“‘That was no square deal,’ shouted Alcott, though neither he nor Keene made any fight. “‘Think not?’ drawled Downing. ‘Well, you ought to know. Your pal dealt the cards. But I think you are right. There’s been some queer play here to-night. But there’s one honest player in the party, and he isn’t hurt much. As for me, I reckon this’ll do me, unless some of you want to play any more.’ And he grinned at the discomfited gamblers, who, seeing that they had the worst of it, said no more. “‘Flash Kate’ took it the best. She looked on with a smile while this was going on, and when it was over, she smiled some more, and rising from her chair, said sarcastically: ‘Monsieur is a most excellent player.’ And she went to her stateroom without another word. I noticed when we reached Vicksburg that she and Alcott left the boat together. “‘Those three were pretty slick players,’ said Downing to the crowd, as he ordered champagne for everybody who would take it, ‘but they ought to travel in Texas for a time if they want to get on to the safest kind of play.’ “It was only an episode in the old river life, and as nobody was much hurt excepting professionals, nobody thought much about it.” “Overland Jack” _HOW A WESTERN CROOK HAD FUN WITH SOME SHARP NEW YORKERS_ “I don’t know how far local pride may color the judgment,” said the gray-haired young-looking man, “but I am satisfied that very few New Yorkers would be willing to admit that an all-round sport could come here from the West and clean up the town, metaphorically speaking. That is, tackle the experts of the city at their own different games and win money from one after another without losing to any of them, and finally depart after a season of riotous success with his pockets laden with spoils. Such a thing does not seem likely. Yet I remember one case in the ’70s when just that thing was done by one of the best-known gamblers in the United States. ‘Overland Jack’ was the name by which he was usually called, but his real name was John McCormick. He cut a very wide swath when he first came to New York, but he made a good many friends here, too, not only among the sporting fraternity, but among actors and men-about-town generally. “The fact of his having a goodly number of friends was manifest when he came to die afterward in Chicago. He knew, toward the last, that his death was near, but instead of weakening he recalled the incidents of his career with the utmost satisfaction, and declared that he had no regrets for the way he had spent his life, but, on the contrary, considered that he had done excellently well with it. As a token of his feelings, he expressed the wish that his friends should go to his funeral, not with religious ceremonies, but with champagne galore, and that in place of praying for his future they should drink to his memory over his open grave.