The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1908-08-20
REVEALED BY A COMPASS.

denly, though Julesburgs extinction
was from the establishment of new
terminus farther on. at Laramie. My
headquarters were in Julesburga and
a more thorough exponent OF all that
is vile in humanity never bloomed on
the face of the earth. All night could
be beard the sound Of fiddles in the
dance halls, "One more lady in this
set" "Keno!" and other similar cries.
On the evening of my arrival, curl
GUS to get glimpse of what was 60.
ing on visited the different places
of hilarity finally bringing up In =
heap of boards that had been nailed
together for gambling den. There
were faro. keno. roulette and in one
corner q table at which two men with
heaps of money before them we're
throwing dice. ! noticed that this
table was not improyised. like the
other furniture OF tho place. II was
of polished black walnut and orna-
mented One of the men throwing
dice was pock-marled red-headed
man with sinister countenance. the
other a fine type Of the rugged, hon-
est, fearless plansman. ] looked on,
the game for awhile and was aston-
ished at the way the dice rolled for
the plainsmans adversary had
heard of loaded dice and the skill
with which they could he thrown,
but | had never dreamed OF anything
like this 1t seemed that the red
headed man could do with them as
he liked. Finally the plalnsman in
tlmated that all was not fair. Tho
other. instead Of resenting the inn
putation, called on me TO throw for
him for awhile 1 did so and met
with the same astonishing luck as
himself.
Handing the dick back to him.
stood wondering how the trick was
done, for did not doubt that II was
trick. or course the pockmarked
man lost occasionally, but it was
plain 10 me that such losses were in
territorial. At times his luck seemed
to be very poor. while that OF the
plainsman was never very good or
very bad. How the dice could be
manipulated, as | was sure they were,
| could not conceive. but while ] was
racking my brain to discover the
plainsman had lost several thousand
dollars, and the pile before him had
been reduced to nearly nothing
While in that country ! carried no
valuables. In my trousers pocket I
had a silver watch worth perhaps So.
Having an appointment at 10 o'clock,
! pulled out my watch as ! thought,
TO note the time. but instead drew
forth pocket compass, an article /
needed constantly What was my
astonishment to see the needle vi
brate feverlshly and when II settled
instead of pointing to what had
supposed was north, II pointed due
east. The men at the table were so
immersed in their game that / did not
ask them where the north pole lay,
but turned to man behind me. He
told me II was where ! supposed 1t
was
Here was new food for thought.
looked at the table and saw that un-
der its top there was an inclosed
space about a foot square, won
dered why a place like that should be
in a dice table. Then 1t occurred to
me that there was something in it to
influence the dice.
Stranger" / said to the pock-
marked man, what's in the box un-
der the table?"
He glanced at me without reply
The plainsman bent down, then, put
lift. The top came off and exposed
the interior of the box. There in
plain view was horseshoe magnet
or, rather, telegraphic machine.
The plainsman whipped out revolv-
er and covered his antagonist
Thank ye, stranger" he said ia
me. please look into IL while | see
that you have fair play Hands up
please!" to the pockmarked man.
The order was obeyed, and made
the examination. Inside the table,
besides the magnet, was a battery
connected by insulated wires running
inside leg of the table. with but
ton about midway down. On one face
OF the dice were metal disks TO fall
face on the table he would press tn.
button with his knee, turn on cur
rent, and the magnet drew chem
down.
The piainsman kept one eye on The
man he covered. while with the 9TH
er he appropriated all the money
he had lost. This was no DISPOSITION
on the part of any one in that conn
try at that time TO punish lren ras-
cality and as soon as he had ~, his
own he went out, asking me to sc
with him. When we were alone to.
gether he said:
Young man, I've got thousand
dollars to give ycu for the secret yoL
found out about what was inside that
table"
! replied that | never gave nothing
for something, but he was welcome
to the secret. and | told him my COM
pass had been influenced by the bat
terry. He seemed very much inter-
aQfad aud flaagaH patnat.Irius, thas ha