The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-02

with grin that he had had enough for that night, The recruit said 'Cert'nly' when the sergeant pathetically asked him if he wouldn't give him a show to get back on him on the following night, and walked out In the direction of the quarters, but he never got there. h. stead, he took the midnight train on the Oregon Short Line for the east and they haven't got him yet either. When he failed to turn up for reveille the next morning the sergeant was torn by sudden agonizing thought, and he raked out his mustang dice in a hurry. He found that they weren't his own dice at all, but first class limitations of them, and that two of them were just almost bewitched to roll over so that club on one and heart on the other would turn up. The grief that consumed him when he made the discovery was not assuaged by the hoarse hooting he got at the hands of the men who had had financial dealings with him.
 This thing, as I said started the wheels in my sergeant's head to whir- ring, and he got haggard with anxiety to get even. He wanted to win that $450 back the worst way, and it was for this reason that he fell into the habit of playing draw poker with some of the Shonhone Indians who used to hang around the post at times. Some of those Shoshones always had good sum of government money slowed about their clothes for a while after
 their quarterage days, when the agent
 woudl make them their payments, and
 the sergeant took it into his head to q fYNxy fnr a n.y. tIy good success at first, for he knew a good deal about the game of draw, and got $50 or $60 each from four or five of the Shoshones without much trouble. Then he fell in with Charley Daw, a chief with a face as hard as an Easter Island lava statue. Although the ser- geant didn't know it at the time. this Charley Daw had mastered the game of draw poker right here in Washington, on visit that he had made with some
 other Indians for the adjustment of some Shoshone claims-and when a wooden-faced man becomes a really good player of draw poker 1t is a wise thing to steer clear of him. The ser geant was too much rattled, however, over the way he had been footed by the recruit to weigh considerations of this sort, and he also forgot to remember until it was too late that Charley Daw since his return to the reservation from 1 Washington, had become known to the men of his own tribe as the most mag ical dealer of poker hands that ever 1 chucked one of his papooses under the chin.
 Charley permitted the sergeant to win nearly $500 from him on the first night the two sat down together, and on the next night he donated him $200 more He fed the sergeant on coin for nearly week, in fact, and exhibited | such opaque stupidity at the game that ] the sergeant must have had his real es- | tate office furnished pretty gorgeously l in his mind. The games took place in Charley's wickicup, the best on the res ervation, and the only onlooker present on the final night of the game was the l post ordnance sergeant, who told me l all about it.
 "The sergeant, about seven hundred
 dollars of the Indians money to the | good, was so infused with Joy on this | final night that at the beginning of the play he started the bluffing system. It
 worked splendidly, Charley Daw ap- | DGdIlHS u lay uONil Dl6 odI of pure fear of the man with the cross
 guns on his cap. But when the soldier
 attempted to bluff the Indian out of a | jack pot that the Shoshone had opened
 on his own deal, he struck snag; | Charley Daw let him get in very deep,
 making very small raises himself in a half-hearted kind of a way. The sol dier, fancying that the Indian was only l trying to protect himself, and would
 sooner or later lay down, kept on rais- l ing it with twenty-five dollar bets, un- til there was about five hundred dol lars in the pot. Then the Shoshone not caring to scare his man out on the play, | called, and spread out his queen full The sergeant jammed his kings up into the deck with nervous oath. To ease the soldier up little, Charley Daw let him win one hundred dollars back on the next few plays. Then he settled back firmly on his launches to play poker.
 'The last play was natural jack and it was the Indiar.'s deal. Charley Daw was one of those poker dealers that make men nervous by covering the whole deck up with their hands
 while riffiing the cards. The sergeant
 was in a pretty rattled frame of mind
 and the only thing that relieved his
 nervousness while the Indian thus
 shuff1ed the cards was that the latter
 seemed to be giving no attention to the
 job, but kept his gaze fixed dreamily tc
 the top of the wickieup.
 "'Shuff1e the cards on the blanket,
 he said, however, to the Indian finally
 "'Huh?' inquired Charley Daw, bu
 he showed that he had heard the re
 mark all right by giving the cards al
 ostentatious riffling on the blanket.
 With a pat ace full, the sergeant,
 was told, looked as if he felt a reviva
 of interest in life, and, in order to en
 tice the Indian in, he opened the pot fo
 only five dollars. The Shoshone stud jed his hand for long time and finall
 ly heaved 8 five dollar gold piece int
 the pot with the air of man who be
 lieves he is making a fool of himself
 He looked quite concerned when tn
 soldier stood pat with a self-hatisfet