"The folks out my way had the stud-poker fad pretty badly about eight or ten years ago, but now they've got back to their first love and stick pretty generally to the game of California draw—which, by the way, is a whole lot different game from the draw you people back here play. For example, a man sprung a thing on me last night that he called a pat straight. I had three aces, but he said his pat straight topped me, and as he had his gang with him, I had to look pleasant and let him rake in the money. If a man out on the Slope were to talk pat straight to a party of aborigines, they'd conduct him to the Alcalde's calaboose and have him locked up to await a commission's decision as to his responsibility.
"But to get back to the period when the stud-poker fad got hold of us out in Oregon. I was a witness of a heart-disease finish of a game of that kind a few years back that caused me to decide that ordinary draw was good enough for my money right along. It was right after the big fire that ate up the best part of The Dalles eight years ago. As soon as the building contractors of Portland got word to the effect that The Dalles was being licked up by the flames, they hopped aboard trains and made for The Dalles with an eye to business. They knew that The Dalles, which was chiefly a wooden layout before the fire, would be immediately rebuilt in brick and stone, and that the contractors who got on the scene of ruin first would scoop in the bulk of the business. Two of these contractors were—well, I'll have to side-step on their names, for they're two of the most prominent citizens out on the banks of the Willamette, and both of 'em walk up the middle aisle on Sunday as if they never heard of such a thing as stud poker. Both of them are Irishmen, which is why neither of 'em could see that he was licked on this occasion.
"One of them, we'll say, was Dan Carmody, and the other was Tim Feeney. Carmody got into The Dalles a few hours ahead of Feeney, and he made those few hours count. He went around to the business men of The Dalles who had been wiped out by the fire and asked them what they wanted with him. They hadn't burned the wires up telegraphing for Carmody to come to them, but Carmody about convinced them that they had done just this thing, and he began making estimates for 'em with pencil and pad. He corralled them in the one remaining hall of the town and told them to go ahead and just let him know what they wanted of him. Carmody's cyclonic nerve appealed to their fancy, and they found themselves juggling with the figures Carmody was putting down on his pad. Three hours after Carmody struck The Dalles from Portland he had in his inside coat pocket rough drafts of contracts to build a new stone business block, including a theater, and also to erect a large, ornate hotel, the cost of both buildings to be not more than $350,000. Oh, Carmody was a hustler all right.
"He had an idea that his friend and business rival, Tom Feeney, would be down on the next train from Portland, and he went to the station to receive him. Sure enough, Feeney stepped off the next incoming train. Carmody had his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and a big cigar stuck aggravatingly in his teeth when Feeney ran into him. Feeney's jaw fell.
"'When did you get in, Dan?' he asked Carmody.
"'Three hours ago,' replied Dan, with a grin.
"Feeney made a funny motion, as if to jump aboard a train that was just pulling out for Portland, but he came back to his cheerful rival and asked him:
"'Anything doing, Dan?'
"Carmody executed two very shifty jig steps in token of his happiness, and then reassumed his dignity.
"'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Tim,' he said. 'These people here are pretty badly chewed up, y' see. Now, maybe they'll be wanting to rebuild a few chicken coops and outhouses—I don't know but what they will. Now, there's a chance for you, Tim.'