The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-09-29
SIDE LIGHTS ON THE CAMP
Something About Games of Chance and Gamblers, and How
They Buck the Tiger on the Nevada Desert.
Written for The News by W. P. De Wolff

are made on the racing events at the
various tracks and the crowd either
wins, or goes broke in the same old
way and walks home. The scene is
quite the same as that being enacted in
a dozen or more Saratoga poolrooms at
the same hour, minus the difference in
time, and ~inclines the onlooker to the
belief that all that is necessary to Sc
cure a glimpse of the bang tails is to
jump ON a street car and alight at the
entrance of the palatial racetrack
established by that thorough sports
man, the late William C. Whitney.
Men who live by the increment of
the gambling-table are in a class by
themselves and their characteristics
are as distinctive and as easily dis
cernible as are those which mark the
clergy. They have their own code of
honor and many of its ramifications
contain the essence of integrity and
square dealing. A gamblers word
given to another member of the fra
ternity is as good as his bond, and
once broken he is ever a prescribed
man. A welcher is beralded the coun-
try owe in gambling circles and he is
~ostracised by members of the craft
wherever he may 60. As a rule they
pay their bills promptly and without a
kick, and they are liberal contributors
to all public and charitable causes.
They are keen judges of human nature.
and seldom make a mistake in sizing
up a man. Their friendship once given
is rarely revoked and is sometimes
more lasting than that in which the
ties of consanguinity enter. AS a class
they have a quick wit and humor and
often attach apt appellations to per-
sons whose occupation or idiosyn-
~cracies are called to their attention.
Some of these nicknames are decidedly
original and unique and quite in keep
ing with the characteristics of the in
dividual. Following are a few of the
choicest:
Beefsteak Mike, Sheeny Jake, Ala
BAN, rifteen Two, No Account Kid,
Two-Bit Kid, Right-Change Sam,
Short-Bit Kid, Billy the Wheel, Lob
ster Kid, Popcorn Jimmie, Society
Red, Handsome Charlie, Jimmie the
Tough, Dopey Kid, Big George, Long
Shorty, Cyclone, Stud-Poker Frank,
Bouquet Jack, Dog-Faced Kid, Pansyi
Willie, Washer Ike, Dusty Rhodes,
Sure-Shot Dave, Musical Pete, Jimmie
the Face, Crap-A-Jack, Pinky, Uneasy
Kid, Charlie Rockinghorse.
In a mining camp the gambling in
stinct is an inherent trait of the popu-
%lation, having its inception probably in
the spirit of adventure which per-.
meates the residents, and which in;
duced them to blaze the trails across
the arid wastes and over rocky peaks
on the chance of finding a pot of gold
at their farther ends. Life is always
more or less of a gamble to these hardy
nomads, and the zest of the game is
lust as keen to them at the SEVENTEEN
milestone as at the twentieth; and
fortune quite as often perches on the
former as the latter. Your genuine
prospector is just as ~sanguine of ulti-
mate success at the age of three score
and ten as he was in the heyday of his
youth and speaks of the future with
a calm assurance in which the ravages
of time and the chill hand of death
have no place. He has apparently
quaffed deeply at the fountain of
youth, for the burden of years has not
bowed his sturdy shoulders, and in his
sight the passage of a twelvemonth is
but as a day. Keen eyed and ~virile,
quick of perception and taciturn OF
tongue, he risks his all on the turn of
a card or in a prospect shaft with equal
nonchalance and if the result be
against him girds up his loins for an
other effort. He is buoyed up by an
optimism which is imperviops to on
slaughts of misfortune and though adj
versity may down him he never takes
the count. The nightmare Of failure
never mars the pleasure of his golden
dreams and the blanket Of defeat
never disturbs his repose during the
silent watches of the night beneath the
star-strewed meadows of the armament.
Year after year his t~ireless feet follow
where fortune leads and at the end of
the trail on the other side of the Great
Divide he makes his final camp with
the same calm assurance and confidence
in the morrow radiant prospects. Not
much of creed or sect enters into his
religion, for he receives his inspira-
ton from the sun-lit hills and the
grand diapason of nature, and her
every mood vibrates a responsive