The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-05
GOOD HAND AT PlNocHLE.
Held on Union Pacific Smoking Car b,
q Poker PLAYER

Poker Player.
Il read not long ago." said gentle
man connected with the geological sur
vey of the United States government
and who does a good deal of travelling
for that organization, IAN amusing ac-
count given by a commercial traveller
of how all the pretty plans he had
made to guide his conduct in case of
hotel confiagration petered out when
he found himself actually mixed up in
the Baldwin house fire in San Fran
cisco, and how he went to pieces just
like the majority of people without any
prearranged plans do under similar cir
cumstances. He drew a moral on the
difference between promise and per-
formance from the story, and it set
me to thinking of rather parallel ex-
perience l had few years ago. My
experience, however, wasn't a fire. 1t
was hold-up.
'In 1889 I was travelling on a sleeper
on the Union Pacific, bound from Oma-
ha for Denver. 1t was a pleasant ride,
in the middle of autumn, and there
hadn't been a holdup of any sort on
the Union Pacific for two or three
years at the time I'm speaking of.
Three of us in the sleeper got together
in the smoking compartment and
played pinochle for 81 a corner after
the train had been out from Omaha for
20 hours or so, and all in all it was
about as pleasant journey as can be
imagined up to certain point. At
little place called Mirage, in Lincoln
county, Colorado, the train stopped to
permit boiler to be refilled and our
car got passenger there. We noticed
him when he stood within the door of
the compartment and idly watched the
game for while.
He was tall, gaunt, commonplace
looking man, except that he had a pair
of peculiarly black, deep-set, shifty
eyes He wore a new and very badly
fitting suit of store clothes, blue fan
mel shirt with a black string tie and
black SLOUGH hat. ] didn't take in all
of these details of his get-up at first,
for none of us paid any particular at
tention to him as he stood leaning
against the jamb of the door. After
while though, one Of the fellows asked
him if he cared to sit in to make up
party of four and he smiled in slow
kind of way and said he didn't mind.
Then I sized him up and figured that
he had about the makeup of COOK
of a rounding-up outfit or a freighter
| going home to see his folks. I noticed,
| too, every time I looked up from my
| cards that he was looking pretty hard
| at stud l wore then and again at a
ring with a gem in it that my friend
Kountz had picked out for me.
He wasn't much of a pinochle play
err and one or the other of the original
three of us got his silver dollar with
considerable regularity at the end of
| each game. After a while I asked one
| of my friends to give me Dill for III
silver dollars I had accumulated. When
| he pulled out a wad as big as the busl-
ness end of a baseball bat to accom-
| T OF
chances the shifty-eyed chap from the
Colorado gravel plains directed at the
bundle of money.
1.-THE train made slow speed and it
was two hours after We left Mirage
before the whistle announced Hugo
the next stop. When the engine gave
the single toot the shfty- eyed man
table, put his hands in his lap and
leaned back with a sort of sigh.
I "''Seems to me amt havin' no SORT
| O. luck at all in this game he said
with an aggrieved drawl that was al
most pathetic. 'Hain't had nary TRUMP
in my hand with anythin' for more'r
a dozen rounds. But they amt nj
use kickin', is there, fellers? Anyhow
I'm not all up yit, after all. Come t.
think of it. I've got hand right there
now that ought to be good in any com
pany. What do you felers think O.
| it?'
I'VE didn't do any thinking at all
but our six arms went into the air jus
as if they We're on the same marionettt
string. The new mans 'hand'-rather
his pair of 'hands'-would, as he said
| have taken the pot in any company.
His edge on the situation consisted o
pair of black barreled army revolver
that he suddenly jerked out of his lal
with his last question. He held one o
them steadily leveled on a spot RICH
between my two eyes and the other HI
| slowly waved from side to side, so a
to cover my two friends with his othe
gun. Well I didn't do any analyZn:
of the situation any more than if
had never thought of what I was go
ing to do in case l was held up.
kind of an ornery way of doin
job, fellers, know, said the shifty
eyed man with the bead on us, 'bu
you all look sporty enough not to b
particular how the things done, 81
longs as you've got to give UP all C
your belongin's in the way of cash AM
gilt junk, anyhow. That's about right
hey?
well, I've told enough to prove m,
case of the fiunks and to exhibit tn
difference between promise and per
Torrance. The fellow persuaded tn
three of us to lay our vicious-lookin
guns on the card table and then GU
valuables. He got my stud and rim
that he had been so earnestly sizin
up and couple of hundred in cash
He did as well out of the other two
and then he just hoped off the trail
at Hugo. I haven't figured out an
future line of conduct since tina
time. "-Washington Star.