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Show "He never finished that sentence, for as quick as a dash Simmon grabbed a glass half full o' whisky, that stood on the table, an' threw tha liquor square in the boy's face. " 'That's what we do with fools down this way when they criticise a gentleman's play at poker,' he says. Just s cool is before, bat not polite. r' "Well, the boy was good grk, even If he was a fool, an' he Jumped at Simmons an' the next minute they was rollln' on the floor. I sen Simmons Sim-mons pull his knife as they went dowa an' I reckoned to see the other feller killed, but that wa'n't Simmons' idea. It appears.' ' "They struggled for a little bit. It ' didn't seem ten seconds, an' Simmon jumped up, laughing. He had cat both the boy's ears an' his nfie plumb off. "You'd ha' thought Simmons'd ha' been lynched, but there wa'n't nobody in the saloon that felt like tacklln' N him, specially as he still had the knife in his hand an' was wipin' it, careful, on his handkerchief. "The boat was just tyin' up at the Vlcksburg levee, an' we took the boy ashore an' put him In the hospital. Simmons went ashore, too, an' the cap'n was glad enough to get rid o him; so he didn't do nothin' but tell the chief o' police all about it, an' the boat went on, as usual, up the river. "I don't know what the.; police- might ha' done about It when the young fel ler got well enough to get out, but he didn't wait to get well. 'Pears he got up that same night, all bandaged up as he was, an' got out on the street somehow an" found Simmons in the. 11 The Gambler's Revenge "There's a heap o: talk sometimes about the bad men that cavorts round some parts o' the country where 'tain't settled up much, an' does gun plan for fun, shootin' up bar-rooms an' klllin' tenderfoots now an' then, while they're workin' off the red liquor they've took," said Caleb Mix, the veteran bartender on the Mississippi river packet, City of Natchez "But I reckon that they ain't none on 'em any more ornery nor the bad men that useter travel the Misslssip' afore the war. "There was one feller that come from New Orleans, so they said, that traveled the boats a good deal, just atore the war, that come as near bein' a sure-enough devil as anybody I ever seen. I never hear none o" these stories about bad men 'thont thinkln' o him, an' a thing I seen him' do In a poker game one night. "He called hisself Harry Simmons, an' mebbe that might ha' been his reel name. I don't know. But there was them 't said his old man made him take another name when he paid him fifty thousand dollars to get out an' never have nothin' more to do with bis own folks. "He were a tall, slender, wiry devil, with Jet black hair an' one blue eye an' one that was i- sort o' gray-green. You couldn't n-f-fa-get hts face, if you seen it once. He were a dandy, like most o' the top-notch river gamblers gam-blers was them days, an' were as p'tie'ler as a woman about his clo'es. "An' he wore jewelry, like the rest on 'em did, that was more like a woman's than a man's. But you didn't want to make no mistake about him bein' womanish when It came to a fight or a game o' draw. "When it was card playin' he were as steady as a clock an' took chances that'd make a tight-rope walker gray-headed. gray-headed. An' when it was fight, he were a bundle o' wildcats, with about as much pity in htm as a game cock. "They was playin' a hard game one night when the boat come up toward Vlcksburg, an' it were a 6ure case o' 'dog eat dog,' for there wa'n't a sucker on the boat that any of 'em thought was worth the trouble o' catchin', an' three on 'em was playin' together all professionals, an' all three bad men. "Simmons was the woret o' the lot, but George Masters, a Vicksburg man, and Billy Eaton, a feller f'm Texas, was both ugly customers for any man to run up against 'thouten he had his gun in his hand full cocked. "They was playin" a heavy game, for they was all well fixed, an' any one on 'em stood to lose eight or ten thousand afore goin' broke. Luck run .He Jumped at Simmons. 4a., : hotel where he was stoppin', an' killed him dead in the bar room." New York Sun. thousand when he seen, or thought he seen, a chanst o' gettin' back a good part of it.! "It were Masters' deal an' a Jack pot, with $30 in it. Simmons had first say an' he opened it for the size of it. Eaton come in an' Masters raised it thirty. Evidently that were just what Simmons was lookin' for, for he raised it fifty more, an' then Eaton took a whack at it." "I reckon he had'nt raised on the first round, for. fear o' scarin' Masters out, but seeln' how things laid, he raised Simmons fifty. Then Masters histed it a hundred, an' Simmons made it a hundred more, so Eaton, havln' a small straight, kind o' hauled in his horns, an' Just trailed. , "He trailed a couple o' times more while Simmons an' Masters was a boostin' 'each other a hundred at a clip, but seeing he were out of his depth he folded on the third raise, an' the others kept' on till they had two thousand apiece in the pot. "Then Simmons just made good an' when Masters ast him how many cards he wanted he said he reckoned he'd play what he had. So Masters, he stood pat, too, both on 'em having fours, an' both reckonin' on foolln' the other. "It bein' Simmons' bet he put a tiousandr-dollars in the pot, an' Masters Mas-ters says: " 'I'll see your thousand an' bet you as much more as you've got.' "I stood near Simmons, an' I c'd hear a sort o click that I thought first was the click of a gun, but I seen he had both hands on the table, so I reckoned it must ha' been his Jaws. Anyway they was clinched when he answered, an' he spoke through his teeth, saytn': " 'Make your bet.' "Well, o' course Masters couldn't make him tell the size of his pile aforehand, so he shoved his own pile forward, him havin' considerable more In sight than Simmons. " 'Well, how much Is 'that?' says Simmons, an' Masters had to stop an' count it. It took a minute or so, an' when he was done, he says: " There's sixty-five hundred an' forty dollars.' "Then Simmons began to unbutton his clothes, there ' bein' no women "round, an' reachin' his money belt he pulled out a wad o' big bills as big as your fist " 'I'll see that,' he says, countin' out the money,' 'an' go you ten thousand more.' "That was puttin' the boot on the other leg, for all 't Masters c'd dig up was about twenty-five hundred, but he was game an' he called for a show for his pile. An' on the show down he flashed four kings against Simmons' four tens. . "Well, there wa'n't no dlsputin' the cards, but I moved away a little, kind o lookin' for a disturbance, 'specially as I heer'd that click o' Simmons' jaws again, but he didn't sav nothin' an' 'twould ha' been a good thing for a young feller that stood by If he'd showed the same sense. "But he wa'n't hardly more'n a boy, though he were a big, husky chap that were travelin', so I heer'd, f'm some-wheres some-wheres up North, an' I reckon he didn't know the customs o' the river, for he spoke right out In a good-natured, fool way, say in': "Well, that was the most extraordl-nay extraordl-nay play I ever saw.' "There was two or three other men standin' by, too, lookin' on at the game, an' they sort o' sidestepped, same as I had, but the young feller stood there just as if he hadn't said nothin', only lookin' kind o' 'ston-isheu, 'ston-isheu, same as he said he was, an' Simmons turned 'round to him. " 'And what did you find remarkable remark-able In the play, sir?' he said as polite a3 if he'd been aakln' the stranger to 1 have a drink. " 'Why,' says the boy, 'I don't see why you didn't draw a card. You could have ' J A H 70 He was a wiry devil. ' gainst Simmons for the first hour or so, an' It were easy to see that he were gettin' ugly, not that he said anything, for they didn't none on 'em do no talkin' to speak of, but his eyes looked wickeder'n usnal, an' his Jaw was sot like a steel trap. He were .playin' monstrous cautious, though, n' hadn't lost more'n three or four |