Winter came with a rush and a roar. I had thought of getting away from the North, but it came before I was prepared and there was nothing to do but stick it out with the others.

Of all the gamblers that found their way into this camp “Swede Pete” was probably the cleverest. I knew him from towns on the American side, where he played in all the big poker games with more or less success. He submitted a scheme to me that looked very good. His plan was to buy a box of playing cards, mark each deck, and have me, as a capable burglar, go into one of the big poker rooms, open the card locker, and substitute his box of marked cards for a box of legitimate cards belonging to the house. I looked at the place and saw my end of the business would be simple. He went to work on his cards, and after many days and nights of patient toil put his “work” on them so he could read them from the back as easily as from the front. When he had replaced the seals on each deck and on the box that contained them, he put them in my hands and it was but an hour’s work for me to put them in the locker and return to him the full box that his had replaced.

The following night he sat in the game as usual. Whenever he lost a pot he threw the unlucky deck on the floor and ordered a fresh one. After a night or two of this, the gamekeeper had to open a fresh box. This was our box and Pete’s luck changed at once. In a couple of nights’ play he got the long end of the money in the game. From what I heard and saw I estimated his winnings, or stealings, at three thousand dollars. It was understood that the money should be split evenly between us. When he gave me my end of it he declared he had won but fifteen hundred and that he had to have a man in the game with him and the money had to go three ways. I took the five hundred dollars knowing I was getting the worst of it and wondering how I could get even.