Sherman Thurston, my old friend, is dead. He has passed in his
checks, shuffled his last cards, dealt his final lay-out, and been
gathered to the gods. He was an honorable, great-hearted man, and
I can recall the time when no living man could do him up in a rough-
and-tumble fight. Cow-boy Tripp was once doing the playing for me
on the Missouri Pacific Railroad; and as I saw Sherman, I said to
him:
"See that conductor? I've got a little game going on here, and a
first-class sucker in tow. Now the conductor is watching us very
closely, and as soon as he sees him put up his money, he will walk
up and stop the game. What I want you to do is to go and sit
alongside of him, and entertain him until the lawful proceedings
are over."
Tripp opened up the game, and the sucker put up his stuff; and sure
enough the conductor made a rush to stop the game. But Sherman
grabbed him by the waist and held him as you would a baby, and kept
on talking all the time, telling him not to have any fuss, that he
didn't want to see any trouble, etc.
Sherman Thurston was the best stakeholder in America. He was death
to coat-tail pullers. He had a way of acting as if he was in a
terrible passion, and coming down on their feet with a stamp that
made them lie quiet.
Sherman was a man of hard sense and native resources that rendered
him ready for any emergency. Once when we had won some money from
a man, he began to raise a fuss and carry on like one bereft of
reason. Sherman humored him. He locked him up in the car, and
told everybody that he was a lunatic that he was removing to the
asylum--to keep away from him, as he was dangerous and entirely
irresponsible. Then when the fellow got too noisy, Sherman went
and said, "See here, old fellow, you had better keep still, for
gambling is a penitentiary offense in this State, and you are just
as much implicated as the man who won your money."
That settled it, and the man quieted down as mild as a pet lamb.