The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-11
GOOD PINOCHI.E HAND
1T WAS HELD ON A UNION PACIFIC
SMOKING CAR BY A POKER
PLAYER

PLAYER
HE HAD BEEN IN HARD LUCK
But Things Took a Turn, and the
other Three Players In the Game
Readily Saw the Superiority of
the Hand-Value of Pair Of Re-
voIvers When Presented at the
Right Time.
1T 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 account
given by a commercial traveller of how
all of the pretty plans he had made to
guide his conduct in case of a hotel con-
fiagration petered out when he found
himself actually mixed up in the Baldwin
house fire in San Francisco, and how he
went to pieces just like the majority of
people without any prearranged plans do
under similar circumstances. He drew
Use and performance from the story and
1t set me to thinking of rather parallel
experience I had few years ago. My
experience, however, wasn't a fire. 1t
was a hold-up.
In 1889 I was travelling on sleeper on
the Union Pacific, bound from Omaha
for Denver. 1t was a pleasant ride, in
the middle of autumn, and there hadn't
been hold-up of any sort on the U. P.
for two or three years at the time I'm
speaking Of Three of us in the sleeper
ment and played pinochle for 81 a cor
ner after the train had been out from
Omaha for twenty hours or SO, and all
in ali it was about as pleasant journey
as can be imagined up to certain
point. At a little place, called Mirage,
in Lincoln county, Col, the train stopped
to permit a boiler to be refilled and our
car got a passenger there. We noticed
him when he stood within the door of
the compartment and idly watched the
game for a while.
THE STRANGER SITS IN.
HE was a tall, gaunt, commonplace
of peculiarly black, deep-Set, Shifty eyes.
He. wore a new and very badly fitting
suit of store clothes, a blue flannel shirt
with black string tie and a black SLOUGH
hat. 1 didn't take in all of these de-
tails of his get-up at first, for none of
us paid any particular attention 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 n la O arfU of o,1d
he smiled in a slow kind of way and said
he didn't mind. Then I sized him up
and figured that he had about the make
up of cook of a rounding-up outfit or
freighter going home to see his folks.
noticed, too, every time I looked up from
my cards that he was looking pretty
hard at stud 1 wore then and again
at ring with a gem in it that my
friend Kountz had picked out for me.
He wasn't much of a pinochle player
and one or the other of the original three
of US got his silver dollar with consider
able regularity at the end of each game
After while I asked one of my
friends to give me a bill for ten, silver
dollars 1 had accumulated Whea he
pulled out wad as big as the business
end of a base ball bat to accommo IA q
me 1 wondered little at the sharp
glances the shiftyeyed chap from the
Colorado glavel 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 shifty-eyed man threw his hand
face downward On the table, put his
hends in his lap and leaned back with a
sort of sigh.
A WINNING HAND AT LAST.
Seems to me T amt havin' no sort
o luck at all in this game he said with
an aggrieved drawl that was almost pa
-thetic. 'Hain't had nary trump in my
hand with anythin' for more'n q dozen
rounds. But they amt no use kickin',
is there, fellers? Anyhow, I'm not all
UP yit, after ALL. Come to think of it,
I've got a hand right there now that
ought to be good in any company. What
do you fellers think of it?'
We didn't do any thinking at ALL but
cur six arms went into the sir just as If
they were on the same marionette
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 of a pair
of black-barreled army revolvers that he
suddenly jerked out Of his lap with his
last question. He held ones of them
steadily leveled on the spot right between
my two eyes and the other he slowly
waved from side to side, so as to cover
my two friends with his other gun. Well
L didn't do any anayZing of the situa-
ton any more than if I had never
thought of what l was going to do in
case L was held up.
Kind of an ornery way of dom a
job, fellers, know said the shiftv-eved
man with the bead on us, but you all
look sporty enough not to be particular
how the things done, so longs you've
got to give up all O. your belongins in
the way of cash and gilt junk, anyhow.
That's about right, hey?'
We'll, I've told enough to prove my
case of the f1unks and to exhibit the dif
ference between promise and perform
ance. The fellow persuaded the three Of
US to lay our notwithstanding guns on
the card table and then our valuables.
He got my stud and ring that he had
oeeen SO earnestly sizing np and n couple
of hundreds in cash He did as we'll ont
OF the other two, and then he lust
hoped off the train at Hugo.