“Let me alone, Charlie,” said Sandy, testily. “You haven’t got to pay for these cards. I’ll manage it somehow. Don’t you worry yourself the least bit.” 232
“Serves you right for gambling. What would mother say if she knew it? If you hadn’t been so ready to show off your whist-playing before these strangers, you wouldn’t have got into such a box.”
“I didn’t gamble,” replied Sandy, hotly. “It isn’t gambling to play a hand to see who shall pay for the cards. All men do that. I have seen daddy roll a game of tenpins to see who should pay for the alley.”
“I don’t care for that. It is gambling to play for the leastest thing as a stake. Nice fellow you are, sitting down to play a hand of seven-up for the price of a pack of cards! Six bits at that!”
“A nice brotherly brother you are to nag me about those confounded cards, instead of helping a fellow out when he is down on his luck.”
Charlie, a little conscience-stricken, held his peace, while Sandy broke away from him, and rushed out into the chilly air of the after-deck. There was no sympathy in the dark and murky river, none in the forlorn shore, where rows of straggling cottonwoods leaned over and swept their muddy arms in the muddy water. Looking around for a ray of hope, a bright idea struck him. He could but try one chance. The bar of the “New Lucy” was a very respectable-looking affair, as bars go. It opened into the saloon cabin of the steamer on its inner side, but in the rear was a small window where the deck passengers sneaked up, from time to time, and bought whatever they wanted, and then 233 quietly slipped away again, unseen by the more “high-toned” passengers in the cabin. Summoning all his courage and assurance, the boy stepped briskly to this outside opening, and, leaning his arms jauntily on the window-ledge, said, “See here, cap, I owe you for a pack of cards.”
“Yep,” replied the barkeeper, holding a bottle between his eye and the light, and measuring its contents.
This was not encouraging. Sandy, with a little effort, went on: “You see we fellows, three of us, are sparring our way down to St. Louis. We have got trusted for our passage. We’ve friends in St. Louis, and when we get there we shall be in funds. Our luggage is in pawn for our passage money. When we come down to get our luggage, I will pay you the six bits I owe you for the cards. Is that all right?”
“Yep,” said the barkeeper, and he set the bottle down. As the lad went away from the window, with a great load lifted from his heart, the barkeeper put his head out of the opening, looked after him, smiled, and said, “That boy’ll do.”
When Sandy joined his brother, who was wistfully watching for him, he said, a little less boastfully than might have been expected of him, “That’s all right, Charlie. The barkeeper says he will trust me until we get to St. Louis and come aboard to get the luggage. He’s a good fellow, even if he did say ‘yep’ instead of ‘yes’ when I asked him.” 234