Adventure Magazine Cover — page 89: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pay Gravel Creek that once the supremacy of the Sioux was broken there would be a general exodus from Deadwood gulch, and that the city below the long cafion would benefit thereby. The hotel did an excellent business in cater- ing to those passing north and south over the stage-road. Another place of varied entertainment was Calvin’s eating-house. -The proprietor bought gold. Next to the eating-house was a gambling-hall. This, also, was owned by Calvin. Transients and miners kept the games busy although there was not as high play as there was in Deadwood City. Calvin, whose first name was seldom if ever used, was known to be keen in a bar- gain and a trader by instinct.. Forty years earlier he would have made a fortune as an Indian trader. More than one man from the near-by placers complained that, on the excuse the gold was not “clean,” he would blow a dollar or two of fine dust from any offering. Several cracks in the board counter, where he weighed the dust, were cited by the disgruntled as corroboration of other charges. But Calvin, sharp of nose as well as of practise, ignored all aspersions and continued to make his. two houses pay a good profit. Beyond appearing in the gambling-hall at regular intervals he as- sumed no outward control of the place. Neither in his own, or in other places, was he ever known to risk a penny on any game of chance. Business averaged unusually good at the tables and, in part, the owner’s genius for providing a lure was responsible. The homeless man finds the easiest way to satisly his insatiate desire for excitement is to bet on a card or a rolling ball. Calvin further stimulated such craving by providing a pretty French girl to deal Twenty-one. There was Chippewa blood somewhere in her ancestry, but she was vivacious, musical of voice and possessed an undeniably pretty face. If she were part red it made no dif- ference to the men she kept at her table even when the other games languished. The report that Calvin was Soon to lose her and that Deadwood City was to acquire her graceful presence brought men in from the outlying diggings to make a wager be- fore she went away. Her favor with the miners was due largely to her rule that none of the gambling fraternity could play at Twenty-one. The game was for the miner and tenderfoot exclusively. She was un- there. Ps ee gn EE coe nah OMA OF ee te ae ee - = at, she eS oe San RAS «ae Sat ae Eph Merwe WEES Se = S. : - — * a y a ¥ (ee * gt =e ¥ < > canny in her ability to detect a professional. Let him masquerade as miner or teamster or business man and, after one glance from her cool dark eyes, the delighted spectators would hear her musical voice saying: “M’siew is mistake. Take up ze gold. This ees not for ze gambling man. M’szeurs altendez-vous, sl vous plait. Make ze game.” And the favored victims would bundle the _ intruder aside and with additional stakes prove their loyalty to a game that frowned on the professional. One man aroused the curiosity of the girl. He kept aloof; yet watched the game. His figure was erect and graceful and the gay tie hinted at dandyism, but it was the white cloth around his head and covering some hurt that held the girl’s interest. As there was no doubt that the fellow had been drinking it was also possible, she feared, he would create a disturbance. Not that there was anything in the fellow’s gait or voice to indicate overindulgence at Calvin’s two bars, nor was his gaze overbold when it swung back to the Twenty-one table. It was his propensity for song which led to the inevitable .conclusion. When drunk men sang in Rapid City just as they did in Deadwood, just as they sang in the days of ‘the first drink. But to walk alone in the street in the sunshine and sing, albeit the voice was a rich tenor, proved the fellow was fair befuddled. He did not seek ac- quaintance with any of the habitués of the -place, and none knew whence he came, whether from north or south, by stage, horseback or on foot. The bandage around his head was clean and must have been changed soon before his first appearance in the eating-house that morning. Three times had he sung before the noon hour and, next to the girl, Scissors the pic- ture-man displayed the most interest in him. Scissors was well known in Rapid City although this was but his second visit But he had sold many pictures on his first visit, and the story of his captivity among the Indians was well known from French Creek to the Belle Fourche. Scis- sors stood behind the Twenty-one table and made an outline of the fair dealer and timidly placed it beside her hand. She pushed a chip toward him, but he refused, murmuring: ‘Let me give it. It pleases me. I can always get dust from the men.” Eomichoo % “S