The one-eyed man bet after the draw, but Wharton refused to see him, and he scooped the pot. Then Wharton took the cards.
Running them over rapidly, face down, he threw three cards to one side. Then, picking up the three, he examined their backs carefully and exclaimed with an oath: “By the marks on them I reckon they’re all alike. Maybe they’re aces.”
It was done as quickly as lightning flashes, and he threw down the three cards, face up, before any one had fairly realized what he was doing. They were all aces.
Both men sprang to their feet on the instant, and as they rose Wharton drew a revolver and the one-eyed man a knife.
The revolver spoke as the man with the knife rushed around the table, and, with a yell, he stumbled forward, stabbing viciously at the other as he fell on the floor. Wharton dodged quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid a bad cut in the arm, and shifting his pistol to his left hand, he stood ready to shoot again.
There was no need, however, of another shot.
IV
LOOKING FOR GALLAGHER
Brownsville was disturbed. It can hardly be said that the industries of the place were interrupted, for there were no industries in Brownsville that were liable to interruption, except at such times as one of the river steamboats was lying at the levee, either loading or unloading.
Outside of Brownsville the prairie stretched indefinitely to the north, west, and south, and there were persons who cultivated the soil with a minimum of labour and obtained a maximum of results, and so far as planting, harvesting, and marketing the products constituted an industry, these persons were industrious.
Inside the town, people mostly sat around. Except, as aforesaid, when there was a boat at the levee.