"'Hunch!' says I, but he was already inside.
"Well, Cato goes up to the faro table where the big men of the town seem to be playing bank, and says I to myself, 'Joe, you'll have to dig up to send this crazy man back to his pardner in Yankton.'
"Cato bought $200 worth of chips, tapping himself, and began. Gentlemen, he couldn't lose. He scattered his chips over every card on the table, and he couldn't lose. He won eight bets out of ten. He let his money lie on cards four times over, and won every time. He didn't use a copper, but played every card wide open. There didn't seem to be a split in the box for Cato. In less than twenty minutes he had won over $3,000. There was a $500 limit on the game. Cato asked to have it removed. When the limit was taken off, Cato made three $1,000 bets running, and won every one of them. Then he came off his perch and got down to $200 bets again, playing 'em like a veteran, and just simply unable to lose, gentlemen. The rest of the men at the table quit playing just to watch Cato. Once in a while Cato'd play the high card, just to see if his luck was holding. The high card came out every time he did it. They switched the dealer three times. They switched the lookout half a dozen times. They tried different boxes. They changed tables. They did everything. But, gentlemen, Cato Bullman was playing faro, and he couldn't lose. I was proud of the big duffer. In an hour he was $18,000 ahead of Col. Jennison's bank. They sent across the way to get Col. Jennison who was playing a quiet little game of poker in the Star of the West saloon. Col. Jennison came over to the Bon Ton and sat down to handle the box for Cato himself. Cato soaked Col. Jennison every bit as hard as he had soaked all of Col. Jennison's dealers. Col. Jennison was game, but, when at the end of three hours, Cato was still going right ahead winning like a cyclone, he turned the box over with this little remark:
"'Gentlemen, the game is closed for the night.'
"When Cato cashed in he had just $35,200. I took him by the arm and walked him down to the hotel and got him into his room. Cato went to the basin to wash his hands. When he turned around to me again he looked into the barrels of both my guns.
"'Cato,' says I, 'I'm sorry, but I'll just trouble you to hand over every cent of that $35,200 you've got, right away now, darned quick, or I'll blow the whole top of your head off.'
"Cato didn't demur a little bit. He plunked the money down—most of it was in $1,000 and $500 bills—on the table.
"'I don't suppose I've got enough sense to pack it around, fur a fac',' said he.
"When we got to St. Louis I handed Cato $10,000 to buy his goods with, and expressed the $23,200 to his address in Yankton.
"'Well,' said his little pardner, Stillwater, when Cato got back to Yankton, 's'long as you won, you big clod-hopper, I don't s'pose I need to mangle you up none. But if you had lost!'"