The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-09-20
SHE GAMBLED WITH A MAGNET,
How sacramento Kate Turned a
$4,000 Trick i'm Baker City.
Washington Star

1.-The old days out in the Western country
were brought back to me the other day
when 1 read that dispatch from Houstony
Tex. about two fashionable young women
tourists who had tripped into Houston's
toppiest gambling layout and spread-eagled
the outfit at every game from craps to wheel
and bank, and put the plant out of business
to the tun of thousands after a few hours
play" said an ex-gambler, now settled in
Washington, who in his unregenerate days
dealt faro in most of the swift cities of the
West.
1T was in Baker City, Ore, in 1887. 1
was dealing for jeff Hopewell, who was then
running the best bank in the town. One
night l was slipping them out for a lot of
cinch people. breakfast-money ~grabbers-
it was a little early for the sky players, who
generally scrambled in about 10 or IL o'clock
when something pretty choice swept into
the room and filled it with a fragrance that
made a fellow think of the days when he
had the time and the inclination to gather
trailing arbutus in the early spring. She was
a tall, black-haired, black-eyed, ivory
skinned queen in a sweeping black lace
dress and a plumed Gainsborough hat. If
Cleopatra were to get off ar + street car
at the corner of Ninth at high noon, she
wouldn't get the bunch around that Corner
more agape than this swagger-looking
woman got the men who were sitting
around the faro room. She stood in the
doorway for a moment with a smile on
her face that showed her dimples-I never
saw such winsome dents on a human map
and every one of us struggled TO a stand
ing posture and stared at her.
Resume your seats, gentlemen the
apparition said, as we stood like yaps gaz-
ing at her; and l guess maybe her voice
didn't sound like those deep croony strings
on the harp. Il am sorry to interrupt. L
am only here between trains, and l should
like 10 sit in. May ~
Might she. Perhaps all of us weren't
feeling for our necktieS to find out if they
were on straight when she gr~aciously ac-
cepted a chair at one side of the table and
pulled alongside the game.
What are the yellows?' she asked me.
Twenty-Five, madam said I.
" Stack. please said she, placing two
handouts of double eagles on the table. l
$500 into the drawer out of the gold she had
pushed over my way, handed her back the
500 or SO change and shuffied the deck. Just
then a flock of the big players, who had
heard down the street Of what was coming
off, strolled in and the pikers at the table
gave way to them. We had a rule out
there that the chicken-feed people had to
make room for the cloud-riders when they
came along, and a mighty good rule it was.
at that. The new arrivals bought i'm and
they all bought yellows. too, after observ-
ing that the perfectly calm and collected
woman at the table had chosen chips of
that color.
1.-The woman's manners were gracious
ness itself. She wouldn't let the men around
the table put themselves out of the way in
the least for her and before / began to deal
she produced a gold-bound tab book of GEL
luloid and a little gold-mounted pencil and
thus indicated that she was going to keen
her own cases on the O~ame-Which she did
There were seven players seated around
the table and four or five making bets from
behind the chairs. Most of them were fell
lows who had been playing bank ever since
they learned how to white, and yet not a
man of them observed what was coming
off at the woman's end of the table any
more than did myself. She played until
nearly L o'clock in the morning and yet,
as / say, nary a one of us got next to her.
/ noticed that frequently, when l had half
slid the cards out of the box when all was
set, the woman had a habit of reaching
over the table and sort of funibling the set
stacks on the various cards, but / attrib-
uted this to a woman's popularity and said
nothing about it. l was dealing without q
lookout that night, the lookout who served
on my watch being sick.
1.-THE woman in the game played on, as
say, for nearly three hours, scarcely ever
saying a word, keeping her own tab ano
winning constantly. She played singles ex'
clusively, coppering most of the time
When she pushed her chair back she had
lily ldOlC III u lIldh SOjUEV.
1.-The Portland train is DUE she said
looking at her watch, and l must be leav'
| ing. L have been very lucky, have I not?'
Remarkably lucky, madam said i, anC
/ was wondering what jeff Hopewell, my
employer, would say-he was out of town
when he got back and found out that g
woman in a picture hat had shredded hi:
game for that nifty bundle of money.
II cashed her in, and, with a graciou:
smile all around, she gathered up her lace
train and made her royal swish and frou
frou out of the room, all of the boys gaz
ing blankly after her as if she had beer
from another planet.
1.-TWO days later the conductor of tn,
Overland dropped in to play a few turns be-
Say he said to me before buying chips
Il dropped Mrs. Kathryn Cunningham into
town the other evening from my train. ant
i hear she got into you for q few and the
conductor passed me the grin.
Little matter of six thousand or So
told him. is that her name-Mrs. Kathryn
Cunningham?
s.Uh-huh,' said the conductor. That ant
Sacramento Kate and Magnet Kitty and
few others that she's picked up along tn,
coast. fooled you for six thousand, yol
say? Say, l guess Kitty must have worked
the magnet on you
land that is exactly what Sacramento
Kathryn had worked on me-the magnet
The magnet was a dead new one out tina,
way then, and that was the only excuse
had for not having got next to it. Mrs
Kathryn Cunningham, widow of Jack Gun
nlngham VINO mad run the biggest fare
game in Sacramento, was the woman / hat
heard a good deal about, but / had never
seen her until that night when she hat
zephyred in and helped to pull the prop.
from underneath the bank for which | wa:
dealing. Those little eccentric moves o.
hers In carelessly passing her hand arounC
the set stacks on the cards just as 1 was il
the act of dealing were understood by IN,
after that little talk with the conductor.
''The woman had held a tiny magne
pinched in the hollow of her right hand, ane
when she got the lightning flash at tn,
cards as / slipped them out she would sim
ply pass the hand with the magnet over he
| %coppered stacks. The metallic marker,
would fly off the stacks and stick to he
little magnet, and thus the stacks that hat
been coppered were uncoppered and lef
open when she got the eagle glance at tn,
cards coming out of the box and saw tina.
the coppered cards were coming out on tn,
winning side, The fact that / had no look
out that night made the game easier fol
her. but, at that, the magnet stunt ha,
been worked since by scientific men wheI
spies on the outside as well as ookou
have been watching the layout. Mrs. Kath
ryn Cunningham, otherwise Sacramento
Kate and Magnet Kitty. was early enough
on the ground with the magnet dodge I.
pick up a very large amount of money Will
Ii before the word as to her scheme wa.
passed up and down the line. She wa
burned to death in her swell home in Sal
Francisco only a few years ago."