Good Poker Story

"I have played poker in a great many states and territories," said the man wliose business takes him over a vast extent of country. "ï have sat in games from Atlantic to Pacific, from Maine to Mexico, and have seen everybody frr.in the statesman to the tramp deal and shuffle. But never in all my career have I seen poker played as it is playèd at Hot Springs. The game down there is something fierce. I sat in a six-handed game there pne night, and solemnly declare that I was the only honest man in the deal. I had heard that the Hot Springs gamblers were pretty tricky, but, being an olil hand myself, I concluded that I would take a chance and trust to my experience and perceptions to detect them. Inside of half an hour I was onto all their games. The man across from the table had big celluloid cuffs and a rubber band around his arm. When an ace or king came his way it went into a cuff and was snapppd up by the rubber band in no time. ' The man uext to me on ihe left had a breast plate - a pad with slots and slits to put cards In, and he was simply stuffing away the better porti-n oí the decks. The man on my right had a sleeve holdout that worked with claws and was scouring all over the table in search of good ones. At the end of the table a f ello w was dropping cards into his lap and ♦rusting to good luck and dexterity to regain them undetected. But the man at the other end was the best of all. He had a diamond ring, and may I be a fish lf the ston wasn't sharpened to a point like a needie. When he had a chance at the deck he turned that ring around, spiked a card on the diamond and drew back his hand with the eard fastened to the ring. The bst of it all was that they were not in partnership- not a bit. Bvery man was going it hard on his own hook and thOught that he had fallen into a nest of suckers whose money would be asy for Mm. It was a chance meeting of short-card men and they were dlgging away .without the sllghtest knowledge or suspiclon tbat the other fellows were not pei'fectly square and easy game. 00 you know that a cheater is the softest meat ín the world when once you Wnow nis game, to beat at his owo tricks? Ke ia sö occupied in working his own deviltries and so afraid that somebody will catch hlm that be pays no attention to what you may be dolnr with the carda. It's a well-known fact and 1 improved lt. I began to deal from the bottom of the deck and from the middle and from other places wher 1 had secreted the cards and not on of those five caught O. By 10 oclock there had been so many oardf held out the doek was pitifully thln. Í caught ftgood hand tben- three aceu- tnd I gave myself another on the deal. Then I looked fiercely át t)?at crowd- the pot had been raised up to respetable proporllons- and ia a stern volco I remirkedr 'l'm goir.g to win this hand, and l'm golng te Win it on the level, too!' And every one pi those roosters thought I had dètected hlm and meant the remark for hini. One after -anoth&r they laifí down their cards and found some excuse to quit the game. waa left alone and fouotí mysell ato;;t ?77 winner."