Read The Trail of 98 for Free Online Page A

Colorado, all over, an' now I am a-goin' to see if the
North hasn't got a stake for me."
    Up in his room he told me of his life.
    "I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been everything
from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for two years, thinking
to get my pass to Hell at any moment."
    "Ever killed any one?" I queried.
    He was beginning to pace up and down the room.
    "Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot.... There was a time when I could
draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there waslots that could give me cards
and spades. Quiet men, too, you would never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was
the worst. Meek, friendly, decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they
didn't know Fear, an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know
lots of them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land,
would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like thembut Lord be
praised, I'm a saved man."
    I was deeply interested.
    "I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the evil
of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard, known as
'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation. Once I used to
gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the card-table after
sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand dollars. I knew they'd
handed me out 'cold turkey,' but I took my medicine.
    "Right then I said I'd be a crook too. I learned to play with marked cards. I
could tell every card in the deck. I ran a stud-poker game, with a Jap an' a
Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white men, an' less likely to lose
their nerve. It was easy money, like taking candy from a kid. Often I would play
on the square. No man can bluff strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a
quiver of the eyelash, maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a
month till I found the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him
till the sweat pricked through his brow. He was my meat. Iwent after the men that robbed me, an' I
went one better. Here, shuffle this deck."
    He produced a pack of cards from a drawer.
    "I'll never go back to the old trade. I'm saved. I trust in God, but just for
diversion I keep my hand in."
    Talking to me, he shuffled the pack a few times.
    "Here, I'm dealing; what do you want? Three kings?"
    I nodded.
    He dealt four hands. In mine there were three kings.
    Taking up another he showed me three aces.
    "I'm out of practice," he said apologetically. "My hands are calloused. I
used to keep them as soft as velvet."
    He showed me some false shuffles, dealing from under the deck, and other
tricks.
    "Yes, I got even with the ones that got my money. It was eat or be eaten. I
went after the suckers. There was never a man did me dirt but I paid him with
interest. Of course, it's different now. The Good Book says: 'Do good unto them
that harm you.' I guess I would, but I wouldn't recommend no one to try and harm
me. I might forget."
    The heavy, aggressive jaw shot forward; the eyes gleamed with a fearless
ferocity, and for a moment the man took on an air that was almost tigerish. I
could scarce believe my sight; yet the next instant it was the same cheerful,
benevolent face, and I thought my eyes must have played me some trick.
    Perhaps it was that
sedate Puritan strain in me that appealed to him, but we became great friends.
We talked of many things, and most of all I loved to get him to tell of his
early life. It was just like a story: thrown on the world while yet a child; a
shoeblack in New York, fighting for his stand; a lumber-jack in the woods of
Michigan; lastly a miner in Arizona. He told me of long months on the desert
with only his pipe for company, talking to himself over the fire at night, and
trying not to go crazy. He told me of the girl he married and worshipped, and of
the man who broke up his