At The Round Up Club

: LUCK
: Crooked Trails And Straight

A big game had been in progress all night at the Round Up Club. Now the

garish light of day streamed through the windows, but the electric cluster

still flung down its yellow glare upon the table. Behind the players were

other smaller tables littered with cigars, discarded packs, and glasses

full or empty. The men were in their shirt sleeves. Big broad-shouldered

fellows they were, with the marks of the outdoors hard-riding West up
n

them. No longer young, they were still full of the vigor and energy of

unflagging strength. From bronzed faces looked steady unwinking eyes with

humorous creases around the corners, hard eyes that judged a man and his

claims shrewdly and with good temper. Most of them had made good in the

land, and their cattle fed upon a thousand hills.



The least among them physically was Luck Cullison, yet he was their

recognized leader. There was some innate quality in this man with the

gray, steel-chilled eyes that marked him as first in whatever company he

chose to frequent. A good friend and a good foe, men thought seriously

before they opposed him. He had made himself a power in the Southwest

because he was the type that goes the limit when aroused. Yet about him,

too, there was the manner of a large amiability, of the easy tolerance

characteristic of the West.



While Alec Flandrau shuffled and dealt, the players relaxed. Cigars were

relit, drinks ordered. Conversation reverted to the ordinary topics that

interested Cattleland. The price of cows, the good rains, the time of the

fall roundup, were touched upon.



The door opened to let in a newcomer, a slim, graceful man much younger

than the others present, and one whose costume and manner brought

additional color into the picture. Flandrau, Senior, continued to shuffle

without turning his head. Cullison also had his back to the door, but the

man hung his broad-rimmed gray hat on the rack--beside an exactly similar

one that belonged to the owner of the Circle C--and moved leisurely

forward till he was within range of his vision.



"Going to prove up soon on that Del Oro claim of yours, Luck?" asked

Flandrau.



He was now dealing, his eyes on the cards, so that he missed the

embarrassment in the faces of those about him.



"On Thursday, the first day the law allows," Cullison answered quietly.



Flandrau chuckled. "I reckon Cass Fendrick will be some sore."



"I expect." Cullison's gaze met coolly the black, wrathful eyes of the man

who had just come in.



"Sort of put a crimp in his notions when you took up the canyon draw,"

Flandrau surmised.



Something in the strained silence struck the dealer as unusual. He looked

up, and showed a momentary confusion.



"Didn't know you were there, Cass. Looks like I put my foot in it sure

that time. I ce'tainly thought you were an absentee," he apologized.



"Or you wouldn't have been talking about me," retorted Fendrick acidly.

The words were flung at Flandrau, but plainly they were meant as a

challenge for Cullison.



A bearded man, the oldest in the party, cut in with good-natured reproof.

"I shouldn't wonder, Cass, but your name is liable to be mentioned just

like that of any other man."



"Didn't know you were in this, Yesler," Fendrick drawled insolently.



"Oh, well, I butted in," the other laughed easily. He pushed a stack of

chips toward the center of the table. "The pot's open."



Fendrick, refused a quarrel, glared at the impassive face of Cullison, and

passed to the rear room for a drink. His impudence needed fortifying, for

he knew that since he had embarked in the sheep business he was not

welcome at this club, that in fact certain members had suggested his name

be dropped from the books. Before he returned to the poker table the drink

he had ordered became three.



The game was over and accounts were being straightened. Cullison was the

heavy loser. All night he had been bucking hard luck. His bluffs had been

called. The others had not come in against his strong hands. On a straight

flush he had drawn down the ante and nothing more. To say the least, it

was exasperating. But his face had showed no anger. He had played poker

too many years, was too much a sport in the thorough-going frontier

fashion, to wince when the luck broke badly for him.



The settlement showed that the owner of the Circle C was twenty-five

hundred dollars behind the game. He owed Mackenzie twelve hundred,

Flandrau four hundred, and three hundred to Yesler.



With Fendrick sitting in an easy chair just across the room, he found it a

little difficult to say what otherwise would have been a matter of

course.



"My bank's busted just now, boys. Have to ask you to let it stand for a

few days. Say, till the end of the week."



Fendrick laughed behind the paper he was pretending to read. He knew quite

well that Luck's word was as good as his bond, but he chose to suggest a

doubt.



"Maybe you'll explain the joke to us, Cass," the owner of the Circle C

said very quietly.



"Oh, I was just laughing at the things I see, Luck," returned the younger

man with airy offense, his eyes on the printed sheet.



"Meaning for instance?"



"Just human nature. Any law against laughing?"



Cullison turned his back on him. "See you on Thursday if that's soon

enough, boys."



"All the time you want, Luck. Let mine go till after the roundup if you'd

rather," Mackenzie suggested.



"Thursday suits me."



Cullison rose and stretched. He had impressed his strong, dominant

personality upon his clothes, from the high-heeled boots to the very

wrinkles in the corduroy coat he was now putting on. He bad enemies, a

good many of them, but his friends were legion.



"Don't hurry yourself."



"Oh, I'll rustle the money, all right. Coming down to the hotel?" Luck was

reaching for his hat, but turned toward his friends as he spoke.



Without looking again at Fendrick, he led the way to the street.



The young man left alone cursed softly to himself, and ordered another

drink. He knew he was overdoing it, but the meeting with Cullison had

annoyed him exceedingly. The men had never been friends, and of late years

they had been leaders of hostile camps. Both of them could be overbearing,

and there was scarcely a week but their interests overlapped. Luck was

capable of great generosity, but he could be obstinate as the rock of

Gibraltar when he chose. There had been differences about the ownership of

calves, about straying cattle, about political matters. Finally had come

open hostility. Cass leased from the forestry department the land upon

which Cullison's cattle had always run free of expense. Upon this he had

put sheep, a thing in itself of great injury to the cattle interests. The

stockmen had all been banded together in opposition to the forestry

administration of the new regime, and Luck regarded Fendrick's action as

treachery to the common cause.



He struck back hard. In Arizona the open range is valuable only so long as

the water holes also are common property or a private supply available.

The Circle C cattle and those of Fendrick came down from the range to the

Del Oro to water at a point where the canyon walls opened to a spreading

valley. This bit of meadow Luck homesteaded and fenced on the north side,

thus cutting the cattle of his enemy from the river.



Cass was furious. He promptly tore down the fence to let his cattle and

sheep through. Cullison rebuilt it, put up a shack at a point which

commanded the approach, and set a guard upon it day and night. Open

warfare had ensued, and one of the sheepherders had been beaten because he

persisted in crossing the dead line.



Now Cullison was going to put the legal seal on the matter by making final

proof on his homestead. Cass knew that if he did so it would practically

put him out of business. He would be at the mercy of his foe, who could

ruin him if he pleased. Luck would be in a position to dictate terms

absolutely.



Nor did it make his defeat any more palatable to Cass that he had brought

it on himself by his bad-tempered unneighborliness and by his overreaching

disposition. A hundred times he had blacknamed himself for an arrant fool

because he had not anticipated the move of his enemy and homesteaded on

his own account.



He felt that there must be some way out of the trap if he could only find

it. Whenever the thought of eating humble pie to Luck came into his mind,

the rage boiled in him. He swore he would not do it. Better a hundred

times to see the thing out to a fighting finish.



Taking the broad-rimmed gray hat he found on the rack, Cass passed out of

the clubhouse and into the sun-bathed street.



More

;