The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-09
Vengeance, Flood, Love and
 Battles of War
CONTRIBUTE TO THE GALE
Game Begun In a collapsing Tavern Ends Six Years Later In Wids of Venturesome West-Hortense
 Married the Other Fellow.
From the Boston Herald.


 'It is more than 40 years now" said the colonel "since the game of draw in which I, holding blazing flush. called my opponents hand out of mercy to him, for I knew. stubborn and persistent gambler that he was, that he would go on backing his cards up to the utmost limit of his means. which were large, and there was already S0000 In the pot. That I had mercy on him may seem strange when l say that when that game began in the spring of 1861 the limit of 1t on my part was to be noth- ing short of the life Of my opponent and that when 1t was resumed in 1S66- for there had been lot of moving in- cidents unconnected with the game be- tween it's start and it's inish-the limit on my part was to be his utter ruin; but events as the game progressed had softened my heart and I repented of my intention.
 "I might say, in passing, that if it hadn't been for the many days of cease less rain that haa brought the unprece- dented flood in the river in the spring of 1861 the game wouldn't have begun, and that it certainly wouldn't have be- gun even then if Claude Dimon had not displaced me in the love of the girl T. but what's the use? The game began. It began by Dimon hissing in my ear at the height of the storm:
 'Dilworthee, I dare you to sit down here to a game of draw with me and play it off!
 "Sit down where? In the deserted old tavern which within an hour at the farthest knew must go down with the roaring flood which was momentarily increasing in violence. Already the weather-beaten old landmark was totter- ing on the foundations that had sus- tained it for more than half a century an ancient haven for raftsmen as they came down the river on the periodical freshets and moored their rafts in the eddy at the foot of the high and sandy bluff on the summit of which the tav- ern overlooked the stream.
 ''The bluff was crumbling rapidly away. The rain was still falling in tor rents. All those who had come from the village half mile away, to help good old landlord Sammy Van to save his household goods by carrying them out and away to neighboring farm houses had hastened back home when the work was done and the old building was aban- doned to it's fate after having withstood the floods of so many years.
 "Dfmon and l had been among the savers of the taverns contents. The bar had been wide open to all during the time. Although as a rule an ab- stainer in those days I had that night visited the tavern bar frequently and there was the effect of drink in my head. head.
 "C1aude Dimon had likewise been drinking overmuch, otherwise I doubt If he would have challenged me to that game, dare devil though he was. But If one single drop of liquor had not passed my lips that night I would have accepted the challenge. although to re- main under that roof I knew meant death. Claude Dimon had won from me the girl that I-but never mind that. The mistakes and jealous misgivings of hotheaded youth are not pleasant to dwell upon
 Suffice it to say that I hated Dimon beyond words, and it was in my heart to kill him. I had sworn to do it. Here was my opportunity. It undoubtedly would send me to death along with him, but what of that? What was life to me? Hortense Barnstable was lost to me tut tutl
 Here was my opportunity. The words were scarcely uttered by Dimon before ] shouted:
 !" No greater pleasure could be mine, Claude Dimonv
 And I closed the tavern door, Be- fore I could bolt it the building settled suddenly on the river side and the door was forced open and could not be closed again. I saw that Dimon paled a little at this ominous incident, but he vaulted on the bar, there being no furniture left in the house, and picked up the pack of cards that lay there. I sprang to a position facing him at the bar.
 'It was near midnight. The room was dimly lighted by a kerosene lamp that hung on a post at one end of the bar and swayed with the quivering of the doomed house. Through the open door the rain came beating in, and the awful roar of the flood came nearer and nearer
 We played with changing luck. The old tavern was gradually but surely settling down to meet the flood it could not much longer hope to resist. Hands or stakes were nothing to me, but hand that fell to me by and by was one to keep a man in the game Up to the utmost possible limit.
 What Dimon held neither knew nor cared. He had raised me and I had raised him back, when the tavern ca reened to an angle that almost threw us from the bar. There was sound of rushing, roaring waters Dimon leaped for the door,
 T was quick on his trail and would have caught and held him back, but slipped on the wet and sloping floor Be- fore I could recover myself he had es-
 
 swept the old tavern into the torrent
 T heard the mocking laugh of Claude Dimon above the tumult of the storm, carried to my ears through the gloom, as with the rushing waters rising about me in the room the wreck of the old landmark was quickly swept along to join the crowding, crashing procession of ruin that had filled the river for days
 '"The building had righted as 1t slid into the torrent. I climbed to the bar and awaited the whelming crash that seemed inevitable. As I stood there the sight of the two poker hands lying face down where we had dropped them at tracted my attention.
 .I felt that death was staring me in the face, but mechanically I picked those hands up. I was about to look at the one Dimon had drawn, but some inexpli- cable impulse prevailed upon me not to do so. l placed both hands in the inside breast pocket of my coat. Why? I don't know. Something told me to and I did Fate
 "And still that old tavern, the water surging inside of 1t to the top of the bar on which stood, kept afioat in that laundering flood, tossing and pitching, now lifted up on some crowding mass of logs and debris and now dropping down almost to it's caves when released from the contact until in very terror I prayed for the crash to come that would end 1t all.
 And at last it came, at a moment when 1t seemed to me the flood and the storm bowling in the night were at their widest How 1t came I did not know knew nothing after 1t came, in fact