, 1922-08-31
bUNCO ARTISTS
SLIPPED A COG
WORKED HARD AT ANCIENT GAME But
THE VICTIM WAS HARD BOILED
and PROVED TOO WARY

The Eand OF buncO SteererS which
has been operating in Denver for 10,
these many years. the members OF
which recently became SO raw in
their work as actually to arouse the
acute ~displeasure of the district at
torney, who awoke to the situation
long enough to cause something like
80 arrests, made a valiant but IN
successful attempt to reach out a
tentacle into Wyoming and separate
n Of Rawlins' leading citizens, H.
Rasmussen, from a bundle OF
greenbacks.
During Mr.. Rasmusson's prolonged
absence in Denver during the illness
of his daughter he came in contact
with a pair of these smooth sharpers,
who found It. quite easy to scrape an
acquaintance with the genial gentle
man who is at all time courteous and
friendly to all. They found out that
he was from Rawlins and a land
owner here and naturally. having
heard of our extensive oil fields.
rel slick enough to become "oil
men" right off the reel-and look
ing for land in Carbon county on
which to drill. too.
The story is a long n and an old
one, but seems to be perennial. Mr..
Rasmussen had land which he was
willing to sell for real money, and
that's about all there Is to 1t. He
was sufficiently impressed with the
glib strangers, who certainly looked
and acted like ready money, to meet
and negotiate with them on the sub
ject of buying some Of his land and
then perforating it with holes II
they wanted to-provided they first
made a noise like a certified check.
But when they began to ring in
that old bewhiskered stuff about
finding a pocketbook, taking 1t to
the owner whose name and hotel
room, as we'll as a COB of perfectly
good bank Autographs, were all
safely tucked inside and when the
grateful owner Of the pocket-book
offered to reward their monumental
honesty by placing a few markers on
the stock market in their behalf, Mr..
Rasmussen began to get suspicious.
This feeling was intensified when the
owner Of the wallet dashed madly
down to the stock brokers and played
'em across the board, straight. place
and show, 8 fast and furious that 1t
took him all of II minutes to win
$50,
Right here Mr.. Rasmussen quit the
game. 1t was too easy. They Of
fered to divvy with him and cut the
fifty thou three ways II he would
merely lay down $685. 900 on the table
as an evidence of good faith, and not
necessarily for publication, but he
declined to ante. so the bHnco men,
reluctantly of course were forced to
split the $50, 900 $3.50, as it were
Their hankerins for some choice
oil land in Carbon County's fertile
fields waned suddenly and their
ardor for tapping that lake Of oil,
that their geologist had staked out,
cooled off so suddenly that the phil
anthropists dropped out OF sight. SO
that Mr.. Rasmussen couldn't have
found them IL he had changed his
mind and decided to take half Of the
$4,000. which had almost been
forced on him, at one stage Of the
game.
This sort of stuff has been going
on in Denver for years and the
knowledge that such a gang was
working has been common property.
SO easy has 1t been to work" there,
for some reason or other. easily sur
mised. that Denver has become the
center of operations Of a gang of
bunco men and women, most of them
known to the police of every large
city in the country. Well, they bet
ter stick close to Colorado people and
tourists and leave Wyoming business
men alone. We are hard boiled up
this way. .