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_------- SIX __.e "Ful, they've got me!" LATE IN 1883 LUKE SHORT, FAMOUS GAMBLER AND friend of gunfighters, arrived in Fort Worth. Described as "small in stature, mild of manner, [but] deadly with a six-gun" by one of his modern biographers, Short was a celebrity before he came to Texas. I In the West, where a man was often measured by the number of notches on his gun, Luke had only one, and he earned that in a one-sided run-in with a drunk. 2 He preferred to be known as a gambler rather than a gunfighter; gamblers lived longer and usually got along better with the law. Short was not always a professional gambler and was never much of a gunfighter. Most authorities agree that he was born "somewhere in Mississippi" in 1854. His parents brought him to Texas two years later. 3 Like many boys who grew up in Texas, his first real job was as a cowhand on one of the numerous cattle drives going north to Kansas . He soon tired of the drovers' hard, low-paying labor and turned to more profitable albeit more dangerous pursuits. These included peddling whiskey to the Indians and dealing faro. He was a dabbler, a frontier entrepreneur who was willing to try his hand at anything that caught his fancy or might make him a buck. He tried ranching but found it to be as hard and dirty as cow punching. Horse racing did not keep his interest for very long because it depended as much on the horse as on the man. He liked his games of chance to be more predictable . And all the while he polished his image and honed his skills as a gambler. His nickname "Little Luke" was more a reflection of his e 165 e 166 • Hell's Half Acre • carefully cultivated image than of his actual physical stature. At fivefeet -six and 150 pounds he was hardly the bantamweight of legend when compared to the other specimens of American manhood of his day. Very few men he crossed paths with actually towered over him. But his soft voice and mild manner contrasted 'sharply with the blustery , overbearing manner of many men he faced. Beneath the velvetsmooth exterior, however, Luke Short had as much grit and pride as any man. Before landing in Fort Worth, Short had drifted across the West between frontier towns, making a few friends and a little money but not calling any place home for very long. Among those he called friends were Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday. He met that famous trio quite by coincidence in 188I when all four men were house dealers at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone. The fact that four of the West's most notorious gamblers and gunmen were all in the same town, working at the same place at the same time did not go unnoticed. Tombstone residents quickly dubbed this little gambling cabal the "Dodge City Gang" because they had all come to Tombstone by way of Dodge.4 In August, 1882, Luke was back in Dodge City holding down a job as a dealer at one of the town's better saloons - the Long Branch. Its owners, William H. Harris and Chalkey M. Beeson, ran honest and peaceable games and - unless one counted the so-called "actresses " - kept out the prostitutes. Short enjoyed his work and thought of making Dodge his permanent home. He even bought a part interest in the Long Branch early in 1883. But things soon began to unravel. Short joined the wrong side of two rival political factions in the city. The other faction included the owners of the Alamo Saloon, right next door to the Long Branch. The opposition called themselves "reformers" and captured control of the city government in the spring elections of 1883. When the reformers zeroed in on the Long Branch with the intention of forcing Short and his partners out of business, the famous "Dodge City War" resulted. At the center of the controversy were three female actresses employed by Short and arrested by authorities as prostitutes. Short claimed that a double standard had been applied to the Long Branch and threatened retaliation. Nobody was killed, but before it was all over, Short had to bring.in some of his gun-toting friends, including Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, to protect him. Their presence was sufficient to [3.129.39.55] Project MUSE (2024-04-25...

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