Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi

by George H. Devol

Another time in New Orleans, I was crossing the levee late one night with a valise full of money, when two men came from behind a cotton bale and started toward me. I pulled out my big pistol and told them an inch further and I would shoot. They weakened, and after they started I turned her loose, to enjoy the sport of seeing them run.

A CRAZY MAN.

One afternoon I started from Kansas City on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and while seated waiting for the train to start I fell asleep. We had not gone more than ten miles when a crazy man, armed with a Colt's navy, entered the car. The passengers all fled, leaving me alone. Up rushed the lunatic and cracked me over the head a couple of times with so much force that I speedily awoke, and saw this wild-eyed man standing over me saying, "If you move I will kill you." I didn't move; only said, "You have made a mistake;" at which he backed out of the car. Thereupon the passengers all rushed in with revolvers in hand, wanting to know where that lunatic was. Though I have seen many crazy people since, I can never forget the terrible glare of those eyes, and can compare them to nothing but the fiery glare of a cat's eyes in the dark. I returned to Kansas City and laid up for some time, as the physicians feared that erysipelas would set in. It was not more than a week after this that the lunatic was seen on a house-top hurling bricks down on the passers-by. He was at last lassoed with a rope and taken to the station-house. He butted his brains out against the iron bars of his cell and killed himself.

EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS AGAINST A PISTOL.

I was playing monte one night on the Robert E. Lee, when a fellow stepped up to the table and bet me $800. I knew it was all the money he had, for he tried to make it $1,000 by putting up his watch; but in those days I would not turn for a watch unless it was a Juergunsen or very fine make. When he had lost his money and spent a few moments studying, he whipped out a Colt's navy and said, "See here, friend, that is all the money I have got, and I am going to die right here but I will have it back." I coolly said, "Did you think I was going to keep the money?" He replied, "I knew very well you would not keep it. If you had, I would have filled you full of lead. I am from Texas, sir;" and the man straightened himself up. Pulling out a roll of money, I said, "I want to whisper to you." He put his head down, and I said "that I didn't want to give up the money before all these people; that then they would want their money back; but you offer to bet me again, and I will bet the $800 against your pistol."

That pleased him. "All right," he said, and the $800 and pistol went up in my partner's hands. Over went the wrong card. I grabbed the pistol, and told my partner to give me the stake money. Pulling the gun on him, "Now," I said, "you have acted the wet dog about this, and I will not give you a cent of your money; and if you cut any more capers, I'll break your nose." I presented the pistol to the mate of the boat, who kept it for a number of years, and said that it was the best he had ever owned.

Another time on the same boat I was playing euchre with a Californian, when we got to betting on poker hands. He lost $1,600 and his watch, then told the clerk that he was going to his state-room for his pistol, and going to kill that gambler on sight. The clerk soon gave me a hint, and I got out old Betsy Jane; and pretty soon he came along, holding his pistol under his coat, and just as he stepped out of the cabin door I pulled down on him, saying, "I have got you, my boy, and if you make one move I'll turn her loose." He saw I had the drop on him, threw up both hands; and taking his pistol away, I threw it into the river.

IT WAS COLD.

There are many occasions when a shrewd man can get in his work on gamblers, it matters not how smart they are, provided his conduct is not suspicious, and his ambition so vaulting that when it leaps it is not lost upon the other side. I shall never forget the trip I made down the river from Louisville in the good old ante-bellum days. When we reached the mouth of the Cumberland River, Anderson Waddell, who is now one of Louisville's wealthiest citizens, and William Cheatham came on board bound for the New Orleans races. Charles Burns and Edward Ryan, better known to the sporting fraternity as "Dad Ryan," were along with me. Both Waddell and Cheatham were gentlemen of good repute in Nashville, and it was not long before they proposed a game of poker. Burns and Ryan both sat in the game, and at the time they were unknown to the gentlemen. The wine flowed freely, and everybody felt very happy, and I resolved it was about time for me to go to the bar and procure some cards similar to those they were playing with. It did not take me long to run up three good hands, and, sitting down by Ryan, I laid the cold deck in Ryan's lap. It was not long before the cold deck came up, and then the boys began to bet lively, each getting in a few hundred. Then Waddell commenced to smell a rat, and turning to Cheatham, said, "Hold on, Bill, don't go in any deeper, as I think this deck of cards does not feel as warm as it did a few minutes ago."

"Oh, no," responded Bill, "I hardly believe there is anything wrong."