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Show 104 WESTERN WILDS. Calling for whisky, Arkansaw swallowed an immense draught ; then raised his pistol slowly and with evident deliberation. There was a sharp report, and Curly fell forward on his face, but in an instant sprang to his feet. Arkansaw's shot had cut his left ear clean from his head ! The sharp sting and flow of warm blood suddenly changed his mind, and bounding into the ravine, he took to his heels, followed by the yells and laughter of the crowd. When Arkansaw told me this story in Corinne ( where I then edited a paper), he laughed till the tears stood in his eyes; he considered it the champion joke of his career. Promontory was for that season the transfer point between the Union and Central Pacific ; and was composed about equally of hotels, saloons and gambling tents, with a few stores and shops. There flourished every form of " cut- throat" gambling known: three- card monte, ten- die, the strap game, chuckaluck, and the patent lock game. Occasionally " legitimate " gambling, like faro or keno, was established ; but " cut- throat " games wrere the rule. " Cappers" boarded the cars at Corinne or Kelton, formed acquaintance with their victims by the time the train reached Promontory, and led them straight into the dens. Strange that so many men are yet deceived when these tricks have been exposed so often; strange that even old travelers can be caught by devices explained a hundred years ago in the " Rogue's Lexicon." But no less strange than true, that almost every day these fellows robbed somebody. No less a personage than Don Pico, formerly Mexican Governor of California, left $ 600 in gold with the " Promontory boys." What I particularly admire in the " sports " is the fine morality they display in always having the loser in the wrong. The latter is certain he is going to cheat the gambler, otherwise he would never venture. He thinks the gambler ignorant of the fact that the card is marked, or the lock " hampered," or the trap changed, as the case may be, by the " capper;" and goes in on what he considers a " dead sure thing." Hence there should be no legal action to recover money lost in gam-bling. Between the gambler and the loser the moralities are equal; both are rogues at heart, only the former is the more expert. From Promontory to the foot of the Sierra Nevadas, there seemed scarcely a break in the awful barrenness and desolation. The air was bracing and the sky beautifully clear, flecked only by light silvery clouds; but there the list of beauties ends. There are mountains red and yellow, plains dazzling white, dull gray or dirty brown, and alternate vistas of sand, flint, salt and alkali. Here and there are |