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HE APPEAL KEEPS I BEOATT 4It is the organ of ALL Afro-Asri 6Itis not controlled, by any ring 6It asks no support but th people14i"MMi'v'or t i VOL. 16. NO. 35. FISH TALES, IF Fergry th. Gaidc Talks While the I Bass Decline to BiteCatch of the Red Flannel Shirt PtmiKhinent ot Al*-.vlc Hume, the Mean Scotch mani-Tararet Shooting of the Por- cupinesThe Death Song of the Loou-Port'dt Romance. ^Z^~2 FRGUSON the guide, called T/~^ Fergy for short, squat, museu L lar ai.d^brown, with small, dar eyes 'p the summer sun Round lake toy placid. Not a ripple, crinkled it. Three great pines and hemlocks which grew to the water's edge, were motionless in the noon heat. Over the wide and mirror-like ex panse the quavering, wailing cry of the loon sounded. A blue-heron stood gaunt upon a wooded point, waiting for his luncheon to swim by and at the other end of the lake a mother teal led her browi. brood of seven by devious ways in and out among the rushes While usually the wa ter rippled, as if against a beach, upon the lips of the lily-pads, on this day not a lnurmur came from them. Under their shelter the huge black bass reposed, noi might any form of lure, live frog or min now, phantom minnow or spoon, fly or white salt pork, tempt him to come forth. The other man in the boat listened while Fefgy talked. He pays Fergy $2 a day to haul him about into secret places where the fish are known to .be, and to handle the craft as only a rri'astjer can handle it when that shooting wolf of the "Western waters, the rnuskallonge, strikes the spoon and the battle for life begins. In addition to services as a guide, hs oh. taired from Fergy a wealth of romance of the forest and field, for this boatman is certainly the most gifted and ornate liar to be found between Green Bay and the Mississippi river. "When pike, pickerel, bass and "musky" refuse to strike, it ia worth the money to hear him, in modulat ed voice, drone on of the way in which they have bitten in the past, and doubt less will bite again. His language Is sim ple and direct, unadorned with the graces of rhetoric, unmarred by the crimpings of gran-mar, the unfettered, free, expressive tongue of the wilderness, the birch bark shack and the logging camp. "Talking about fishing," said Fergy, the other man not having spoken for half an hour, "talking about fishing and the fun ny things a man sees sometimes when his eyes ain't shut, reminds me of a time when I got tired of loafing 'round Boyd's hotel, and wanted to do a do on my own reel. I go down to Long lake and dump myself Ir.to a piroig, and I go across arid pike along into the woods. I pike for 550 yards, straight as a teal flies when it means business, and I run bang against a little lake I had never seen before In my life It lay there among the trees and the alder bushes like a looking glass, not more'n an acre, and I wanter say it was I broke from end to end with ripples madt. by the small-mouthed bass. "They was two million of 'em, or maybe, they was three million, an' it was oretty enough to make a man keep away from whisky and the gals forever and ever amen. I dug ray hands into my pockets, and I didn't have no more bait than would catch a starving minnow in a wash bowl I thought hard for three and a quarter minutes, and tl en I out with the tail of my red flannel shirt and tore off a hunk big enough to wrap a penkn'fe in. I didn't need that much, but I wanted fish, and the other guides had plenty of shirts and we all bunked in the same cabin. Now, a little ritace of red flannel ain't the most eatful thing in the world, but. say, them fish was crazy for it. It hadn't touched the water when twenty-three of 'em mode a dash for It, and one of 'em that weighed four and a quarter pounds, got it right in the left srlll. Then begin the dadbingedest hurroosh what ever. "The line was in the air most of the time, going in or coming out, and many a time a fish would meet the flannel two and a half feet above the water. I'd reef it into him the second he struck: he'd be hooked by the time his tail touched the lake, and I jerked that old quadruple mul tiplying so fast that he'd come in standing on his flukes, with maybe his hind fin Just tipping the water now'and again. I never see such fish. Nobody never did. "I catched sixty-one red-eyed bass in sixty minutes flat. Then my right arm was so tired that I had to lift on the string with my left hand, and paddle home with that hand, too. I ain't certain but what they was sixty-two, but Antolne Garashay come down to the boat to meet me at the hotel lading, and he was the worst fish-thief that ever made a track big enough for two fair-sized men. He was drowned last year, logging on the Flambeau, and I ain't much doubt, that some meat was on his bones made by one of them red-eyes. That catch weighed lf pounds 11 ounces, and they want a big-mouth in the bunch." Fergy had never read Dean Swift, and Is unaware of the great doctor's habit of embellishing his yarns by the use- of mtnutae, measuring a wash bowl of the, Brobdlngnaglans by 'the dome of St. Paul's, and so forth tut he has the genius for detail that marks the accomplished prevaricator, and backs his statements with such wealth of little things that the listener Is forced into mute acquiescence. If 7:ot into outspoken belief. "The meanest guide I ever bumped agin," he went on, "was Aleck. Hume. He was a Scotchman, with French blood in him and a dash of Leech Lake Indian. I don't know where you'd go to find a meaner cross than that. It was his grand mother on the mother's side that give him the Indian tinge, and he got the French from his father's grandmother. H* smoked my tobacker and broke my pipe, and told the guests at the hotel that 1 w'n't no good. One day on Pickerel lake me an* my man was out of bait, an' Aleck an* his man was down the shore 2U0 yards from us. Aleck had the big bucket hah full of frogs, sitting behind him, and the man was in the stern. I can outswlm an fish that ever jumped a lily-pad to reach a June bug, when I try, and I said nothing to my man. I just went over the sld. without a splash and slipped under the water. The distance was 195 yards, and there was a big ruffle on from the wind. 1 got a good start about eight feet under, and I came up just behind Aleck, as true as a hair. Say, you couldn't'hear a-rip ple. I put my hand over the gunwale, lifted the' frog bucket, went under again, and the next thing I saw, I was on the far side of my own, boat, holding up the frogs for rpy man to see. Say, I thought he'd rcll off the seat. "Coming: back was a little harder than eoine. ~I was afraid to take too deep a "S eerln ro Undere a drooping brim, satm on th middle thwart of the boat. In breath Aleck might hear me. In a little while his man lost the frog off his hook. They said it was weedless hook, but It got caught In the pads, just the same.. They ain't no weedless hook, sure enough, except one I made, and I'm trying.to get a patent on It Well, the langwldge that went over that lake when that man arsked that guide for them frogs was just won derful. Aleck swore they,was behind him aminute afore. His man asked sarkastic al what braniS of licker. he was drinking. Then Aleck "lie said he was as sober as any dude that ever come out of Chicago, and his man said that Aleck was a liar. Then Aleck got sulky and turned the boat round and made for the portage back into Mason Lake, and so on to the hotel, and next day the hotel man that gave him his grub to hang aroundand guide for the guests, fired him over two counties. A tree 110 feet high and 6 feet 2 inches thick fell or. him last winter, up in Rube Smith's cairp, and mashed him flatter than a ladybug but that don't gimme back my tobacker. "They's a funny tree right back of us up on the hill there. You couldn't And it un less I took you to it, but it's a wonder. It stands 325 rods from where we are sit ting, northwest by north. I run against it one day when I was out hunting for wasps' nests. They ain't no bait for bass like young wasps some times of the yeat The tree is a silver birch, and it ain't mor'n three inches through. I noticed it, because about a foot and a half from the ground there was a blaze on it two inches square, like some feller had done it with an axe. I didn't see what a blaze was doing there, and so low down, because there weren't no trail anywhere near, and I went up to have a look at it. Maybe you won't believe me when I tell you that it had thirty-three porkypine quills sticking in it, just like little arrers. I never see anything like that before, and I hung around for an hour waiting to see some more. I knowed the porkys was up to something. Bimeby I see two come out of the woods, waddle up to the tree and ther. waddle away from it about two yards. I measured the distance afterward, and it was six feet two inches. "They looked at one ^another a minute and seemed to be arguing about some thing. They were just plain black porky pines, and I see that their quills was thin ner than they oughter be. Finally one of 'em switches hlsself around until he was broadside to the tree, give hisself a little jerk and a quill went flying and stuck in the tree, a half inch abeve the blaze and a quarter inch to the left. The other one sorter srkekered, took his posish and land ed inside the blaze, an inch below the cen ter. They was shooting at a markthat's what they was doingbut what they h?^ bet on it I don't know, and if I knew would not tell, as the song says. "The first 'ona, which was the biggest, looked sorter mad and tried another shot He got pretty close to the center, but the other one beat him with a bull'seye. Tho-t tried another shot apiece, but the little one won again. He sorter danced nhov on two legs for a minute or two, and tton the big one gathered him. Say, you never see any leaves fly like them leaves fle-w There was a cloud of 'em whirling ahou1 and in the center of the cloud was th^ two porkys. The little ?h wasn't strong as the big one, but he was scienced for keeps. I never see a little feller fighl like he did. Three times the big one eot him down, and three times he brok away, and the way they slung the quills into each other was orful. You eoulo a-heard 'era rattle a quarter-mile awav. "At lr.st the little one give a half-whirl, jumped a foot high, passed over the big one's back, lit six inches from him, half turned and socked his teeth into Ms throat where no quills don't grow. Say, it was Katy bar the door then. The big one let out a squeal like a young pig, and in half a minute he keeled over on his side and lay still. He didn't have life enough left In him to roll up into a ball. He just died dead The little one looked at him for a while, then he went over and looked a\ the mark they had been shooting at. He sorter sized up the posish of the quilla sticking in it, and then he went away. "I could a-killed him with a club but I didn't have the heart to do it. He sure was a game little fighter. When that fight ended them two porkys didn't have a dozen quills apiece on 'em that groweo there They had used up most of their ammunition reefing the sharp pints Into each other. The one that lived looked like he had been In a,wind that blowed hit, quills the wrong way, and the other one what was dead just bristled with 'em. It nin't no use for people to tell me a porky can't throw his quills, because I see 'em do it and do it mighty accurate. Ef I could shoot as straight' according to my size, I wouldn't have to guide nobody foi a living:. The dead one weighed five pounds and three ounces. "And talking about bass and porkypines. I see some loons dp a funny trick once. 1 was over on Little Price lake trying for some California trout the fool government put in there to feed the muskles 'boot five years ago. They's lots of loons on Little Trice because of the small fish In Jt I was late starting back, and twlllgnt na jot plumb into moonlight afore I took up ny anchor. Just then I heard a splash, ind about a hundred and ten yards away see a loon come swooshing down and hit the water kerblop. He gave, the signal :ry, and another and another came in un til I counted eighteen of 'em swimming around in a circle. Then the firai one raised his head and made a.long cry, and the others took it up .n chorus. They swum slowly round and round and kept up their crying. It sound ed like a sorter loon squalling match to me at first, but pretty soon I began to pick out the different notes. One feller'd squall 'way down deep, and another 'wa jp high, and another sorter in the middle, and the others joined in first here and then there, and I see that it was a singing bee. That's what it was, as sure as the Lord made little apples. The first loor. was teacher and the others was learning Trcm him. "Well, say, that noise got to be pretty igreeable after a little while. It had a sorter tune to it. Bimeby the tune got to be strong and nlain. I never heard no tune like it, and I'd been hitting the fid lie for twenty year, but it was a tune all right. Then the leader waved his head three times, and one of 'em came swim ming slow out of the bunch and took station five yards and one foot away. Re raised his head, and his voice came out sorter sweet and clear and thin, like the note yf make on the little string when the pitch is high and you draw the bow soft and even. Then the big feller that had more white on him than he oughter, rolled in with 3 bass, ^i^t warlike the Centimed on 2nd Page*. y" V- a t-T J- *'.&*S$8 WENTY-FIVE millions of dol lars! That is the enormous sum that will be expended during the coming three months in elec the next pre.-iJent of the United States. According to the estimates of some po^ Utical leaders, a much larger sum will have been spent by the time the cam paign ends. Twenty-five millions of dol lars is accounted a conservative esti mate. Upward of that sum was used in the campaign of 1896, and more money will be expended this year. Both parties are more prosperous now than they were in 1896. Unless one could get behind the scenes and account for the bulk of this vast sum few probably would believe that so many millions could be used by the pol iticians in so short a time. Witn each succeeding presidential election it has become easier for the managers on both sides to use money bounteously. This does not mean that there is to be a wholesale debauchery of voters. Wo one knows just what proportion of the twen five millions will go to purchaseable voters. It is known, however, that only a small part of the total will be used in this way. With the opening of natiorial head quarters in this city last week by the Republicans the campaign to re-elect President McKinley was got under way. The Democrats have not yet formally "begun their nght, although tney soon will be doing in Chicago practically the same thing that the Republicans already are doing in this city. The-Republicans, unlike the Democrats, already have de cided upon having two great national headquartersone in New Xork and one in Chicago. The Democrats may: open a national headquarters here later, but they will start the campaign with Chi cago as the Democratic storm center. It was an old idea of James G. Blaine that a presidential campaign should be eonducted from two central points. The Plumed Knight used to impress the im portance of this view upon his Repub lican friends, but the idea never was formally adopted until the campaign of 1896. When Marcus A. Hanna became chairman of the Republican national committee he decided to try Mr. Blaine's planj_jand it was found to work admir ably. It is being followed again this year and Senator Hanna, as commander-in chief of the Republican forces, will di vide his time between the two national headquarters. Senator James K. Jones, chairman of the Democratic national committee, has not yet made arrangements for formal headquarters elsewhere than in Chicago. The managers of William J. Bryan's can vass four years ago conceded the East to McKinley at the outset of the figkt, and for that reason were content to have desk room in the headquarters of the Democratic state committees Mr. Bryan, Senator Jones and other Democratic leaders this year believe there will be strong tactical advantages in having headquarters jHn New York and fa con ducting a stiff fight in what they used to call "the enemy's country." This done,' the general outline of the Democratic and Republican campaigns will be similar. It was repeatedly asserted by Mr. Bry an's supporters in 1S96 that they had lit tle money with which to conduct their '&, [&' A* ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS. MINN.. SATUBDAY. SEPTEMBER 1.1900 IT COSTS $25,000,000 TO ELECT A PRESIDENT nt "Spellbinders" Alone, of Which There Will Be More Than 61,000, Will Cost Over $11,000,000, and Phonographs and Stereopticons Are Not Had for Nothing. ceded on all sides that the McKinley managers had as mi)|i, and by many they were credited isflth possessing a much more substantia^ campaign fund. All kinds of politicians agree that the two national committees hjid at least $5,- ODT,000"to^spehd*i|fW#|ii"'| of four years ago, and the same autjnoi&ties are unan imous in declaring thai the two commit tees will have fully as much this year. For every dollar that the national com mittees spend it is a ^conservative esti mate that the state committees of the two parties will spend four, and this will make up the total of 25,000,000 that the election will cost. To show where so mtf.ch money goes, a study of the cost of campaign speeches alone is very instructive. Each national committee spends at sleast $500,000 for speeches, and the state committees spend ten times as much more. There Is one Item of eleven millions, The Republican national committee this year will send out twenty-five hundred speakers from the New York headquarters and three thousand speakers from the headquarters In Chicago. The Democrats will send out an equal number. These speakers cost on the average $110 a week, that sum in cluding salaries to the. spellbinders and an expense allowance Qf $8 a day. Some of the campaign speakers receive salaries as high as $250 a week* while others are content with $25 a week and their ex penses. The average cost of these speak' SHOO! GO AWAY! campaign. Despite this statement, well Informed politicians estimate that the Bryan managers had not leas than $2,500,- 000 for use in that campaign. It was Con ors to the committee Is $110 a week* and they are on the stump eight weeks. While the national committee of each party thus will have five thousand five hundred speakers out, the various state committees will have ten times as many more on the stump..,-- The salaries of speakers engaged by the state commit tees may be 'less than those paid by the national managers, hut the state commit tees have to pay the rental of all the buildings in which campaign meetings are held. This item adds tremendously to the" total. One of the most expensive items in the campaign next to the speakers is that of printing and stationery. For this each national committee spends at least $500,- 000. The number and size of the docu ments sent out have increased with each campaign, until thi^ year it is expected that the McKinley and the Bryan man agers each will send out no less than a hundred million documents. Before the Garfield-Hancock campaign was half over the Republicans and Deihocrats had sent out more than twelve million documents, and this style of campaigning!has become more popular with each presidential con test. The bulk of this matter is sent by express to the chairmen of the various state committees for distribution. A great 3ea! of if goes free, being franked from Washington. Speeches delivered In con gress by Republicans and Democrats con stitute a large part of the campaign' rbat :er, and Republicans and Democrats alike :ake advantage of this .opportunity", to-get -.o' the voters speeches favorable to their side in the contest. Each national commit .ee sends out five irfillion buttons ana five nillion lithographs, all of wheh are dis :ributed through the state, chairmen of he two. parties. l- Defective Page To follow the movements of Senator tlanna or, Senator Jones for twenty-four lours is to get an insight into what is jrobablythe greatest problem of organiza tion ever known. Shrewd, far-seeing men tfho organize trusts or other great enter-, arises have comparatively simple tasks with which to cope. These two great jenerals of the campaigri of 1900, are rganizin machinery as complete and iubstantial as though they expected never do anything else but elect presidents. :f they were organizing hundred year residential clubs they could not b more thorough anci systematic. The national chairman maps out the work and divides great responsibilities among his immediate assistants. They in turn divide thir work so that a dozen or twenty or a hundred men will look after the details. These men. assign in turn important tasks to hundreds of party workers under them. After the campaign is well under way the minor workers re port to their superiors, as a lieutenant in the-army reports' to his captain. 'The captain in turn reports to his major, the major to his colonel and the colonel to his general, Senator Hanna ,pr Senator Jones, as the case might be. When, a situation arises down the line that threat ens trouble Senator Hanna or Senator Jones hears of it and devisee some p'lan for averting the danger. He then directs his subordinates to see that the plan is tried and requires full explanations for failure. While the national chairmen are very busy devising plans for success, they also find time to raise the bulk of the campaign funds. They delegate to others the task of selecting and sending out literature, engaging and assigning speak ers, receiving callers and answering cor respondence and studying reports on conditions in the various states. Speak ers are told the subjects on which they may talk and they are directed as to how they shall handle these subjects. It is found that a certain line of argument is received -with disfavor in a certain state, the speakers in that state are warned to shift their arguments in accordance with new instructions. If the discussion the money question promises more votes in a given state than a discussion of imperialism, the speakers of the re spective parties are instructed to talk finance. Ih states where the voters seem to care more for speeches on imperialism than finance, the spellbinders are directed to talk imperialism. A dozen and one straws of this kind have to be watched 3onstantlyV the campaign managers re alizing that failure to act promptly may result in the loss of a state whose elec toral vote may be essential to success. No feature of the campaign is watched by the national chairman more closely than the preliminary and the final can vasses of the voters. Both parties soon will have under way a convass -of every voting precinct. This will show In a gen eral way how many of the voters favor Bryan and how many "favor McKinley. It also will show whpt of the voters are doubtful, who are inclined to favor Bryan and would lean toward McKinley. The taking of this canvass costs a tremend ous sum of money, but the party man agers must have it In order to gauge the outlook. They soon discover where their lines are' weakest and where those of (CoD*4wiTd on Second P*ar.) KENNY'S ROYAL It Was a Lous Tinie Coining, but It Paid Him MTtian. It CameOld Man Greenhut's Story to Show the Value of PersistenceA Bar tender Who Stuck to His Theory of Poker Throng-h Many Disconr asrements and "Won Out Last. /?y T'S a most surprisiir thing," said old man Greenhnt as he set the bottles away behind the bar, "that foll^ don't ieem to 'preciate the impor tance o' bein' pe-.-fiistent. Now, that there Si Walker, *t just come in here an' took a d-ink an' went out 'thout sayin' a word to no one, is a bright an' shinln' example never do In' nothin' worth while, 'cause he don't never stick to it. Gits discouraged like, an sets down an' thinks about it. when if he'd on'y spit on his hands aJi' take a fresh grip he mought come out a four time winner. Why, I tell you that man might 'a' been a justice o' the peace an' married the Widow Baker with four hun'red acres o' good farm land, no end o' stock an' farmin' utensils an' money in the bank, on'y fer that .fatal habit o' his o' not stickin* to it. Just give up, he did,- 'cause he got beat out in two 'lec tions an' wouldn't run fer office no more, an' when the widow said no three or four times he 'lowed she didn't want him an* sot out o* the game, when the blame fool'd oughter knowed that all she wanted was a, man with gumption enough to keep on courtin." The old man turned his back for a mo ment while he slyly poured a little water into a whisky bottle in which the liquor was running low, and then placing it with the other bottles he came out to his favorite seat by the window and sat smoking for some minutes. "Beats all," he said after a while, "how folks lets go like that. Don't seem to have no sense o' religion. The Good Book says, 'Go to the ant. you sluggers. Con sider her wavs and be wise.' Now, there ain't no p'ints about an ant that's'worth considerin, 'cept their almighty stick-to lt-iveness. Stands to reason, it means fer us to keep peggin' away till we git there. 'F Si Walker'd on'y pegged like the ants does he mought -'a' been rich an' re spected. "There was Pete Kennev that dropped off'n a boat here some thirty year ago ah' just staved. There didn't seem to be no reason whv he should 'a' come here in the first place or why he should stayed after he arrove. but he did Some said he must 'a' dropped onto the boat by accident somewheres up the river an' the^captain put him off at the first landln1 him not havin* the regulation fare in his jeans. However 'twas, he come, an' he remained. More'n that, he'a well fixed now an* pays taxes. "There warn't no reason fer it, fur as anybody could see, 'ceptin' Pete's all fired persistency. He was a bright enough sort o' man an' might o' settled down in business fer himself, fer he got a job as bartender down to the hotel an' made money. They do say as how a steady Industrious bartender in a hotel where there's a good run o' business an' a "boss that drinks some himself can have a sa loon of his own in a few years, an' I recfton it's pretty near true. I kept bar in a hotel myself when I was young. "That wasn't Pete's lay, though. Pete used to say that there was one way o' establishing yourself in life that laid over any other, an' that was to hold a royal flush in a good stiff game o* draw poker Then, he says, it's on'y a question o* how much the others has got to inspire their confidence an* how much they has to bet with that fixes the amount to be gathered in. on which a man can retire an' be re spectable fer the rest o' his natural life "Some o' us reasoned with Pete at times about this. We told him that royal flushes was sca'ce game, and that four o' a kind was good enough fer a careful player to git rich on, but Pete 'lowed that a royal flush was the on'y thing a man could be dead sure of. Seems he'd had four queens beat when he was young an' he'd learned consld'able caution from th' experience. "'As to a royal flush bein' sca'ce' Pete says, 'It stands td reason that a man's goin' to git it some time. If he plays long enough. Stick to it,' he says 'an' sooner or later yer goin' to get a royal flush. The on'y thing needed is to-stick to it.' "Consequences was that Pete, havin' found his theory of business success de voted himself to the workin' on it'out with a persistency that would a' growed wool on a nigger's heel 'f he'd devoted hisself to that particular form of efTort Talk about Si Walker an' the widow. &f Si had stuck to the widow with one forty 'leventh part o' Pete'., persistency, the widow'd 'a' melted like butter in a blast furnace. Why, Pete'd give his nights an* days to poker. He never allowed business to interfere with a game 'slong's he'd money to play with. "Just naturally his theory of the game Interfered with his general success. Most ly it does interfere, I've noticed, when a man gets theories In his head an* plays the-game different fm the ordinary run o* people. These here sharps that Aggers out some particular thing in the game as bein' a dead certainty, aWays loses money on it, for you can say what you like about the great American game but it certainly does beat anything else for the preponderance of uncertainty that has to be calculated on, whenever you have a dead sure thing in your mindall ex cepting a royal flush, as Pete used to say with ondeniable wisdom. "Pete's mind bein' fixed, so to speak, on that royal flush, you can see for your self that it warped his judgment on the question o' drawin' cards. Many a time I've seen him split a pair of aces, an' drar three cards to a ace an' queen, or ace an' ten o* the same suit Once I even seen him split two pairs, aces an' queens, an* draw two cards to the ace, queen an* jack o' diamonds, an' Joe Hooker says he seen the blamed ijjit split three kings to draw to three hearts just because they was all court cards o* the same suit. An* the first card he picked up in. the draw was the fourth king. Shows how a man'11 overlook the blessin's o' Providence right in his fist reachin' out after things he hain't no reason to hope for in the natural course of events. Stands to reason a man'11 lose money defyin' fate with such monkey shines as them. "j?*F\ "'Twasn't.no use to argue? with Pete, though. He were as obstinate as a mule an' stuck to his notion o' gettln' a royal! flush like7" a sick nigger sticks to the .40 PER IE AB. Metnocnst cnurcn. xou couldn't persuade him. One day I says to him, 'Look a' here, Pete, a royal flush is most onques tionably a good pdece o' property, but what show hev you got o' one?a Tou out patiencegettin' P Look the pots you might 'a' scooped with two pairs an' three of a kind if you'd only drawed like a Christian, says I, 'instead o' puttin' your trust in strange gods, an' sacrificin* your good chips an' the prin ciples o' the game in a strange an' foolis- eRdeavor. It's flyin' in the face o' Prov idence,' I says to him,'an* you'll go down to your grave unhonored, unwept an* unhung if you persist in it. More'n that,' I says, 'you'll be dead broke all the day o' your life.' "But you couldn't convince him. 'There's four royal flushes in the deck, aint there?' says he, 'an' them five cards is just as likely to come as any other five, aint they? An' if there's anything certain in this here world o' trouble an' oncertainty. 'tis that a man'll get 'em sometime, it he keeps on tryin'. An' say! When I do get 'em* if the Lord spares me till that happy day, I wont do anything but swat the gang.' The Lord can spare you easy enough^' says I, disgusted, 'an* so can the commu nity if you go on tryin' to break up our national institutions by propagatin' sich revolutionary ideas. It's worse'n social- ism,' I says. 'It's ridiculous.* "But there wasn't no movin' of him, an* we just had to leave him to the error of his ways, an' what we thought was the inevitable vengeance of heaven. An' the boys calculated that bein' as how he was a self-appointed vessel o' wrath, an' bound to be skinned in the game as long as he continued to play it, It was a sort o' missionary work to assist in the skin nin'. Most of 'em devoted themselves to the missionary work, too, with such holy seal that Pete was broke most of the time. "He was good grit though. Notndy never heard him complain, for he seenccl to be sustained by a calm confidence in that royal flush, an' every time he went broke he'd go back to work as chipper as i catfish an' stick to it till he had a stake to sit in the game with. "That was another thing I used to talk to him about while I was trying to show him the error of his ways. 'Supposin'" you 3o get a royal flush sometime,' I says, 'how can you expect to get a legitimate profit out of it if you go broke all the time tryin* to get it? You won't have no money to bet with,' I says. "But all he ever said to that was, 'Oh, the Lord will provide! You don't suppose thing is goin'. to be so ordered, dp you, that heaven's richest blessin- would come to a man, an' .him not have the means to back it up?' Which was the next door to blasphemy, as I told him. frequent, but he only smiled. An' when the time come, as it did finally, when his faith was justi fied, an' he reaped the reward of per sistency, it were developed that he had good reason to smile, for he had provided for that contingency with a wisdom com pared to which the guile o' the sarpet was .as the babblings o' babes an' suck lings. Oh! Pete was a polished article even If we did size him up for a deluded fanatic all them years. "It went on for a matter o' fifteen yeai or more an' Pete's royal flush come to be a standin' joke in town. Fellers would laugh about it every time he set into game, an' it were esteemed a great piece o' wit for some feller to say, 'I'll bet a thousand to one in town lots that Pete won't get a" royal flush to-night.' 'Course nobody ever took it up", but everybody'c laugh, an' Pete would blush, an' he'd say, 'I'll get It some time, boys, if I don't to night.' "An* he did. If ever a man won suc cess by long-continued, persistent strug glin' for it, Pete Kennedy did, an' things fell out about as he'd always said the.v would. It was a pretty good game froir the first, for there was a couple o' cross: roads gamblers who had come to tows lookin' for blood, an' it happened that there was two planters just back froir New Orleans with their money in theii pockets, an' they was lookin' for excite ment. One of 'em knowed Pete an' liked him an* asked him to join in the game that was started just about the time th got off at Arkansas City here, an' ,u havin' a hundred in his clothes, just nat urally did. "He played lucky from the start. 11 happened fortunately that he didn't gel a chance to make one of his fool draws more'n once in Jalf an hour or so, an' his play outside o' that was fairly good pots on flushes an' fulls, besides two oi three that he took In on deuces and nerve, or some sich hand. "Anyhow, he had near a thousand in front of him when there come a big jack pot with fifty in it before it was opened. Pete sat next to the. dealer an' he passed havin' on'y a king, jack an' ten o' clube not bein' permitted to open under the rules. The next man opened it for fifty, the next three come in, an' Pete raised it a hundred. That was his fool play. Whenever he'd see a show for a royal flush he used to play as if he had it, for fear he wouldn't get the good of It when it did come. "Well, .it worked pretty* well. One of the crossroads professionals dropped out, butsthe other one had a seven full, pat, an' after the two planters had come in, he raised Pete another hundred. Pete came back at him with another and one of the planters dropped. The other had a four flush and he stayed. The gambler, for some reason, didn't raise again, but simply saw the raise, and there was $1,300 In the pot. I "In the draw'Pete got the ace an' queen o' clubs. I suppose If I'd a caught thero cards under the circumstances, I'd a dropped dead with surprise, but Pete never turned a hair. There was a kind of a drop to the left side of his face'an* it looked a little droopier than usual, for a minute, but he gave no other sign, and the others thought he had three of a kind at the most. The planter filled flush, an' so Pete had two good nanus to play against, which was as much as any body could expect. He had about six hundred on the table to bet with, be sides, and more'n that, he had resources that nobody at the table knew about. "The planter sat next to the opener, who had dropped out, and as it was his ^'Y' first bet and he had a flush, he pushed t-'^i" up a hundred, not carinl to gb too heavy V&&4 against the gambler who had stood pat rf^ift and who stood the third raise before the *C^ draw. The gambler raised, course pushm' up three-flfty.i4$1'$| "-L (Continued on Second Page)^ :4 3 vhis