“Wow!” gasped Warwhoop, his eyes bulging. “I think mebbe we’d better let that party alone. He may break through and attempt to scalp us if we continue to irritate him.”
“Close the door to the closet, Willie,” directed South-paw. “That’s what makes us hear it so plain.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Touch, as he rose and peered into the closet. “The old partition is only boarded up part way. There’s an opening two feet wide at the top.”
Closing the door, he returned to his seat and the game continued. To the delight of Touch, luck favored him from the first, and it was not long before his twenty became forty.
“I know my hoodoo now,” he laughed; “it’s old Groucher. I always lose with him in the game. We wanted a fifth man to play.”
The door of the closet swung open, and old Joe Crowfoot stepped softly into the room.
“You like-um ’nother man to play?” he asked eagerly. “Shangowah, he play poke’ sometime. He sit in now. He take little hand.”
“How in blazes did he get into this room?” snarled Stover.
“Heap easy,” declared the aged Indian sweetly. “Nice big hole in top of little room. Old Joe climb up on shelves, wiggle through hole, come right in. How, how. Much glad. You got ’nother seat, he take-um hand in little game.”
“Kick him out!” roared Clinker. “Open the door, Willie. We’ll drop him out on his neck.”
But when Clinker and Stover took a step toward the old Indian, the latter silently produced a long, wicked-looking knife.
“Try to kick-um old Joe, he make nice mince meat of you,” said Crowfoot.
“Come to meet grandson, young Joe,” he said, in an explanatory manner. “Meet other friends. Heap glad. Celebrate some. Old Joe so old he no have time to celebrate much more, so he whoop it up now. ’Scuse-um me.”
The knife disappeared, and its place in Crowfoot’s hand was taken by a large, flat bottle containing a brownish amber liquor. Removing the cork, the redskin tipped the bottle and permitted two or three swallows to slide gurglingly down his throat.
“Oh, murder!” muttered Warwhoop. “It’s whisky. I smell it.”
“Mebbe you have little drink?” invited Crowfoot cordially, as he extended the bottle.
But Stover seized Clinker by the shoulder.
“Don’t you touch the stuff, Warwhoop,” he warned. “You know what it will do to you. We’ve got to play to-morrow.”