Stewart Edward White

The Riverman


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of sports there who throwed out three cards on the table and bet you couldn't pick the jack. They showed you where the jack was before they throwed, and it surely looked like a picnic, but it wasn't.”

      “Three-card monte,” said Newmark.

      “How much?” asked Simms.

      “About fifty dollars,” replied the boy.

      Orde turned on the disgruntled cook.

      “And you had fifty in your turkey, camping with this outfit of hard citizens!” he cried. “You ought to lose it.”

      Johnny Challan was explaining to his companions exactly how the game was played.

      “It's a case of keep your eye on the card, I should think,” said big Tim Nolan. “If you got a quick enough eye to see him flip the card around, you ought to be able to pick her.”

      “That's what this sport said,” agreed Challan. “'Your eye agin my hand,' says he.”

      “Well, I'd like to take a try at her,” mused Tim.

      But at this point Newmark broke into the discussion. “Have you a pack of cards?” he asked in his dry, incisive manner.

      Somebody rummaged in a turkey and produced the remains of an old deck.

      “I don't believe this is a full deck,” said he, “and I think they's part of two decks in it.”

      “I only want three,” assured Newmark, reaching his hand for the pack.

      The men crowded around close, those in front squatting, those behind looking over their shoulders.

      Newmark cleared a cracker-box of drying socks and drew it to him.

      “These three are the cards,” he said, speaking rapidly. “There is the jack of hearts. I pass my hands—so. Pick the jack, one of you,” he challenged, leaning back from the cracker-box on which lay the three cards, back up. “Any of you,” he urged. “You, North.”

      Thus directly singled out, the foreman leaned forward and rather hesitatingly laid a blunt forefinger on one of the bits of pasteboard.

      Without a word, Newmark turned it over. It was the ten of spades.

      “Let me try,” interposed Tim Nolan, pressing his big shoulders forward. “I bet I know which it was that time; and I bet I can pick her next time.”

      “Oh, yes, you BET!” shrugged Newmark. “And that's where the card-sharps get you fellows every time. Well, pick it,” said he, again deftly flipping the cards.

      Nolan, who had watched keenly, indicated one without hesitation. Again it proved to be the ten of spades.

      “Anybody else ambitious?” inquired Newmark. Everybody was ambitious; and the young man, with inexhaustible patience, threw out the cards, the corners of his mouth twitching sardonically at each wrong guess.

      At length he called a halt.

      “By this time I'd have had all your money,” he pointed out. “Now, I'll pick the jack.”

      For the last time he made his swift passes and distributed the cards. Then quite calmly, without disturbing the three on the cracker-box, he held before their eyes the jack of hearts.

      An exclamation broke from the interested group. Tim Nolan, who was the nearest, leaned forward and turned over the three on the board. They were the eight of diamonds and two tens of spades.

      “That's how the thing is worked nine times out of ten,” announced Newmark. “Once in a while you'll run against a straight game, but not often.”

      “But you showed us the jack every time before you throwed them!” puzzled Johnny Simms.

      “Sleight of hand,” explained Newmark. “The simplest kind of palming.”

      “Well, Charlie,” said big Tim, “looks to me as if you had just about as much chance as a snowball in hell.”

      “Where'd you get onto doing all that, Newmark?” inquired North. “You ain't a tin horn yourself?”

      Newmark laughed briefly. “Not I,” said he. “I learned a lot of those tricks from a travelling magician in college.”

      During this demonstration Orde had sat well in the background, his chin propped on his hand, watching intently all that was going on. After the comment and exclamations following the exposure of the method had subsided, he spoke.

      “Boys,” said he, “how game are you to get Charlie's money back—and then some?”

      “Try us,” returned big Tim.

      “This game's at McNeill's, and McNeill's is a tough hole,” warned Orde. “Maybe everything will go peaceful, and maybe not. And you boys that go with me have got to keep sober. There isn't going to be any row unless I say so, and I'm not taking any contract to handle a lot of drunken river-hogs as well as go against a game.”

      “All right,” agreed Nolan, “I'm with you.”

      The thirty or so men of the rear crew then in camp signified their intention to stay by the procession.

      “You can't make those sharps disgorge,” counselled Newmark. “At the first look of trouble they will light out. They have it all fixed. Force won't do you much good—and may get some of you shot.”

      “I'm not going to use force,” denied Orde. “I'm just going to play their game. But I bet I can make it go. Only I sort of want the moral support of the boys.”

      “I tell you, you CAN'T win!” cried Newmark disgustedly. “It's a brace game pure and simple.”

      “I don't know about it's being pure,” replied Orde drolly, “but it's simple enough, if you know how to make the wheels go 'round. How is it, boys—will you back my play?”

      And such was their confidence that, in face of Newmark's demonstration, they said they would.

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