“Of course you are not talking seriously,” said one of the party.
“But I am,” was the answer, “seriously and literally. It happened in Minnesota soon after the war. Political conditions in that part of the West were very different to what they are now, and in fact all other conditions were, too. It was at about the beginning of the real growth of the North-west. The value of the wheat fields had been learned, but the Swedish and Norwegian immigration was in its infancy, and the lumber industry, that afterward grew to such enormous proportions, was then making comparatively few men rich. Minneapolis was a small town on the south side of the river, and St. Anthony was a town of the same size on the other side. Now it’s all one city, but at that time nobody dreamed of St. Paul being eclipsed in size or importance.
“I was knocking about late one summer at that period, and had made many friends around St. Paul and Minneapolis, some of whom were State officials, and I had heard much talk of the struggle there was to be in the next Legislature over the election of a Senator. Two men were in the race, and as they were both popular the contest was likely to be a close one. Party questions did not enter in, for the State was strongly Republican, and no Democrat stood a show. But which of the two Republicans would carry the Legislature was a matter of great doubt, and I saw bets made on the issue as early as the first of September. As the time of election drew near, it was evident that the choice for Senator was going to govern the nomination of candidates for the Legislature, and as both the Senatorial aspirants were long of head as well as long of purse they were using all the influence they had in the county conventions which were to be held early in October.
“Right there was where the importance of the lumber industry came in. The money on which the lumbermen in the upper counties lived came to them mostly through Minneapolis and St. Anthony, and the perfectly legitimate business relations between them and the business men of those two cities naturally gave the latter much influence among the former. There was a rollicking, happy-go-lucky man in Minneapolis whom everybody called Doc Martin, for no reason that I could discover except that he wasn’t a doctor. He was part owner of a saw-mill, and spent the most of each winter in the woods with his men. He was credited with being as influential as any one there was, among voters, but he had a rival in another man named Gilmartin, who was a logger himself, but had for a dozen seasons been foreman of one gang or another. Martin was a rich man, but Gilmartin was seldom flush, excepting in the spring, when he had drawn his winter’s pay. These two men were known to be strong partisans, one favoring one of the would-be Senators, and the other the other, and it was generally thought that they would both go electioneering when the county conventions were held.
“The week before that was to happen I was one of a party who drove from Minneapolis to a road-house on the Fort Snelling road near the Minnehaha Falls, partly for the enjoyment of the moonlight and partly for a game supper such as the house was famous for providing. Martin was one of the party, and as there were two or three other high rollers with us, I had made up my mind that it would be daybreak before we would get back.
“I was right, but before the night was over we had more excitement than I had expected. We had had the supper and an abundance of good wine with it, and were sitting around the table enjoying some rarely good punch when somebody proposed poker. No one objected, and in a few minutes there were two games in progress, for there were eleven in the party. Six played at one table, and Martin and I and three others were at the other. The game was a fairly stiff one, ten dollars being the limit, and the cards ran well enough to build up some heavy pots. We had all indulged freely enough to give ourselves thoroughly to the enjoyment of the hour, though we had not been drinking heavily, and there wasn’t a man there under the influence. Altogether it was a delightful occasion. Suddenly the door opened, and Gilmartin looked in.
“‘I don’t want to “rough in,” boys,’ he said, ‘but I stopped here to get supper on the way home, and the landlord told me you were here, so I thought I’d ask you to drink with me.’
“He was greeted heartily, for everybody knew and liked him, and a bumper of punch was poured out for him forthwith, his invitation being peremptorily laid on the table. Then, as a matter of course, it was suggested that he take a hand in the game, and he being more than willing, he sat at our table.
“‘We’re playing ten-dollar limit, Gil,’ said one of the party, who knew that money was not always plentiful with the big fellow. But he laughed carelessly and said: ‘That’s all right,’ as he pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and bought chips.
“Martin looked at him rather keenly, as I thought, for an instant, and said: