Claim Number One

by George W. Ogden

He heard the far-away roll and rumble of voices coming from the gambling-tents; the high-tenor invitation of the barkers outside questionable shows; the bawl of street-gamblers, who had all manner of devices, from ring-pitching to shell-games on folding tables, which they could pick up in a twinkling and run away with when their dupes began to threaten and rough them up; the clear soprano of the singer, who wore long skirts and sang chaste songs, in the vaudeville tent down by the station.

And above all, mingled with all–always, everywhere–the brattle of cornet and trombone, the whang of piano, the wail of violin, the tinkle of the noble harp, an aristocrat in base company, weeping its own downfall.

All of the flaring scene appeared to the doctor to be extremely artificial. It was a stage set for the allurement of the unsophisticated, who saw in this strained and overdone imitation of the old West the romance of their expectations. If they hadn’t found 47 it there thousands of them would have been disappointed, perhaps disillusioned with a healthful jolt. All the reality about it was its viciousness, and that was unquestionable.

It looked as if gambling crooks from everywhere had collected at Comanche, and as if the most openly and notoriously crooked of them all was the bony, dry-faced man with a white spot over the sight of his left eye, who conducted a dice-game in the front part of the chief amusement-place of the town. This was a combination variety theater and saloon, where free “living pictures” were posed for the entertainment of those who drank beer at the tables at twenty-five cents a glass.

Of the living pictures there were three, all of them in green garments, which hung loosely upon flaccid thighs. Sometimes they posed alone, as representations of more or less clothed statuary; sometimes they grouped, with feet thrust out, heads thrown back, arms lifted in stiff postures, as gladiators, martyrs, and spring songs. Always, whether living or dead, they were most sad and tattered, famished and lean pictures, and their efforts were received with small applause. They were too thin to be very wicked; so it appeared, at least.

Dr. Slavens stopped in the wide-spreading door of this place to watch the shifting life within. Near him sat a young Comanche Indian, his hair done up in two braids, which he wore over his shoulders in front. He 48 had an eagle feather in his hat and a new red handkerchief around his neck, and he looked as wistful as a young Indian ever did outside a poem or a picture-film. He was the unwelcome guest, whom no one might treat, to whom no one might sell.

That was one of the first things strangers in Comanche learned: one must not give an Indian a drink of liquor, no matter how thirsty he looked. And, although there was not a saloon-keeper in the place who would have considered a moment before stooping to rob a dead man, there was not one who would have sold an Indian a bottle of beer. Such is the fear, if not respect, that brave old Uncle Sam is able to inspire.

But brave old Sam had left the bars down between his wards and the gamblers’ tables. It is so everywhere. The Indian may not drink, but he may play “army game” and all the others where crooked dice, crooked cards, and crooked men are to be found. Perhaps, thought the doctor, the young man with the eagle feather–which did not make him at all invisible, whatever his own faith in its virtues might have been–had played his money on the one-eyed man’s game, and was hanging around to see whether retributive justice, in the form of some more fortunate player, would, in the end, clean the old rascal out.

The one-eyed man was assisted by a large gang of cappers, a gang which appeared to be in the employ of the gamblers’ trust of Comanche. The doctor had seen them night after night first at one game, then at 49 another, betting with freedom and carelessness which were the envy of the suckers packed forty deep around them. At the one-eyed man’s game just then they were coming and going in a variety which gave a color of genuine patronage. That was an admirable arrangement, doubtless due to the one-eyed man’s sagacity, which the doctor had noted the night before. For the game had its fascination for him, not because the fire of it was in his veins, but because it was such an out-and-out skin game that it was marvelous how fools enough could be found, even in a gathering like that, to keep it going.

The living pictures had just passed off the stage, and it was the one-eyed man’s inning. He rattled his dice in the box, throwing his quick glance over the crowd, which seemed reluctant to quit the beer-tables for his board. Art was the subject which the gambler took up as he poured out his dice and left them lying on the board. He seemed so absorbed in art for the moment that he did not see a few small bets which were laid down. He leaned over confidentially and talked into the eyes of the crowd.