“Once when I was a clerk on the Robert E. Lee, Duval got a young fellow in tow, and the young fellow wanted to bet on the game, but he had a friend with him, and his friend kept pulling him away.

“Later, when Duval had given up the idea of getting this young fellow’s money, and closed up his game, he appeared in the social hall of the boat with a small bag held up to his face.

“Somebody asked him what was in the bag.

“‘It’s hot salt,’ he said.  ’I’ve got a toothache, and a bag of hot salt is the best thing in the world for toothache.’

“Presently, when he went to his stateroom to get something, he left the bag of salt on the stove to heat it up.  While he was gone somebody suggested, as a joke, that they dump out the salt and fill the bag with ashes, instead.  So they did it.  And when Duval came back he held it up to his face again, and seemed perfectly satisfied.

“‘How does it feel now?’ one of the fellows asked.

“‘Fine,’ said Duval.  ‘Hot salt is the best thing going.’

“At that, the man who had prevented the young fellow from betting, down in the barber shop, earlier in the day, offered to bet Duval a hundred dollars that the bag didn’t contain salt.

“Duval took the bet and raised him back another hundred.  But the man had only fifty dollars left.  However, another fellow, standing in the crowd, put in the extra fifty to make two hundred dollars a side.

“Then Duval opened the bag, and it was salt.  He had changed the bags, and the fellows who worked up the trick were his cappers.”

One of the old-time river gamblers was an individual, blind in one eye, known as “One-eyed Murphy.”  Murphy was an extremely artful manipulator of cards, and made a business of cheating.  One day, shortly after the Natchez had backed out from New Orleans and got under way, Marion Knowles, a picturesque gentleman of the period, and one who had the reputation of being polite even in the most trying circumstances, and no matter how well he had dined, came in and stood for a time as a spectator beside a table at which Murphy was playing poker with some guileless planters.  Mr. Knowles was not himself guileless, and very shortly he perceived that the one-eyed gambler was dealing himself cards from the bottom of the pack.  Thereupon he drew his revolver from his pocket and rapping with it on the table addressed the assembly: 

“Gentlemen,” he said, speaking in courtly fashion, “I regret to say that there is something wrong here.  I will not call any names, neither will I make any personal allusions. But if it doesn’t stop, damn me if I don’t shoot his other eye out!”

I cannot drop the river, and stories of river gambling, without referring to one more tale which is a classic.  It is a long story about a big poker game, and to tell it properly one must know the exact words.  I do not know them, and therefore shall not attempt to tell the whole story, but shall give you only the beginning.