A Big Hand for the Little Lady

In the back room of Sam's Saloon, the territory's five richest men assemble for their annual high-stakes poker game. The crowd outside gathers for occasional reports as the players set the tone with cool patience and practiced bluffs. An unusual interruption comes when Undertaker Tropp arrives in a horse-drawn hearse to summon them, threatening to disrupt their proceedings.

Settler Meredith, his wife Mary, and their young son Jackie stop by Sam's while the wagon wheel is being repaired. Meredith asks Habershaw if he can watch the game, and the lawyer is struck by Mary's looks, inviting him to join. Meredith agrees and ultimately buys into the high-stakes hand.

Meredith puts everything on the line, staking all the family savings intended for a new home to participate in the game. He sacrifices the last prospects of a settled life for a shot at the big win. The tension in the room rises as the pot grows.

The pot balloons to more than $20,000 as players push and re-raise. Out of cash and overwhelmed, Meredith collapses from strain, and the town physician, Doc Scully, is summoned to tend him. Barely conscious, Meredith signals for his wife Mary to finish the hand.

Mary asks, 'How do you play this game?' and, despite protests, is allowed to take over. She exits briefly to raise funds and is followed by Jackie and several players. The moment highlights her resolve and the men’s reluctant respect.

Mary crosses the street to the Cattle and Merchants' Bank, presenting her hand as justification for credit. Bank owner C. P. Ballinger lends her $5,500 at 6% interest and injects a $5,000 raise to push the pot higher. The loan subtly shifts the balance of power at the table.

Ballinger's loan enables a final, decisive raise that forces the other players to fold. Mary pockets a sizable winnings and repays Ballinger with interest, illustrating how the scam leverages the banker’s caution against the gamblers’ bravado. The room hums with whispered awe at the audacity of the turn.

The hand ends without anyone ever seeing the actual winning card, and the game breaks up amid quiet admiration for Mary's nerve. Drummond, moved by the moment, returns home to his waiting wedding and quietly respects the gambit's outcome. The town begins to marvel at the outsiders' deftness.

Back at the wedding's edges, Drummond privately counsels his prospective son-in-law to run away and seek a better wife, even as he supplements him with money to start anew. The gesture reveals a softer, conflicted streak behind the hard-edged frontier life. The couple’s plan to wed is left in a precarious, unsettled state.

In a final twist, Meredith, Mary, and their fake 'son' are revealed as confidence tricksters and expert card sharps. With Scully's allyship and Ballinger's complicity, they admit to swindling the poker players who had victimized the banker years earlier. The scheme is laid bare and the lovers’ ruse stands exposed.

Mary is revealed to be Ballinger's mistress Ruby; she promised to quit gambling but sits down to another poker game anyway, much to Ballinger's dismay. The couple's romance remains as dangerous as their tricks, setting the stage for one last gamble.