all be killed. If one man goes, the others may stand a chance.’

“We all looked at one another in silence for a good while. My blood ran cold at the idea of riding out alone into that pack of fiends, but I realized that our only chance was for somebody to go, and I knew life was as sweet to the others as it was to me. Instinctively we began first talking about the way the man who should go should manœuvre to best advantage, before raising the question who should be the man. It took only a few minutes, though, for the scout to give his advice, which was for one to ride out, waving a white handkerchief. He was to keep to the eastward and ride as far as he dared toward the Indians, looking sharply for the weakest point in their line toward his right. He should then make a dash and ride as hard as possible until it was all over, firing as often as he could. Then we had to decide who should go, and I supposed, of course, that we would draw lots, but one of the men spoke up unexpectedly:

“‘Whoever goes,’ he said, ‘doesn’t want to start for some hours. The scout says just after daybreak is the best time. What is the matter with settling this thing with poker? We can play freeze-out, and three games will settle it, the winner dropping out each time.’

“The proposition caught me. You know I used to pride myself on my poker. After a little hesitation the others agreed. The man who proposed it had the cards, and we counted out six hundred coffee beans for chips and began playing on a blanket folded and laid on the ground. You would think the details of a game like that would fix themselves in the memory, so that I would be able to tell you every hand I held and every bet I made, wouldn’t you? Well, I can’t. In fact, I can’t tell anything about the first game excepting that I was the first man to lose all his chips. I had played often enough for what I thought were high stakes, but the thought that I was playing for my life rattled me completely, and I really believe I bet at random. Whatever I did I lost, and the man who had proposed the game won out. He was shot in a gambling house three months later—had an extra ace in his sleeve, I believe, or something like that.