Part 2

My First Keno My Jew Partner My First Love Marked Cards My Crooked Partner My Partner Alexander Married His Money My Cards My Little Partner Mules for Luck My Visit to Old Bill Monumental Gall Mule Thieves My Partner Won McCoole and Coburn Mobile

Now a Gambler Nipped in the Bud No Play On This Boat No Money in Law Narrow Escapes No Good at Short Cards

On the Circuit

Put Ashore for Fighting Pittsburg's Best Man "Pranking" With a New Game Posing as Nic Longworth's Son

Quick Work

Red and Black Rattlesnake Jack Reduced the Price

Saved My Partner's Life Sold Out by a Partner "Snap Games" Sinking of the Belle Zane Snaked the Wheel Stolen Money Signal Service Settled Our Hash She Kissed Me Salted Down Strategem Saved By His Wife "Short Stops"

The Game of Rondo Ten Thousand in Counterfeit Money The Frenchman and the Horse Hair The Chicken Men and Their Silver The Hungry Man The Big Catfish The Sermon on the (Mount) Boat The Monte King The Daguerreotype Boat The Black Deck-Hand The Juergunsen Watch The Cotton Man Taught a Lesson They Paid the Costs The Boys from Texas The Quadroon Girl The Captain Spoiled the Game Too Sick to Fight The Gambler Disguised The Best Looking Sucker The Alligators The Big Sucker The Crazy Man The Brilliant Stone The Hidden Hand The Three Fives The Killer The Deck-Hand The Black (Leg) Cavalry The Paymaster's $3.500 The U. S. Detective's Bluff The Young Man From New York The Yellow Jeans The Jack Fish The Black Man The Persuader The Lap-Robe The Preacher Away From Home The Cattle Buyer The Green Cow-Boy The Police Signal The Good Deacon The Natchez and the Lee The Trick Knife Two Forty on the Shell Road The Arkansas Killers The Englishman and His Gun Traveling Keno The Two Judges Tapped the Till

War With Mexico Was in With the Judge Won and Lost With a Poker William Jones (Canada Bill)

Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi.

BOYHOOD DAYS.

"I'll serve his youth, for youth must have his course, For being restrained it makes him ten times worse; His pride, his riot, all that may be named, Time may recall, and all his madness tamed."

My Dear Reader: I first saw the light of day in a little town called Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum River in the State of Ohio, on the first day of August, 1829. I was the youngest of six children, and was the pet of the family. My father was a ship carpenter, and worked at boat-building in the beginning of the present century. I had good opportunities to secure an early education, as we had good schools in the West at that time. I had very little liking for books, and much less for school. When my parents thought me at school, I was playing "hookey" with other boys, running about the river, kicking foot-ball, playing "shinny on your own side," and having a fight nearly every day. I hardly ever went home that I did not have my face all scratched up from having been in a fight, which innocent amusement I loved much better than school. When I was hardly ten years of age, I would carry stones in my pocket and tackle the school teachers if they attempted to whip me. My father was away from home at his work most of the time, and my mother (God bless her dear old soul) could not manage me. She has often called in some passer-by to help her punish me. I can now see I richly deserved all the punishment I ever received, and more too. When there was company at our house, and my mother would be busy preparing a meal, I would get my bow and arrows and shoot the cups off from the table, and then run away. I guess I was about the worst boy of my age west of the Allegheny Mountains that was born of good Christian parents. I have often heard the good old church members say: "That boy will be hung if he lives to be twenty years old." But I have fooled them, and am still on the turf, although I have had some pretty close calls, as you will see by reading this book.

LEAVING HOME.

In the year 1839, while at the river one day, I saw a steamer lying at the wharf-boat by the name of Wacousta. The first steward said I could ship as a cabin boy at $4 per month. I thought this a great opportunity, so when the boat backed out I was on board without saying anything to my parents or any one else. My first duty was to scour knives. I knew they would stand no foolishness, so at it I went, and worked like a little trooper, and by so doing I gained the good will of the steward. At night I was told to get a mattress and sleep on the floor of the cabin; this I was very glad to do, as I was tired.

About four o'clock in the morning the second steward came up to me and gave me a pretty hard kick in the side that hurt me, and called out: "Get up here, and put your mattress away." I did get up and put away my bed, and then I went to the steward who kicked me and said: "Look here! Don't kick me that way again, for you hurt me." He let go and hit me a slap in the face that made my ears ring; so into him I pitched. I was a big boy for only ten years old; but I struck the wrong man that time, for he hit me another lick in the nose that came very near sending me to grass, but I rallied and came again. This time I had a piece of stone coal that I grabbed out of a bucket; I let it fly, and it caught him on the side of the head and brought him to his knees. By this time the passengers were getting up to see what was the matter; the pilot and first steward soon put a stop to the fight. I told my story to the boss, and he took sides with me. He told the officers of the boat that I was the best boy to work that he had; so they discharged the second steward at Cincinnati, and you can bet I was glad. I remained on the Wacousta for some time, and thought myself a good steamboat man. I knew it all, for I had been there.

The next boat I shipped on was the Walnut Hills, at $7 per month. You could hear her "scape" (whistle) for a distance of twenty miles on a clear day or night. I would get up early in the morning and make some "five-cent pieces" (there were no nickels in those days) by blacking boots.

PUT ASHORE FOR FIGHTING.

I quit the Walnut Hills after three months, and shipped with Captain Patterson on the Cicero, bound for Nashville. The first trip up the Cumberland River the boat was full of passengers, and I had a fight with the pantryman. The Captain said I should go ashore. They brought me up to the office, and the clerk was told to pay me my wages, which amounted to the large sum of one dollar and fifty cents. I was told to get my baggage; but as two blue cotton shirts and what I had on my back was all I possessed, it did not take me long to pack. My trunk was a piece of brown paper with a pin lock. They landed me at a point where the bank was about one hundred feet high, and so steep that a goat could not climb it. They commenced to pull in the plank, when the steward yelled out to the Captain, "that he could not get along without that boy," and asked him to let me go as far as Nashville. I was told to come aboard, which I did, and I remained on that boat for one year, during which time I learned to play "seven-up," and to "steal card," so that I could cheat the boys, and I felt as if I was fixed for life. I quit the Cicero, and shipped with Captain Mason on the steamer Tiago. Bill Campbell, afterward the first captain of the Robert E. Lee, was a cabin boy on the same boat. He is now a captain in the Vicksburg Packet Line. During the time I was on the Tiago the Mexican War broke out.

WAR WITH MEXICO.

"Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations who had else, Like kindred drops, been mingled into one."

When the Mexican War broke out, our boat was lying at Pittsburg. The Government bought a new boat called the Corvette, that had just been built at Brownsville. A cousin of mine was engaged to pilot her on the Rio Grande. His name was Press Devol. He was a good pilot on the Ohio, from Cincinnati to Pittsburg, but had never seen the Rio Grande, except on the map. I thought I would like to go to war, and to Mexico. My cousin got me the position as barkeeper, so I quit our boat, and shipped on the Corvette, for the war. Jack McCourtney, of Wheeling, was the owner of the bar.

There was a man aboard, on our way down, who took a great liking to me. He was well posted on cards, and taught me to "stock a deck," so I could give a man a big hand; so I was a second time "fixed for life."

When we got down to New Orleans they took the boat over to Algiers, took her guards off, and part of her cabin, and we started across the Gulf; and you bet my hair stood up at times, when those big swells would go clear over her in a storm. But finally we landed at Bagdad, and commenced to load her with supplies for the army.

I soon got tired of the Rio Grande, and after cheating all the soldiers that I could at cards (as there was no one else to rob), I took a vessel, and came back to New Orleans. When I landed there, I was very comfortably fixed, as I had about $2,700, and was not quite seventeen years old. Here I was in a big city, and knew no one; so I went and got a boarding house, and left all my cash, but what I might need, in the care of an old gentleman that looked something like my father. I thought he must be honest, as he looked like him, and he proved himself so.

I then picked up courage, and said to myself, "I believe that I will go home." But to pay passage was all foolishness, as I was such a good hand on a boat, so I shipped on the steamboat Montgomery, Captain Montgomery, and Windy Marshall (as they called him) Mate. I shipped as second steward, at twenty dollars per month.

The boat was full of people, and the card tables were going ever night as soon as the supper tables were cleared. We had been out from New Orleans two days and nights before I picked up a game. One afternoon in the texas, I beat my man out of $170; and as there was no "squeal" in those days, I was all right, although they did not allow any of the crew to play with passengers.

We got to Louisville, where the boat laid up and paid off her crew, and I came on to Cincinnati.