The age-herald., 1901-11-03

From the New York Sun.
 It was never hard to get old Caleb Mix, the barkeeper. on the river packet Natchez plying the lower Mississippi. to talk of his earlier days. A chance question would start him. One day he was asked if things had changed much on the river within hIs recollection.
 "Yes, indeed" he said, almost sadly, ''the Mississippi river isn't what it was befo' the war. You see some card play in on the boats now, but there's no such games as I've seen hundreds O times when. I was a youngster in the saloons on some O the packets on the lower Mississippi.
 Tt was poker they played, almost al- together. In them days it was no strange thing for professional gamblers to travel the river all the time an there want much doubt that the cap'ns on some O the boats stood in with 'em Not all of em. Cap'n Barker, that was cap'n O the old River Belle that run fm Memphis plumb through to New Orleans, was one O them kind that wouldn't have no tricks played on passenger on his boat by mo- body.
 70 course we all had our orders an what we uns had to do was to report to him if we seen anything that looked crooked. I was only second bartender then, an hadn't much to say. my boss bein' man that'd a good deal druther had more doin' on the boat than the cap'n d stand for. Beasley-he were my boss he'd worked on other boats befo' where the cap'ns want so strict. an he were a little raw when he found Capn Barker wouldn't stand for 1t.
 One time we was layin' up at Memphis between trips an I was in a saloon when Beasley come in with two stangers an walkin' into a back room with 'em they caleld for a bottle of wine. didn't think nothin' of it then, but the next day when we was about to start down the river them two men came aboard. They was dressed different an they didn't come together. They didn't neither of 'em speak to Beasley. Just natually didn't t say nothin'. but I says to myself they d both bein' poker befo' long, an more n likely they'd play at the same table. If they did, I made up my mins- to speak to the cap'n an not to Beasley.
 That night after I knowed the ladies was likely all gone to their staterooms, I got a chance to go into the main sa- loon an take a look around, an just as I expected them two was settin' with three other men ployin' poker. I didn't wait to see no mo. I just hunted up the old man an told him the whole story. He were mad clean through. He kind O chewed his lip minute an then says:
 CT want you to watch that game for a while an see if you can see anything crooked
 Well. stood watchin' the game for a long time befo' I could make out just what was doin-' Close as I watched, couldn't see anything wrong about the play Then all of a sudden. 1t flashed on me It was after one O the strang- CTS, the taller one O the two. he called hisself Major Hardy. had made a bet that somehow seemed to me I.ke a bluff
 He was third man to play, the other stranger 1havfn' the ageS an tto two men befo him Judge Ross and MT. Cart wright, havfn' both come in. The ante was $1 an by the two comin' in there was five in the pot when this Major Hardy raised it five. O'course there was nothin' strange in that, but somehow felt 1t were signal to the other feller, an I watched what he'd do.
 ''The dealer was a planter from Arkan- sas named Boiles. He skinned his cards down very careful an studied a while an finally come in, seein' the raise. That made s19 in the pot an the age mans