The Argosy, April 1912 — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

128 cribbage with Carl Steiner and Sim Galt at Mr. Steiner’s house on Mount Washington to-night. Send out and buy a pack of cards and a cribbage-board, so that we can prac- tise int the mean time. I am awfully rusty in it, and McKee says he never played a game in his life.” CHAPTER XV. A GAME OF CRIBBAGE. Ir was after seven o’clock and quite dark when Professor Shaw and Jim McKee were ushered into Carl Steiner’s dining-room by Delia O’Toole. “Here’s th’ gintlemin, Misther Steiner.” With this brief announcement, Delia marched out, leaving the two newcomers, hat in hand, standing just inside the room. It was not Delia’s business to find them chairs. Carl Steiner and Sim Galt were already seated at the table. The hunter was shuf- fling a pack of cards, while Steiner took four ivory pegs—two white and two red— from a small box with a sliding lid attached to the underside of a cribbage-board. Steiner got up as his visitors entered, and brought forward chairs with a saturnine courtesy that appeared to be only skin- deep. “Give me your hats. the sofa over here.”’ Sim Galt snorted. Why didn’t they keep their hats on, as he did? He was a long- limbed, gaunt man, with a leathery skin, high cheek-bones, iron-gray hair, and the piercing eyes described by Lucille to Fred Barrington. : He wore a blue woolen shirt, a colored handkerchief about his neck, and a brown hunting-coat with several large pockets, into which he could stuff rabbits and other small game. The bottoms of his trousers were much wrinkled... When in the mountains he tucketl them into his high boots. A large slouch-hat, so weather-beaten that no one could tell its original color, was pulled down over his eyes. Perhaps Sim Galt took his hat off when he went to bed —and perhaps he didn’t. At all events, I'll put them on no one ever had seen him without it. His age appeared to be about fifty. “Hello, purfessor!” he growled. “I be- gun to think yer warn’t comin’.” “Tt’s only seven o’clock,” returned Pro- fessor Shaw. ‘“‘That’s the time we were due.”’ THE ARGOSY. “Of course it is,” put in Carl Steiner, “but Sim is so hungry for cribbage I’m afraid he’d be eating the cards—and the board, too—if you were five minutes late!” “Come on here! Cut for partners!” was Sim’s response to this. “Two highest ag’in’ the two lowest.” The cut resulted in Carl Steiner and Professor Shaw becoming partners against Sim Galt and Jim McKee. “TI hope you’re a good player, Mr. Mc- Kee,” grunted Sim as they took their places. Jim McKee winked knowingly. It was all he had the courage to do. He was glad it was customary for partners to sit oppo- site each other, so that he had the length of the table between himself and the mighty hunter. “When he finds out what kind of crib- bage sharp I am, he’ll want to kill me, sure,’ was Jim McKee’s reflection. Sim Galt’s back was toward the door leading to the kitchen. Steiner sat at his right, and Professor Shaw on his left. Jim McKee, as Sim Galt’s partner, faced the kitchen. He noticed that there was a square opening in the door, and that the sliding board which fitted it had been pushed aside just a trifle. The opening was sometimes used by Delia for passing dishes through when she did not feel that she was presentable in the dining-room. Through the half-inch slit made by the displacement of the sliding board Fred Barrington was looking and listening. He was in the little hallway communicating with the kitchen. Lucille stood by his side. “I’m a little nervous about Mr. McKee,” whispered Fred to her. “He never played cribbage until to-day, when Professor Shaw gave him a few lessons in my office. If he makes a lot of bulls your stepfather will be suspicious.” “Why should he be suspicious? ” “Well, Carl Steiner is a shrewd man, and it will occur to him that this offer on the part of Jim and the professor was only an excuse to get into the house. His mind is full of this No. 1 he is fighting for, and naturally he will connect that with their coming here under a false pretense.” ““There’s danger of that, of course,” as- sented the girl, in a thoughtful tone. “My stepfather is of a very distrustful nature. Still, cribbage isn’t a hard game to under- stand. It 1s all counting, and Mr. McKee is good at that, isn’t he?” (C(O) ClOOOIK