Tanana leader., 1909-12-02
Poker Story Realistic Pipe Dream Sets Sporting Blood to Tingling


 jingle developed in Tanana recently It developed and spread and when i, reached the district attorneys office in Fairbanks it must have caused dismay but that is only conjecture. .. The allegation is that poker gam germinated and flourished not onl, under the nose of the officials, bu under the rooftree of the United State. deputy marshal himself. aided and abetted by the United States commi> sioner.
 | People from down the Yukon say is current gossip in Gold Mountai, district that in the later sittings the commissioner Was barred because i was his custom to uniformly break u the game by winning all the beans. Around town the deputy marshal wa hinted at as the heaviest loser. A select coterie of bushes, men ar. reputed to have dropped ia occasional, to give the representatives of the fed eral government genuine touch high life.
 On being upbraided by certain spor i've acquainIar ce> for not letting them into the game, both the commissions, and the deputy marshal denied tha there had been anything of the kind going on. They said that an innocent game of cribbage had probably given rise to what was designated ''the ab- surd talk.'
 The gossips had it that the stiffes game of the series took place at Georgt | Vautier's residence on Thanksgiving night, when au unidentified stranger dropped in and almost raised the roof off the building.
 Deputy Marshal Donovan arrived from Fairbanks that evening. He was probably the unidentified stranger of the story, for he was closee ed with Mir. Vautier up to a late hour at night. It is considered highly improbable thai he opened any jackpots or drew to an, bobtail fushes, however.
 Indeed, pending a special inves. iga- tion or an invitation to draw cards in the indefinite hereafter, The Leader prefers to believe that the poker sensa- tion was nothing more than an uncom- monly realistic pipe dream.
 Rejecting, therefore, the late gossip as not according to fact, we will go back to the summer of 1908 and tell d more authentic story of little game that went on in the Innoko in which our present commissioner is said to have been principal. Or course Judge Gallaher was not in office then, and it is altogether probable that he has re- pented of his wickedness, which did not profit him much, any way.
 At Tnnoko City the judge and two or three boon companions got little pastime game going and one day an Indian came along and wanted to sit in. The judge said it was all right if the Indian could produce. The Indian had no money, but was a born financier; so the upshot was reorganization of the game with the beans based on eight cords of wood the Indian claimed to have in the brush nearby. which it was agreed should pass current at sS a cord. Three white men bought a quar- ter of cord apiece and the game pro- ceeded. Pretty soon, when everybody was in, the whites resorted to the tac- tics technically known as cross-liftine {; but tho red man failed to run and after the showdown he sold six dollars worth more wood. ...:..-. .....-.. .....
 The Indian buried all the money he took in and played bis cordwood to such good advantage that he cornered about all the cash in the game. After several days play he was pretty fat and didn't seem to mind it much when he lost his last cord of wood on tens-up in a jackpot. With that play he went permanently out of the game, very much to the good in point of financial standing. .--.
 Judge Gallaher soon cleaned up the balance of the wood and the game pe- tered out for want of collateral. One day the judge made big smudge in a discarded beanpot and went out into the mosquito-infested swamp to view his assets. There was but scant cord and half in sight, and there never had been any more. He asked eight dollars for it, but finally sold for six.
 And that is the end of the story.