The next day we got an eastbound train and in due time found ourselves in the town of Pocatello, the stronghold of Salt Chunk Mary. Our knock at her door was answered by a young and pretty Swedish girl, blue-eyed and fair-haired. In answer to our call for Mary she laughed and her big, innocent blue eyes danced. “Aye tank you have bad luck. Miss Mary she bane on big yamboree.”
We went downtown and rented a room. In Pocatello, as in every other Western town in those days, it was the correct custom and usage for sporting people to go on a big jamboree once or twice a year. A jamboree was usually preceded by a run of good or bad luck. If the celebrant got hold of a bunch of easy money he or she “went on a tear” to celebrate the good luck. If the luck got too bad, the way to change it was to go out and get drunk. The length of these celebrations was determined by the size of the party’s bankroll or the strength of his constitution.
Salt Chunk Mary’s bankroll had no bottom, and her constitution was flawless. So it followed that her periods of relaxation were somewhat extended. Being a very positive-minded person, inclining to action rather than words, her procedure at these times differed greatly from the ordinary. When she “went on a toot” the town marshal went fishing or hunting, and her more timid business rivals closed their places and remained in a state of siege like storekeepers in Chinatown when a tong war was declared. It was her custom to visit her friends’ places first, where friendships were renewed and emphasized by much spending and drinking, and where obligations were acknowledged and discharged promptly. She poured liquor into the bums, beggars, ragtags, and bobtails that hung around the saloons till they were legless drunk, and unable to follow her triumphal march through the town. She never let up for the want of money, nor because of inability to “carry her licker.” Her jamboree closed when she had “made” the last place in town and that was always the joint of some one she held a grudge against.
Sanc and I were fortunate enough to witness the wind-up of one of her most memorable celebrations. Leaving her hack at the curb, she walked into her victim’s saloon and ordered all hands to drink. When the drinks were disposed of and paid for, she put both hands on the inner edge of the bar and pulled it over on the floor. Out of the wreckage she gathered an armful of bottles. One of them was accurately hurled into the mirror, and the remainder at anybody in sight. The boss, bartender, and saloon bums disappeared out the back way and Mary stalked out the front. On the sidewalk she threw away her hat, tore up what money she had left, and crawled into her waiting hack. Inside she kicked all the glass out, lay down on the back seat, and, with her feet out through the broken window, was driven home in state while the town stood mute.
We allowed her a couple of days to recuperate before calling. When we appeared she welcomed us as usual with an invitation to eat from the bottomless bean pot. Sanc threw her the small parcel of stones which she examined carefully with practiced eye, and a high-powered glass. Commercial white diamonds were sixty dollars a carat, wholesale, then, and when she offered us eighteen hundred dollars we took them, satisfied.
We jumped to Denver, where Sanc got the dice-game concession in the “Chicken Coop,” a small gambling house. We had three thousand dollars between us. Two thousand went into the bankroll and we opened up bravely. “Soapy Smith,” gambler and bunko man, noted for his high plays and big winnings and losings, won our two thousand in three successive plays. Sanc wanted to continue with the balance of our money, but I refused and stubbornly held on to my last five hundred. We had to quit.
Sanc was a hard loser and followed “Soapy” around town for a week trying to “elevate” him. He never got away from the bright lights, and Sanc gave up the notion of sticking him up.
We located a big poker game in a soft spot and decided to “line up” the players. The biggest gamblers in town sat there nightly and there were thousands of dollars in sight. After many nights of careful checking, we were ready to go against it.
Robbery has none of the complications of burglary. It is simple as one, two, three. You get it or you don’t.
Sanc with a gun in his hand opened the door softly. I was behind him. The players, six of them, were in the midst of a “big play.” None looked up. At the opposite side of the table, facing us, scrutinizing his cards, sat Bat Masterson, the last of the real bad men, the fastest man alive with a gun, and with a record of twenty killings while marshal of Dodge City, Kansas.