Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 68, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1916 — GOLD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOLD

By STEWART EDWARD WHITE

SYNOPSIS Talbot Ward’s challenge to Frank Munroe to a personal encounter to determine Whether Munroe is fit to make a trip to California In search of gold is accepted. Munroe gets .a hammerlock on Ward and wins the bout. ~ Arriving at Chagrea, Talbot Ward's knowledge of Spanish and his firm treatment of the native boatmen help wonderfolly. The party enters a tropical forest They reach Gatun, and, after passing through several villages where Ward always diplomatically handles the natives, they arrive in Panairfh. Ward puts it up to each man to get <220 in one day. Munroe makes $25 as a laborer. Johnny gambles and gets 1220. Ward astounds the party by telling how, by shrewd business deals intone day tn the Golden City, he accumulated several thousand dollara. Ward decides that he will not go with the party to the mines, but will stay in flan Francisco, where he thinks more gold io to be found. The party dig their first gold. They are not much encouraged when told that the value of their first pan is 12 cents. Don Gaspar, a Spaniard, and his manservant Vasquez join forces with the trio and the gold is divided into five parts. After working like beavers several days 4he miners decide to take a day off and attend a miners’ meeting in town. For sls a week in gold and a drink of whisky twice a day Bagsby promises to lead the party to a rich_ unexplored mining country. A band of Indians come into the camp to trade. They are thankful for blankets. Later the Indians attempt an ambuscade, but are routed by rifle shots. McNally is found with group of traders. Vasques, left in charge of camp, is found scalped by the red men. Tank, Buck Barry and Don Gaspar are sent to town with $35,000 in gold. Barry and Don Gaspar return to camp declaring they have been robbed. Johnny gets into an altercation with Ccarface Charlie. Johnny’s splendid nerve attracts Danny Randall, who is seeking honest men in the camp. flcarface Charlie sends Johnny a challenge to meet him at the main saloon. Johnny, with another great display of nerve, drops Scarface Charlie.

CHAPTER XXI. The Fight. WE ate a very silent supper, washed our dishes methodically and walked up to town. The Bella Union was the largest of the three gambling bouses, a log and canvas structure some forty feet long by perhaps twenty wide. A bar extended across one -end, and the gaming tables were arranged down the middle. A dozen oil lamps with reflectors furnished illumination. AH five tables were doing a brisk business. When we paused at the •door for a preliminary survey the bar ■was lined with drinkers, and groups of twos and threes were slowly sauntering here and there or conversing at the tops of their voices with many guffaws. The air was thick with tobacco smoke. Johnny stepped just inside the door, moved sideways and so stood with his back to the wall. His keen eyes went from group to group slowly, resting for a moment in turn on each of the five Impassive gamblers and their lookouts, on the two barkeepers and then one by one oh the men with whom the place was crowded. Following his, my glance recognized at a corner of the bar Danny Randall with five rough looking minors. He caught my eye and nodded. No one else appeared to notice us, though I imagined the noise of the place sank and rose again at the first moment of our entrance.

“Jim,” said Johnny to me quietly, “there’s Danny Randall at the other end of the room. Go join him. I want you to leave me to play my own game.” I started to object “Please do as I say,” insisted Johnny. “I can take care of myself unless there’s a general row. In that case all my friends are better together.” Without further protest I left him and edged my way to the group at the end of the bar. Randall nodded to me as I came up and motioned to the barkeeper to set me out a glass, but said nothing. Ours was the only lot away from the gaming tables not talking. We sipped our drink and watched Johnny. After surveying coolly the room Johnny advanced to the farther of the gaming tables and began to play. His back was toward the entrance. The game was roulette, and Johnny tossed down his bets methodically, studying with apparent absorption each shift of the wheel. To all appearance he was Intent on the game and nothing else, and he talked and laughed with his neighbors and the dealer as though his •plrit were quite carefree. For ten minutes we watched. Then a huge figure appeared in the blackness of the doorway, slipped through and Instantly to one side, so that his back was to the wall. Scarface Charley had arrived. He surveyed the place as we had done, almost instantly caught sight of Johnny and Immediately began to make Ms way across the room through the crowds of loungers. Johnny was laying a bet, bending oyer the table,

joking with the impassive dealer, his beck turned to the door, totally oblivious of his enemy’s approach. I started forward, Instantly realized the hopelessness of either getting quickly through that crowd or of making myself heard and leaned back, clutching the rail with both hands. Johnny was hesitating, his hand hovering uncertainly above the marked squares of the layout, in doubt exactly where to bet. Scarface Charley shouldered his way through the loungers and reached the clear space Immediately behind his unconscious victim. He stopped for an instant, squared his shoulders and took one step forward. Johnny dropped his chips on the felt layout, con*

Almost With the Motion It Barked, and the Big Man Whirled to the Floor. templated his choice an instant—and suddenly whirled on his heel in a lightning about face. Although momentarily startled by this unexpected evidence that Johnny was not so far off guard as he had seemed, the desperado’s hand dropped swiftly to the butt of his pistol. At the same instant Johnny’s arm snapped forward in the familiar motion of drawing from the sleeve. The motion started clean and smooth, but half | through caught, dragged, halted. I gasped aloud, but had time for no more, than thaV. Scarface Charley’s I revolver was already on the leap. Then ' at last Johnny’s derringer appeared, apparently as the result of a desperate i effort. Almost with the motion it | barked, and the big man whirled to the floor, his pistol, already at half raise, clattering away. The whole episode from the beginning occupied the I space of two eye winks. Probably no ' one but myself and Danny Randall could have caught the slight hitch in Johnny’s draw, and, indeed, I doubt if anybody saw whence he had snatched the derringer. A complete silence fell. It could have lasted only an instant, but Johnny seized that instant. “Has this man any friends here?” he asked clearly. His head was back, and his snapping' black eyes seemed to see everywhere at once. No one answered or stirred. Johnny held them for perhaps ten seconds, . then deliberately turned back to the table.

“That’s my bet on the even,” said he. “Let her roll!” The gambler lifted his face, white in the brilliant Illumination directly over his head, and I thought to catch a flicker of something like admiration in his passionless eyes. Then with his left hand he spun the wheel. The soft, dull whir and tiny clicking of the ball as It rebounded from the metal grooves struck across the tense stillness. As though this was the releasing signal, a roar of activity burst forth. Men all talked at once. The other tables and the bar were deserted, and everybody crowded down toward the lower end of the room. Danny Randall and his friends rushed determinedly to the center of disturbance. Some men were carrying out Scarface Charley. Others were talking excitedly. A little clear space surrounded the roulette table, at which, as may be imagined, Johnny was now he only player. Quite methodically .he laid three more bets. “I think that’s enough for now,” he told the dealer pleasantly and turned away.

“Hullo, Randall! Hullo, Frank!” he greeted us. “I’ve just won three bets straight Let’s have a drink. Bring your friends,” he told Randall. We turned toward the bar, and way was Instantly made for .us. Johnny poured himself a big drink of whisky. A number of curious men, mere boys most of them, had crowded close after us and were standing staring at Johnny with a curiosity they made slight attempt to conceal. Johnny suddenly turned to them, holding high his whisky in a hand as steady as a rock. “Here’s to crime, boys!” he said and drank It down at a gulp. Then he stood staring them uncompromisingly in the face until they had slunk away. He called for and drank another whisky, then abruptly moved toward the door. "I think I’ll go turn in,” said he. At the door he stopped. “Good night,” he said to Randall and Ms friends, who had followed us. “No, I am obliged to you,” he replied to a suggestion, “but I need no escort,” and he said it so firmly that all but Randall went back. *Tm going to your camp with you, whether you need an escort or not,” said the latter. Without a .word Johnny walked

away down the street very straight. We hurried to catch up with him, and just as we did so he collapsed to the ground and was suddenly and violently sick. As I helped him to his feet I could feel that his arm was trembling violently. "Lord, fellows' I’m ashamed," he gasped a little hysterically. “I didn’t know I had so little nerve!" “Nerve!” suddenly roared Danny Randall; “confound your confounded Impudence! If I ever hear you say another word like that I’ll put a head on you, if it’s the last act of my life! You’re the gamest little chicken in this roost, and I’ll make you beg like a hound if you say you aren’t!” Johnny laughed a little uncertainty over this contradiction. “Did I kill him?” he asked. “No, worse luck; just bored him through the collarbone. That heavy little derringer ball knocked him out” “I’m glad of that,” said Johnny. “Which I am not,” stated Danny Randall with emphasis. “You ought to have killed him.” “Thanks to you I wasn’t killed myself. I couldn’t have hoped to get the draw on him with my holster gun. He is as quick as a snake.” “I thought you were going to bungle it” said Randall. “What was the matter?” “Front sight caught at the edge of my sleeve. I had to tear it loose by main strength. I’m going to file it off. What’s the use of a front sight at close range?” I heaved a deep sigh. “Well, I don’t want ever to be so scared again,” I confessed. “Will you tell me, by all that’s holy, why you turned your -back on the door?” “Well,” said . Johnny seriously, “I wanted to get him close to me. If I had shown him that I’d seen him when he first came in the door he’d have opened fire at once. And I’m a rotten shot But I figured that if he thought. I didn’t see him he’d come across the room to me.”

“But he nearly got you by surprise.” “Oh, no," said Johnny; “I saw him all the time. I got his reflection from the glass over that picture of the beautiful lady sitting on the whisky barrel. That’s why I picked out that table.” “My son,” cried Danny Randall delightedly, “you’re a true sport. You’ve got a head, you have!” “Well,” said Johnny, “I figured I’d have to do something; I’m such a rotten shot” We slept late the following morning and awoke tired, as though we had been on a long journey. “Now,” said Johnny when our after breakfast pipes had been lit, “we’ve got to get together. There’s one Important question before the house—who and what is Danny Randall?” “I agree with you there," said I heartily. We separated until noon. Johnny returned promptly at 12. “As to Danny Randall," he began at once, “origin lost In mists of obscurity. First known in this country as a guide to a party of overland Immigrants before the gold discovery. One of the original Bear Flag revolutionists. Member of Fremont’s raiders in the south. . Showed up again at Sonoma and headed a dozen forays after the horse thieving Indians and half breeds in the San Joaquin. Seems now to follow the mines. Guaranteed the best ‘shot with rifle or pistol in the state. Guaranteed the best courage and the quietest manners in the state. Very eminenUand square in his profession. That’s his entire history.” “What is his profession?” I asked. “He runs the Bella Union.” “A gambler?” I cried, astonished. “Just so, a square gambler.” I digested this in silence for a moment.

“Did you discover anything for yourself?” I asked at last “Best job ever invented,” said Johnny triumphantly, “at three ounces a day, and I can’t beat that at your beastly diggings.” “Yes?” I urged. "I Invented it myself, too,” went on Johnny proudly. "You remember what Randall or the doctor said about the robberies and the bodies of the drowned men floating? Well, every man carries his dust around in a belt because he dare not do anything else with it Ido myself, and so do you, and you’ll agree that it weighs like the mischief. So I went to Randall and I suggested that we start an express service to get the stuff out to bank with some good firm in San Francisco. He fell in with the idea in a minute. My first notion was that we take it right through to San Francisco ourselves, but he says he can make satisfactory arrangements to send it in from Sacramento. That’s about sixty miles, and we’ll call it a day’s hard ride through this country, with a change horses. So now I’m what you might call an express messenger—at three good ounces a day.” “But you’ll be killed and robbed!” I cried. Johnny’s eyes were dancing. “Think of the fun!” said he. “You’re a rotten shot,” I reminded him. “I’m to practice under Danny Randall from now until the first trip.” “When is that?” “Do you think we’ll advertise the date? Of course I’d tell you, Jim, but honestly I don’t know yet” (To be continued.)