I always had a great love for horse-flesh, and it is many a dollar
I have won and lost on the turf. In flush times, just after the
war, I was taking a lot of race-horses over to Mobile, and had got
them all nicely quartered on the boat and was taking a smoke on
the boiler-deck, when a stranger approached me. "Are you the
gentleman who brought those horses over from New Orleans?"
"Yes, sir."
"There is one that I would like to buy."
"And that one?"
"The pacing horse."
"Can't sell him; need him in the races that I'm giving every week."
At supper we sat together, and after supper we chatted for a long
time. My partner sat near by, and knew what I was nursing him for.
He let me know that he was from Texas, and towards 10 o'clock I
asked him if he played euchre. He loved the game very much, and
played a great deal. "Suppose we amuse ourselves, if we can find
a deck of cards," I suggested; and we sat down, playing single-
handed until most of the passengers had retired. When I took out
my watch at 1 o'clock, a rough looking fellow, unshaven and long-
haired, with a huge Buffalo Bill hat on his head, came up to the
table and said he was from Texas, and had never been in this part
of the country before.
"What part of Texas are you from?" asked my friend, who appeared
to be taken with the green country manners of the Texan.
"Wall, I live on a ranch twenty-five odd miles from El Paso."
"What brought you so far away from home?"
"Me and my pap came over with cattle, sir, and they's all over in
pens in New Orleans. I reckoned as how we'd lose 'em all coming
across the sea, and pap was skeered, so he never went to bed till
we got them steers in the pens. I didn't want to go with pap when
he started with them thar steers; but pap is the oldest, and I had
to mind him."
"But what did you come to Mobile for?:"
"Well, I'll tell you. I got talking to a fellar, and he told me
that if I would go over with him on the ship that he would buy all
my critters; so I asked pap if I might go, and he said yes; but
I'm kinder sorry I went now, for I got lost from that fellar and
never laid eyes on him after we got over thar. He told me to pay
his fare, and when he got over thar he would give me back the money;
but I reckon he went after the money and got lost. But I haint
going to say a word to pap, for I got to pranking with a fellow on
the ship, and I'll be gol'darned if I didn't lose $1,000; but pap
won't find it out, for I had $10,000 what I been saving to buy me
a ranch, and I shan't tell pap anything about it."
"How did you come to lose your money, stranger?" I asked.
"Wall, look here; I never seen such a thing. He had some tickets,
and he would mix 'em up--sorter jumble 'em together--and then he
would bet you that you couldn't lift the one that had the little
baby on it. So I just watched it, and I just cut my coat to get
the money, for mam she sewed it up before I started. Well, I just
laid down my greenbacks, and I didn't lift the boy, and he kept my
greenbacks; then he went off and left his tickets lying on the
bench, so I'm going to take them home with me, but I won't tell I
lost anything."
"Let me see them," I said.
"Will you give 'em back?"
"Oh, certainly." So he pulled them out, and my friend and myself
had never seen anything like them before; so I said, "Show us how
he did the trick." He showed us the best he could; then I caught
up the one with the boy on it, and turned the corner and showed it
to my friend, and gave him a quiet hunch under the table as I laid
it down, and asked if he would bet on it.
He said, "When I get back home I'm going to larn it, so I can win
all the money I want."
"Will you bet a drink that I can't guess it the first time?" I said.