by J. T. Edson
Ace-jack of spades pays a five dollar bonus.
6-7-8 of the same suit pays five dollars extra.
A seven-card score of twenty-one or less pays a fifty dollar bonus, but the bet must be doubled on the last card drawn.
The above are only a few examples. Others and bonuses of different values are provided and stipulated in every casino.
About the Author
J. T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.
If you enjoyed the westerns of J. T. EDSON, you may also enjoy the westerns of
BEN BRIDGES and MIKE STOTTER:
BEN BRIDGES:
APACHERIA SERIES:
Apacheria
Lockwood’s Law
ASH COLTER SERIES:
Gunsmoke Legend
Ride the High Lines
Storm in the Saddle
COMPANY C SERIES:
Hit ’em Hard!
To the Death!
LEW EDEN SERIES (with Brent Towns):
Bugles and Blood
Riding for Glory
HELLER SERIES
Heller
Heller in the Rockies
JIM ALLISON SERIES:
Rattler Creek
Blood Canyon
Thunder Gorge
JUDGE AND DURY SERIES:
Hang ’em All
Riding for Justice
Law of the Gun
Trial by Fire
Barbed Wire Noose
Judgment Day
MOVIE TIE-INS:
Day of the Gun
O’BRIEN SERIES:
The Silver Trail
Hard as Nails
Mexico Breakout
Hangman’s Noose
The Deadly Dollars
Squaw Man
North of the Border
Shoot to Kill
Hell for Leather
Marked for Death
Gunsmoke is Gray
Cold Steel
Mean as Hell
Draw Down the Lightning
Flame and Thunder
THREE GUNS WEST (Writing with Steve Hayes):
Three Rode Together
Three Ride Again
Hang Shadow Horse!
WESTERN LEGENDS (Writing with Steve Hayes):
The Oklahombres
The Plainsman
THE WILDE BOYS SERIES:
The Wilde Boys
Wilde Fire
Wilde’s Law
Aces Wilde
STAND-ALONE WESTERNS:
Ride for the Rio!
Back With a Vengeance
Blaze of Glory
Tanner’s Guns
Coffin Creek
The Spurlock Gun
All Guns Blazing
Cannon for Hire
Montana Gunsmoke
Starpacker
Cougar Valley
SHORT STORIES:
Five Shots Left
MIKE STOTTER
McKINNEY WESTERNS:
McKinney’s Revenge
McKinney’s Law
BRANDON AND SLATE SERIES:
Tombstone Showdown
Tucson Justice
STAND ALONE WESTERNS:
Death in the Canyon
SHORT STORIES:
Six Trails West
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More on J. T. EDSON
1 ‘Voyageur’: a boatman, or fur trader, generally of French-Canadian origin.
2 This very popular kind of all-purpose knife was first manufactured at Greenfield, Massachusetts – on the banks of the Green River – in 1834. The maker’s name, Russell & Co. ‘Green River’ Works was inscribed along the blade just below the guard of the hilt. This gave rise to the expression “give him it up to the Green River”, meaning to kill, as any knife driven so deeply into a human adversary was likely to prove fatal whether the inscription was there or not.
3 ‘Klooch’ : derogatory name for a young woman of mixed blood and dubious morals. Mainly Canadian Northwest and Alaskan usage.
4 According to the legend, when formed in May 1873, the force was to have been called the Northwest Mounted Rifles. However, when the Government of the United States of America registered protests over the presence of a military body operating so close to its border with Canada, wishing to maintain the spirit of co-operation he had established with various law enforcement agencies there – an example of which is given in Footnote 2, Chapter Seventeen of THE REMITTANCE KID — Colonel George A. French, the first commanding officer, substituted the word ‘Police’ for ‘Rifles’ and this was accepted as a satisfactory compromise by both countries.
5 Two legendary examples of Jerry Potts’ economy of words are as follows:
While on a long march, being impatient to reach his destination and having grown tired of the endless vista of rolling prairie stretching ahead, an officer of the Northwest Mounted Police demanded, ‘What do you think we’ll find on the other side of this hill?’
Potts replied, ‘Another hill.’
At the conclusion of a lengthy speech, during which – with Potts acting as interpreter – the chief of a hungry band of Indians explained their predicament, having received no explanation of what was being said from the beginning to the end, Assistant Commissioner James Macleod requested a translation. Potts obliged with, ‘Him want grub.’
6 In this context, not the modern, waterproof variety. Instead, they had legs covering as high as the knee in front and cut away behind, after the style made popular in the Napoleonic Wars by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852).
7 The convention in most card games is that the deal goes in a right hand direction, with the man at the dealer’s left cutting the deck.
8 ‘Nickel’ a coin valued five cents.
9 An explanation of the game of blackjack is given in the Appendix.
10 Pronounced ‘Sinjun’.
11 ‘Big Muddy’: colloquial name for the Mississippi River.
12 For the benefit of new readers, ‘Cow-Town’ is the colloquial name for Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas.
13 For the benefit of new readers : the man in question was Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog, details of whose career and previous meetings with Belle Boyd and Freddie Woods are given in the author’s Civil War and Floating Outfit series. He later married Freddie and their grandson, Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog supplied the information upon which this work is based. What the assignment was is told in: SET A-FOOT
14 The researches of fictionist-genealogist Philip José Farmer – author of, among numerous other works, the biographies TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE, His Apocalyptic Life – have established that Captain (later Major General Sir) Patrick Reeder (.K.C.B., V.C., D.S.O., M.C. and Bar) was the uncle of the celebrated detective, Mr. Jeremiah Golden Reeder, whose career is recorded by his biographer, Edgar Wallace, in ROOM 13, THE MIND OF MR J. G. REEDER, RED ACES, MR J. G. REEDER RETURNS and TERROR KEEP and whose organization played a major part in the events told by the author in: ‘CAP’ FOGAND J. G. REEDER.
15 How and when the meetings had taken place is told in: THE REMITTANCE KID.
16 Raging through an area of three and one-third miles of Chicago on the 8th and 9th of October, 1871, the great fire destroyed over 17,450 buildings valued at $196,000.00. Almost one hundred thousand people were rendered homeless and at least t
wo hundred and fifty lost their lives. Of the $4,966,782.00 relief fund subscribed in the United States of America and overseas, half of the one million dollars’ foreign contributions came from the British Isles.
17 ‘Johnny Raw’: derogatory name for a recruit, particularly one who is not too bright.
18 An earlier meeting between Martha “Calamity Jane” Canary and Sergeant Patrick James “Paddy” Magoon is described in: TROUBLE TRAIL. However, because of an error in the documents regarding the incident originally supplied to the author, he was mistakenly given the name “Muldoon” in that work.
19 How this came about is told in THE MAKING OF A LAWMAN and THE TROUBLE BUSTERS.
20 ‘Freddie Woods’ real name was Lady Winifred Amelia Besgrove-Woodstole.
21 The actual quotation is, ‘Et tu, Brute?’, ‘And you also, Brutus?’: said to have been Gaius Julius Caesar’s reproachful dying comment on discovering that Marcus Junius Brutus, who he had believed to be his loyal and devoted friend, was one of the assassins who attacked him at the foot of Pompey’s statue in the Senate Building at Rome on the 15th (the Ides) of March, 44 B.C. and is quoted in Act Three 3 Scene One, of the play JULIUS CAESAR, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
22 The meeting is described in : THE BAD BUNCH.
23 There is no mention of the true identity of the man who took the priest’s place in either the records supplied to the author by Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog, q.v., or in ON REMITTANCE, Major General Sir Patrick Reeder’s as yet unpublished autobiography, so we will continue to refer to him as “Matthew Devlin”.
24 For the benefit of new readers. In 1872, an international committee sitting in judgement on what became known as the ‘Alabama’ Arbitration Tribunal, over protests levelled by the United States of America at Great Britain’s conduct during the War of Secession, ruled in favor of the complainants. For allowing vessels of the Confederate States’ Navy, such as the cruisers Alabama, Florida and Shenandoah to not only be built in, but to operate from its ports – and being involved in blockade running and other activities detrimental to the Union’s cause – the Government of Great Britain had been ordered to pay compensation to the sum of $15,500,000.00.
25 Although Captain Patrick Reeder had been sent from Britain to observe the events recorded in SET A-FOOT, he did not have any active participation in them and so there is no reference to his presence in that narrative.
26 For the benefit of new readers : The researches of Philip José Farmer, q.v., suggest that Lieutenant Edward Ballinger’s grandson, Frank, held a similar rank and appointment in the Chicago Police Department at a later date and his exploits formed the basis of the 1957 television series, M SQUAD, starring Lee Marvin.
27 How Belle Boyd’s search for Ernst ‘die Fleischer’ Kramer turned out is told in: Part five, ‘The Butcher’s Fiery End’ of J.T.’s Ladies.
28 At the period in which this work is set, the withdrawal of a revolver from a shoulder holster was already being made easier by the use of clip springs to retain the weapon. If all the front leather was cut away, with the exception of a small cup to hold the revolver’s muzzle, such a rig was known as a ‘clip spring’ shoulder holster. Leaving leather in place, except for an open seam through which the weapon is slid, turned it into a ‘half breed’ rig. A description of a modern version of the ‘half breed’ style of holster is given in the author’s Rockabye County series dealing with the duties of a present day Texas sheriff’s office.
29 As is told in Part One, ‘Better Than Calamity’ of THE WILDCATS, Miss Canary’s statement was not entirely accurate.
30 The previous occasion is told in : THE BAD BUNCH.
31 To avoid being accused of racial prejudice, the author would like to point out that during twelve and a half years’ service as a dog trainer in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, we saw numerous dogs in Kenya, the Middle and Far East which displayed an inborn ability to differentiate between members of their owners’ ethnic groups and people belonging to other races. Also, as Louis V Amour explains in Chapter Two of HONDO and we have seen carried out in practice, it is possible to train a dog to distinguish between and have an antipathy for members of different races.
32 As Captain Patrick Reeder had not visited Japan at the period of the narrative, the author concludes that the unarmed combat techniques he was employing were either some form of pentjak-silat system practiced in the East Indies, or what had become known as kung fu and originated in China.
33 Details of Miss Martha ‘Calamity Jane’ Canary’s parents are given in: Part One, Better Than Calamity of THE WILDCATS and WHITE STALLION, RED MARE.
34 Made in the same manner, the smaller front wheels had only twelve spokes.
35 The need to ‘dish’ a wheel, giving an outwards flare from the hub to the outer rim, was discovered in ancient times and is still regarded as being essential in the construction of modern motor vehicles. It was caused by the necessity to make the axle conical, with the outer end having a smaller diameter than the inner. To support the load evenly, the under-bearing surface of the axle and the matching inside bearing of the hub must both be horizontal. As the wheel turns, each spoke in succession assumes a position perpendicular to the hub and the axle. Because all the strain is placed upon the lower part of the wheel, the resulting tendency is to push inwards and actually adds strength to it. If the pressure were outwards against the wheel-nut and linchpin, as would occur without the ‘dishing’ the effect would weaken and eventually cause the wheel to collapse.
36 ‘Donnybrook’: colloquial name for a fight. The term originated from an annual fair at the town of Donnybrook, Ireland, which was abolished in 1855 because of the civic disorders which always occurred when it was taking place.
37 Told in : THE COLT AND THE SABER.
38 In ON REMITTANCE, Major General Reeder says he believed that the legend of the warrior maid with the war lance could have had its origins from the Indians having heard French Canadians telling stories about Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’ Arc).
39 The hope did not materialize. Declining to accept Sergeant Magoon’s wordy the commanding officer of Fort Connel delayed sending the troops until he had telegraphed Washington D.C. for verification of Belle Boyd’s bona fides and Jebediah Lincoln evaded them. They did, however, find Vera Gorr-Kauphin’s body where he left it.