The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1911-03-23
to poverty. "

| ter. Play carefully.
"Be sport, but don't be damned
idiot
Faro never was no cinch."
"Chub, don't cheat"
Jack Monohan dealt his last game
more than twleve years ago, when he
had charge of the faro tables in the
old LOG Cabin" saloon at Baker
City, Ore. He dropped" $4,000
during bad run" in that place and
retired from the business penniless.
If he had not been an honest gam
bier he would not have lost it. 1t
was his farewell deal, and as he ex-
planned afterward, "a clever fellow
from Chicago got the best of him."
Fairly, too," he added reminis-
Gently, for Three-Fingered Jack al
ways made it known that he would
not cheat and that there was no man
in the business foxy enough to cheat
| him.
There were, or there should have
been, five notches on the barrel of
Monohan's sixshooter. Five times in
his career it became necessary for
Jack to beat the other fellow to 1t,
and in each instance the other fel-
low was carried out of the room to
an undertaken.
Jack worried about killing a man
as much as could any person, but
fate was unkind in that 80 often she
compelled him to kill or wound to
save his own life. Jack was always
justified. On one occasion when the
sheriff of Los Angeles county, Cali
fornia, was summoned to arrest him
and was informed that Jack had shot
man through the heart during
game of poker the sheriff exclaimed:
II don't know the other fellow,
but, by gad, know Jack, and Jack
knows the law as well as I do! I'll
bet six bits to doughnut he had to
kill him."
And the sheriff was right. He ar
rested Monohan, however, and the
latter was acquitted after the jury
had been out only five minutes. 1t
was a clear case of justifable homi-
eide.
Jack Monohan was truly a gambler
of the pioneer Western type Of Cali
fornia and Oregon. He never took a
cent from a drunken man or from
any one whom he knew really needed
it, although he always won honestly.
1t was in Yerka, CAL, in 1858 that
Jack Monohan staked his life on the
turn of card. Undoubtedly it was a
foolish risk to take, but the gamblers
of that time and place held human
life at low value. Jack Monohan
was not an exception.
The incident occurred near the
close of poker game. In lifting
his cards from the table the first
deal from a new deck-one Of them
slipped suddenly from Jacks hand
and fell to the floor, face downward,
on the sawdust. 1t so happened that
one of the men at the table, vicious
prospector who had been losing heav-
lily and was but just recovering from
an imaginative "jag," observed the
card as it fell and Immediately sus-
pected that it had come from Jacks
sleeve. This suspicion was strength
ened by the coincidence that there
was a misdeal, so that Monohan still
held five cards.
AS Monohan stopped over to pick
up the card the prospector covered
him suddenly with sixshooter, an
ugly .44-calibre Colts that would
look formidable to any one. But
Jack was as cool as the proverbial
cucumber.
Drop that card!" exclaimed the
prospeotor hoarsely, cor by CAD I'll
blow your head off,
Monohan knew that he meant busi-
ness, so he laid his cards down care
fully on the table, face up, and re-
piled pleasantly:
"You see, I hope that have only
one ace, a deuce, king, the seven
of spades and a five spot. There's
misdeal, that's all" -.
And you stuffed the wrong card!"
exclaimed the prospector. "You were
trying to sneak in another ace. By
CAD, I've a notion to shoot you any
way!"
Monohan did not know whether it
was an ace or a deuce on the floor,
for the card had dropped before he
could look at it, but he knew that if
the card on the floor "paired'' with
any in his hand, especially the ace, it
would look bad for him.
lack Monohan was honest. He had