The Argosy, April 1912 — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

62 were no more than well started before Square Visage and his fat accomplice started recruiting two more dupes. Sev- eral new passengers had boarded the train at Jennings, and they had little difficulty in persuading one of these to join them. They might have gathered in another of the newcomers, but Roost saved them the trouble by volunteering to take a hand. His offer was accepted without question, and inside of five minutes the four men were seated and the game was under way. It proceeded much as the first had. They had played but a few minutes when Square Visage discovered that he held a good poker hand. By a strange coincidence Fat Man had one also. The usual formula of bluffing and betting was carried out, merely for ef- fect, of course, as Roost well knew, the cards were drawn, and Fat Man won, after which the game proceeded as before. “Now, then,” thought Roost to himself, “‘here’s where they try to make a goat out of poor little innocent me. Very good, but watch closely, my tin-horn friends, and re- member that the hand deceives the eye.” Several more hands of euchre followed, and then Square Visage remembered a good joke and stopped the game long enough to tell it. The cards were lying on the table, and Roost gathered them together and skimmed carelessly through them while he listened to the story. When it was finished he chuckled dutifully, and then tossed the cards over to Fat Man, whose deal it was. A sharp observer might have noted that Roost retained several cards, which he con- cealed in the palm of his left hand, and which at the first opportunity he transferred to a place between his left leg and the seat- cushion. Fat Man shuffled the-cards and offered them to Roost for the cut. The cowboy went through this process in an apparently ab- sent-minded manner. Fat Man picked up the deck, but before dealing he reached into his coat-pocket for a match to relight his cigar. To the ordinary observer the act was innocent enough, but to Roost it bore much significance. It was exactly what he had been looking for, and he knew he had been “cold- decked.” That is, when Fat Man picked up the cards, after Roost’s cut, he did so with his left hand, and apparently transferred them to a place close beside his right hand, which was lying palm downward on the board. Instead, however, he merely laid THE ARGOSY. them down to cover them immediately with the left hand, while he raised his right hand, under which was concealed another deck. This he had adroitly removed from his right coat-pocket at the instant he offered the cards for the cut. He had then palmed the first deck and removed it to his left coat-pocket under the ostensible purpose of getting the match. He now proceeded to deal the cards, and when Roost looked at his hand he was not in the least surprised to find that he held three kings, a jack, and a ten-spot. He leaned back in his seat and waited for Square Visage to speak the piece he knew was coming. “T’ve got some more good money that says that this here hand beats anything around the board,” that worthy announced. “T ain’t, got nothing but a pair of deuces,” said Fat Man, throwing down his cards with the same old expression of dis- gust. He then leaned over to inspect Roost’s cards. “Hully gee!” he gasped, exactly as Roost expected he would. “You’ve got a peach of a hand there, ain’t you, partner? You ain’t going to lay that down, are you?” “Why, I dunno,” Roost hesitated. “Looks like it might be worth taking a little flier on, don’t it?” *“Betcher fifty I got you beat,” chal- lenged Square Visage. Roost stared at him with an expression of mingled surprise and pity for a mo- ment before replying. “Say, friend,” he drawled finally, “where I come from if a man should offer to bet a little pittance like that there, the boys’d pass around the hat and take up a collection for him; he’d be considered a pauper. Now, if you really want to bet on that there hand and are willing to make a man-sized wager, why, I’m your huckle- berry.” Square Visage and Fat Man exchanged quick glances, and both looked happy. Here, indeed, was a come-on after their own heart. | “What part of the country do you hail from?” inquired Square Visage. “Dawson City, Alaska, U. S. A.,” an- swered Roost promptly. “ Just in from the diggings with a nice little clean-up, and on my way to Chicago to visit the folks for the first time in fifteen years.”” Roost was a fluent liar when necessity demanded. The two confidence men looked more cComicoool. CO