Cards at Pattons

"The lock clicked behind Salathiel, and he looked about eagerly about him. the ceiling was high, and it was a big, long room. The red firelight winked through shadowy yellow smoke, in which candles shone here and there like fixed stars."

The above describes the main room at "Patton's" or the "Sugar Cabins". It is at Pattons, a study log farmhouse and a "centre of news and hospitality", that a major event takes place that gives new direction to Salathiel's life; a card game.

Things have progressed not only from Salathiel's savage beginnings, but even from the more civilized events at Fort Bedford. There is a definite feeling of business matters transpiring for future story-building. St. Clair and Yates are involved together in land dealing, and Salathiel figures in their plans. This is exciting stuff - fortunes being hammered out on this wilderness anvil!

Mr. Richard Allen (the Author's Son) points out that a lot of time is taken describing the card game that takes place at Patton's. It is here where Yates beats Lieutenant Grant at "Irish loo", and wins a large tract of land in the Lake country of New York.

This chapter of Toward The Morning shows a ruthless side to Edward Yates. He chooses his victim, the blow-hard Scotsman, and he primes him with some of Mr. Patton's vintage 1752 peach brandy. Poor old Wully Grant gets sloppy in no time, while Yates seems unaffected by it. He toasts the Scotsman, drops a few hands, then, when Wully is at his most confident, he goes in for the kill!

This chapter, if nothing else, should teach anyone not the drink and play cards at the same time!

It fun to see what direction the Disinherited Series is about to take at this point. One can only imagine the exciting and dramatic episodes that could have transpired in New York's lake country with a savy Lawyer and giant Indian fighter! It all gives authority to the inscription on Yates pocket watch; "The disinherited succeed in time"

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