The daily Alaskan., 1914-09-18
Jack of
 Diamonds At Times the Hand Is Quicker Than the Eye
By MARVIN DANA
Copyright by Frap., A. Nunsoy Co.

It happened more than a score of years ago. The golden spike had just been driven at Portland, Ore.-that last spike of the Northern Pacific rail, road by whIchrthe continent was span, ned
 Helena, Mont, was in tine heyday of lusty, unabashcd crude youth. The released graders from the completed railroad tlinkercd the crowds in its streets. All had money; all were ahame to spend it. Tho ugly main street was two lines of saloons. dance halls, gam bling hells. all open, all crowded from dawn to dawn
 Of the several busy ministers of for tune then and there present, Railroad Jim was the busiest He ran little game of three card monte in back room off the Montana Parlors, by which name was groritga one Of the smallest and worst saloons in the town.
 He was busy indeed, for custom was brisk. aud be had no assistant An assistant, to have been anything but a costly luxury, must have had fingers as agile as JimS own. in their peculiar way. Suol a 0ur was not to be had very readily The last had been shot | by an indignant victim. In Railroad Jm's opinion, the man had deserved his fate for he had been culpably careless. almost awkward, and had thus invited his doom.
 So now. pcrrorce, Jim toiled inde- fatjgabIy When he slept was mys- tery beyond any mans solving. His meals were sandwiches, swallowed dur iug the progress of the same. His sole drink was coffee
 : Of coarse such labor deserved a re- ward. and equally of course Railroad Jim had it X steady stream of men sluuched from the saloon into the back room and anon slouchcd out again, much poorer and not whit the wiser for their experiences.
 But there were no compluiuts-eXcept against the goddess uf fortune, who, in truth. wa, most tunra.Iuty and vigor- uus.g cursed ue#-as. Yet, while the losers rartIed .n.i. awn bad judgment or f.l .uc.. they cu.#a.y admired Jim for the deytyu.ly with which he be- fooled tEam. For le won honestly he rau a square -aHc," trusting to the uutfuuess vT lis ten fingers for his . modtcum ot profit.
 All who gambIad there knew that Jim Was honest because he held the . game down To a iImL Any one can see that had le cheated, the limit would have been a palp0ble absurdity. No man would refuse to take all he could get ou a certainty.
 But Jim. aware .JL sufficiently acute observer might sometimes pick the right card, refused tO accept any single bet of more than $20O. To be sure. no one had as yet offered to bet so large an amount on enc throw of the cards. but that fact had no indu- euce on public opinion.
 Jim was large man. with a large nose. a large chin, a lofty bald skull and bulgiug. classy eyes. He was not at all pretty, but very imposing. He had big hands, too-hands that were like broodmG wings over the three cards with which he tOyed so con- stantly.
 It was really an edifying spectacle to behold those hands as tbey manipu- lated the three cards-the ten of spades, the tcu of clubs, the jack of diamonds. The cards seemed never quite to disappear from view. More 5rcr the movement was rather slow i than hurried
 The faces Of the cards were first ex- . hibfted. two in the right hand. one in 1 the left. Then they were held backs up uud.drposited softly. one by one, on the table. All one leed do was to keep an eye consistently CI'the jack of diamonds-to watch 1t unwinkingly tn it was at last put down. Then it only remained to place the bet and finally to turn over the card selected.
 Unfortunately for the crowd, this card was rarely the jack. The unhap- ny losers shook their heads and rue fully admitted that Railroad Jim was ] "a cussed slick un with tn paste 1 boards"
 Among many others, Old Ike lost. He had been in Helena just a, week, and already he WAS a familiar figure in the various resorts. He was man of about sixty, short, thin, clean shay. cn. bright eyed. taciturn.
 1 He drank moderate amount of whisky without going on the rampage, and he gambled here and there, also in moderation. Every night he drop ped in at the Montana Parlors and regularly made two ffty-doIlar bets ! with Railroad Jim. In his fourteen efforts he had lost precisely S700.
 However, he took his losses. calmly and remarked each night that he guessed, he could afford it, whereby all his hearers knew him to be a man of wealth.
 On the eighth night of bis stay in ] Helena Old Ike got drunk. He visited every bar in the place and drank at each with democratic impartiality. ] Anon be varied this pursuit by mild