The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-09-25


"As I was saying, when Cox took hi:
seat at the piano, everybody within
earshot, except the poker players
stopped to listen. Officers of the regi-
ments encamped on the hills outside OF
the town, who always dropped in at the
CLUB to get square meal, stopped rum
maging among the piles of out-of-
date French, Spanish, American, anC
English pictorials which Uttered the
long mahogany table in the center OF
the room; the imnunes of Grubb's bat
talon occupying the old Spanish the
atre, across the street, ceased their ri
bald songs; tipplers at the New Ameri-
can Crystal Palace cafe, lately estab-
1iShed under the old theatre, all came
out on the sidewalk, and the senoritas
in the houses throughout the nedghbor-
hood drew their chairs close to the lat
tice walls which separated their veran-
das from the street. to hear the mining
managers lively solos and the crashing
choruse5 which followed.
The poker players alone hung stolid-
ly to the work in hand, smoking and
drinking and making only occasional
monosyllabic responses to the queries:
What y got?' What y going to do?'
etc. 'Cox's inimitable.'
Then 'eres to We, Fuzzy Wuzy.'
" AT yer 'ome in the Sowdan had no
charms for them. We were very strong
on Kipling, and the Anglo-Saxon unity
in those days. In fact, the queen and
empress was toasted by US about as
often as any redcoat mess in the far
away Himalayas The unconscionable
ship captain, who came into port one
Nday anxious to create a sensation, and
told yarn about Victoria'S alleged
death, caused as much CONSERVATION as
he might have stirred up at Kingston.
Cox didn't sing late on this particu-
lar night. He and such of his crowd as
did not go to bed when the singing
was over, were watching the game be-
fore 10 O'clock
AT that time James had most of the
chips and big pile of Spanish centens,
English sovereigns and American IS
gold pieces before him. He had big
run of luck. Also he had two dark
rings under his eyes, two dark semi
circles around the corners of his lips
and dazed look and a very pale face
The crowd was interested in the game,
and hadn't noticed how badly he looked
until he suddenly got up and said alb
ruptly:
" I'm going to quit.
What's the matter? Cold feet?'
queried the big blonde staff captain,
with touch of a sheer in his voice.
" Maybe said James, with some fire,
but not the kind you are thinking Of
Then, turning to Cox, he said:
Cox, you cash in for me. I'm going
to bed With that he went off to his
room and Mason and L followed him.
Passing of Manager James.
There's only one kind of fever that
can produce those circles and that
dazed look, Mason whispered to me, as
lanes want inf nd 4Io
kind that's always bad when it strikes
a man of James build
Yes, 1 know I said. I have seen
a lot of it in Central America, where [
was building a railroad when this
trouble came up
AS we entered the room James was
crawling into bed with his six-shooter
in his hand. He put the gun carefully
under his pillow, turned his face toward
the wall and muttered half to himself
and half to us:
It's the real thing Symptoms I'M
mistakable. Crashing pain at the base
OF the brain, shooting pains up and
down the backbone, dull aches in the
knee JolntS-I know EN-, but remember
I'm going to stay here. They are hust-
ling the yellow jack patients over to the
island as fast as they catch the dis
ease. 1t kills the patient to be moved,
but it saves the town to get them out
of the way. One mans life doesn't
count for much when it's balanced
against, the town, according to the way
they look at things at the palace but
when it's my life it counts with me. TIC
hell with the town. I'm thinking Of
James, and if they try to move me
there will be a bit of a scrimmage in
here.
James tapped his pillow significant
ly as he spoke.
Mason and agreed to take a chance
and not say anything about what allied
James. We didn't think the other fell
lows would be quite as expert at
his trouble as we had been.
After we had sent the last bottle of
champagne in the ice chest into him
we went back to the poker game. The
crowd had thinned out some; another
man was in James chair, and the
cloud of smoke hanging over the table
was a bit heavier.
Will the next death report of the
general department Santi-
ago, contain the item: James, civilian.
operator; yellow fever?' asked one of
the correspondents.
=" I'm afraid So said Mason Then
the game went on. other men had
dropped out of it on other days just as
James had done, and for the same
reason. 1t was no longer a novelty.
Poker Game Follows Burial.
James was dead when a doctor and
a couple of ambulance stewards sent
from the palace the next afternoon ar
rived to take him to the island, so they
ordered him to the cemetery instead
and told us to be quick in obeying the
order. or the palace would have to take
the job off our hands. We bought
rough mahogany coffin with James
poker winnings and put him in it just
as we found him on the bed, sticking
the six-shooter under his head
Don't be surprised at what I said
about the mahogany coffin. The Santi-
ago woods are full of mahogany tim
Der. 1t is much cheaper wood there
than American hard pine. Back, in. the
hills the natives use it to cook with,
and the principal wharf of the town is
made of it, all but the piles.
James got more OF a funeral than
the average stranger was getting in
Santiago in those days. We, who had
been messing and playing poker with
him at the club, felt that it was I'D to
us to do something out of the ordinary.
We followed the body to the cemetery
in which they buried foreigners, be-
cause the archbishop never allowed
burying of heretics in the Catholic GEM
ateries. There are about 200 graves in
the cemetery, including the trench in
which the fifty-one Americans who
we're with Captain Frye on the Vir-
ginius expedition and were shot there
by order of the Spanish authorities
more than twenty-five years before our