Matthew P. Mayo - Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen: True Tales of the Old Wests Sleaziest Swindlers Matthew P. Mayo

Apple: Also known as the victim, the mark, the sucker.

Big con / big store: A fake storefront or gambling den easily dismantled once the sucker splits.

Bilk: To sucker someone out of something.

Buck the tiger: To play the card game faro (odds are against staying in the saddle!).

Bumpkin: A rube, nave and inexperienced in the ways of the world.

Bunco: A confidence game.

Bunco artist: One who orchestrates a confidence game.

Claim jumper: One who steals anothers claim, usually a mine.

Con: The swindle, the game, the grift.

Con man: Short for confidence man, one who swindles for a living.

Dove: A prostitute. Also soiled dove.

Dry gulcher: One who ambushes another for nefarious purposes.

Faro (sometimes pharo): Derived from the French game pharao; the most popular nineteenth-century game, in which players bet on which order cards appear.

Filch: To steal or thieve from another.

Fourflusher: One who bluffs and cheats, especially at cards.

Greenhorn: A nave person inexperienced at a task.

Grift: A con, a game, a swindle in which the grifter uses wit rather than violence.

Grifter: A confidence man who uses wit instead of violence to make a living.

Gold brick: Brick of fake gold, often junk metal with a plug of real gold for testing.

Hawk: To lure someone into a game; to sell ones shoddy wares.

Hornswoggler: One who gets the better of someone through cheating or deception.

Huckleberry: The ideal person for a job, usually a dim-bulb underling.

Hustler: A cheating gambler on the make to bilk a sucker.

Mark: The sucker, the intended victim, the apple.

Monte: Common abbreviation for the card game three-card monte.

Poke: A wallet, coin purse, gold-dust bag, usually belonging to a miner or cowboy.

Roper: One who ushers the mark into the con; a steerer.

Rube: A bumpkin, nave and inexperienced in the ways of the world.

Rustler: One who steals anothers horses or cattle.

Shell game: A game of chance involving the manipulation of three walnut shells and a dried pea.

Shill: A participant in a con game (not the mark).

Short con: A con game requiring little time.

Snake-oil salesman: One who sells a substance of no worth or medicinal value.

Snitch: To rat on a con man; one who rats or informs.

Soap game: Short con in which the grifter appears to wrap bars of soap in valuable cash to sell, with his shills getting the goods.

Soiled dove: A prostitute. Also dove.

Steerer: One who ushers the mark in to the con; a roper.

Sting: The moment when the suckers money is taken.

Sucker: Also known as the victim, the mark, the apple.

Thimblerig: A game of chance involving the manipulation of three thimbles and a ball of paper.

Thimblerigger: One who operates a thimblerig.

Three-card monte: Easily rigged card game, using just three cards, in which the dealers dexterity overrides chance.

Tiger: Another name for the card game faro.

Award-winning author Matthew P. Mayo has written more than twenty-five books and dozens of short stories. His novel Tuckers Reckoning won the Western Writers of Americas 2013 Spur Award for Best Western Novel. He has also been a Spur Finalist in the Short Fiction category and a Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award Finalist. His numerous novels include Winters War; Wrong Town; Hot Lead, Cold Heart; Dead Mans Ranch; Tuckers Reckoning; The Hunted; and Shotgun Charlie. He also contributes to other popular series of Western and adventure novels.

Matthews nonfiction books include Cowboys, Mountain Men & Grizzly Bears; Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks; Sourdoughs, Claim Jumpers & Dry Gulchers; Haunted Old West; and Jerks in New England History (all TwoDot), among many others. He collaborated with his wife, photographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, on a series of popular hardcover books including Maine Icons, New Hampshire Icons, and Vermont Icons (all Globe Pequot).

The Mayos also run Gritty Press (GrittyPress.com) and rove the world in search of hot coffee, tasty whiskey, and high adventure. Stop by Matthews website for a chin-wag and a cup of java at MatthewMayo.com.

My thanks to many people, places, and things for help in tracking down information on various cheats and swindlers, among them: Bozeman Public Library, Alaska State Library, Cave Creek Regional Park, Deadwood History, Hoofprints of the Past Museum, Kansas Historical Society, Library of Congress, National Park Service, all my chums at Western Writers of America, and to my wonderful family, for all the obvious reasons.

I give big thanks to Erin Turner, indulgent editor without equal. And thanks to the swindlers themselves, without whom I would have had a far different year....

Last, but never least, my deepest heartfelt thanks to my wife and partner in crime, photographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, for her tireless support, patience, and wisdom this past yearand always. And for conducting all the photo research and procurement for my books, and so much more! Hmm... how about a trip to Vegas?

MPM

Page 3: Portrait of Ned Buntline. Napoleon Sarony.

Page 15: Soapy Smith in his saloon. Peiser, 1898. Skagway, Alaska. Alaska State Library, Historical Collections, ASL-P277-001-009.

Page 29: Asbury Harpending. Photograph in The Great Diamond Hoax and Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of Asbury Harpending, edited by James H. Wilkins. A. Harpending, 1913. The James H. Barry Co.

Page 41: $1,250,000 gold bullion, Miners and Merchants Bank in Nome Alaska. Lomen Bros., 1906. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsc-01961.

Page 53: Clark Stanleys Snake Oil Liniment label. Illustration in The life and adventures of the American cow-boy: Life in the Far West by Clark Stanley, better known as the Rattle-Snake King. Clark Stanley, 1897.

Page 63: George H. Devol, 18291903. Illustration in: George Devol, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi, 1887 (1st edition). Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-66016.

Page 73: James Addison Reavis imprisoned at Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory. The Land of Sunshine, Vol. 8, No. 3, February 1898. Land of Sunshine Publishing Co.

Page 87: Birds-eye view of men panning gold in Nome, Alaska. Lomen Bros. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsc-01699.

Page 97: Title page. The Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California by Lansford W. Hastings, 1845.

Page 110: Top: Albert and Bessie Johnson (left) had a surprising decades-long friendship with Death Valley Scotty (right). National Park Service. Bottom: Scottys Castle, Death Valley National Park, California. Jennifer Smith-Mayo, 2014.

Page 121: Prisoners, from Black Kettles camp, captured by General Custer, traveling through snow. Sketched by Theodore R. Davis. Harpers Weekly, December 26, 1868. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-117248.

Page 136: The Gem Variety Theater and Dance Hall, Pioneer Days in Deadwood. Deadwood History, Adams Museum Collection, Deadwood, South Dakota.

Page 144: Pegleg Smith Monument, Borrego Springs, California. Jennifer Smith-Mayo, 2014.

Page 157: Plummers Men Holding Up the Bannack Stage. John W. Norton, 1907. The Story of the Outlaw by Emerson Hough. The Outing Publishing Company.

Page 170: Nate Champion, who was killed in the KC Ranch fight by the Invaders. Hoofprints of the Past Museum, Kaycee, Wyoming.

Page 186: Its my hand against your eye. Watch me close! Marion Daily Mirror, October 13, 1911.

Page 197: Mugshot from Colorado State Penitentiary Record of Lou Blonger #12258. Colorado State Penitentiary, 1923.