We were nine days making the trip from St. Michael to Seattle. When the crowd on the boat learned that Swiftwater Bill was on board, everybody looked for fireworks and a good time. The captain ordered notice put up in the dining room, reading:
“Gambling positively prohibited on this boat.”
Swiftwater saw that sign and gently laughed to himself.
“Mrs. Beebe,” he said, “I am going to have some fun with the boys. So if I come to borrow some money from you, don’t be foolish and refuse me.”
Swiftwater had some few hundred in cash, but most of his money was in drafts, which he could not cash on the boat. When I found that the boys had started a little poker game, I expected Swiftwater to be coming to me for money in a little while, and sure enough he did.
“Swiftwater,” I said, “as long as you play poker you can’t have any money from me, because you know you can’t play poker. But if you will start a solo game I will let you have a little change.”
Now, Swiftwater swelled up visibly because he knew that I thought he was one of the best solo players in all the North, and I have to laugh even now to recall that after the first fifteen minutes of play at solo the men who had sought to fleece him of his money, found they had no chance and they all stopped the game.
It was late Saturday afternoon when finally the Ohio poked her nose in front of one of the docks in Seattle. There was a strong ebb tide, and it was nearly an hour before the gang plank was run ashore. We docked jam up against a little steamer on our left, and Swiftwater, being in a hurry to get ashore, asked me if I would take his grip in the carriage to the Cecil Hotel and he would join me in a little while, after he could get a shave. With that Swiftwater jumped to the deck of the little steamer next to us and thence to the dock and was gone.
I went direct to the Cecil Hotel, where Bera was waiting for me. Before I had been there a half hour the newsboys on the streets were crying the sale of the Seattle Times:
“All about Swiftwater Bill arrested for bigamy.”