The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-05-22
THEY CUT A THREAD
Carver and Bogardus Not in 1t With
Lafayette and Davis. / (
IT'S A SMOOTH GAME OF SKIN
The Bow and Arrow and Rifle Ar
lists Do Thriving business
In Butte. here Are a
Few Suckers.
rs A SMOOTH GAME OF SKIN

William Foerschler, once a hack
driver, later groceryman but now a
saloonkeeper in East Park street, APP
peared at the sheriff's Office yester-
day morning and had warrants issued
Tor hve men who. he stated, had swim
died him out of $500 on a bunco shoot
ing match at the athletic grounds
Wednesday afternoon. The complain
ant was not the only victim, Profess
sor Ludwig. his partner in business,
and several other persons being
skinned to the queens taste by the
quintette of robbers: but Foerschler
was not troubling himself about the
woes OF his companions in the net. He
wanted the five men arrested because
they had done him up" and that as
soon as possible. too.
According to the story of the affair,
related by one of the fish that bit at
the game, the job was worked in a
rather smooth way. but II is not new
in Butte, and people are therefore sur
prised at its successful termination. 1t
was the same old gag-a man some
what expert In some particular feat APP
pearing in the city few weeks in ad-
vance of his pals. cultivating the ac-
quaintance of few men having some
money and then getting them to back
him in a match against the pals on the
supposition that they are strangers to
all concerned. The last game of this
kind was a bunco foot race in which
several persons had dropped many
thousand dollars. even after the play
had been exposed by various newspa-
pers of the country as often as the gold
brick swindle. The race" took place
in Caplice hall about two years ago
and the curly Lheaded fakir who put up
the job kept right on running with the
money after he had reached the wire.
.aw~4e- T.
shooting match" but 1t was worked on
the same principle as the foot race"
A few weeks ago a man calling him
self Lafayette arrived in town and at
once gave it out that he was q crack
shot with a bow and arrow. He gave
several private exhibitions and his
skill bore out the assertions he had pre-
viously made. He could cut a silk
thread at a distance of several yards
After he had succeeded in getting sew
eral people interested in his marks
manship another man, called Davis,
crack rife shot, appeared upon the
scene and quietly minated that he be-
lieved he could take a rife and beat
the bow and arrow man shooting. The
two shooters were pals. but outsiders
did not know IL, and several of them
began to put up money on the bow and
arrow man. Besides Lafayette and Da-
They had the money and when the fish
bit the three covered all that was put
up by the hackers of Lafayette. The
total amounted to something like $500.
and while the money was being wager
ed 1t never occurred to the poor dupes
that their good hard earned cash was
going against that of the very man
they were backing. The Davis people,
all strangers, had money to throw at
the birds, but they did not throw ii
there; they just covered all the other
fellows could dig up and let ii go at
that.
At the appointed time the match"
took place, the target being a silk
thread 300 feet distance. Davis first
fired and cut the thread, the bow and
arrow man following and missing. The
winners then pocketed the money and
in the evening boarded the Great
Northern train for st. Paul. Lafayette
and Davis and the three others COM
prising the party. Soon after the con-
test it occurred to Foerschler and Lud-
wig that they had been "jobbed," and
the issuing of the warrants for the ar
rest of the men followed. The sheriff
at Glasgow was notified to stop the
sharpers. but late last evening an an
swer was received to the effect that
while the men were on the train the
trainmen were standing in with them.
The message also stated that the ad-
vice of the county attorney was being
sought in regard to stopping the ia
kris beyond the Montana line.