I“ A... -u-

 

U-Z'LGE‘ “ W
in - ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

     

MUCH STRUCK.

BY A. \V. BELLAW.
HOW much of loveliness I see
\Vhene’er at her I look!
Iiwonder, gazing at her cheek,
How much of paint it took.

 

Such wealth of tresses rich and dark!
How gracefully they’re tosi!

Sure, Egypt’s queen bad env1ed them;
I wonder what they cost?

Her eyebrows seem as arches fine
Above her tender eyes;

1 look at them with wondering
HOW she manages the dyes!

All beauty’s molded in her form
To please a sculptor’s sight;

The slendering waist is full of grace,
Her corset must be tight.

W'hene’er she smiles through ruby lips
I see where white teeth lurk—

A pretty row of precious pearls;
Her dentist does good work.

She has the eyes of a gazelle
That beam through lashes thick;
How tender grows their inner light
lVith life and—arsenic!

Beneath her foot my life I’d lay,
And think it pleasure all,

How lightly would she tread on it!
Her shoes are much too small.

lVould I possessed that dainty hand,
Such as a poet loves;

It would be worth a kingdom grand—
She can’t get off those gloves.

How fair her record has been writ
Upon her life’s fair page!

The tenderest summers o’er her pass,
Yet she conceals her age.

With loving awe I gaze on her
(So much of love I’ve learned)
Arrayed so faultless and so fine-

And every dress is turned.

The poetry of all things sweet
Has made her dower a queen’s,

Too fine for even mortal eyes——
Too fine for pork and beans.

The earthly cares which mortals have
. Her life should always shirk;
May she e'er dwell in rest and peace—
Her mother does the work.

With her I find no single fault,
And I believe her true;

I ask her if she loves me well,
She stutters that she do.

 

Romancepl the Rail.
CAP LOLLARD’S REVENGE.

BY GUY GLYNDON.

 

 

THERE was one episode in Cap Lollard’s
checkered life which he could never be brought
to relate; and, with the reader’s permission, we
will tell it for him.

Cap had been visited with a run of “hard
luck.” First little Jack, Cap’s especial pride,
was taken down with the measles. Watching
over the little sufferer, his mother took the in-
fection. From her bed of illness Mary arose
too early, to attend to her neglected household
duties. A relapse was the result, and pneu-
monia setting in brought her near to death’s
door.

Cap paid nurses’ and doctors’ bills cheerfully
enough, and was so glad to see his wife about
again that he carried her in his arms to the
shady seat under the beeclrtree.

“ Mary," he said, fondly stroking her silken
black hair, “ I hain’t a doggoned cent in the
world, only our home an’ the month’s pay
that’s coming to me; but I’m chipper as a tit-
mouse with only lookin’ at your purty face,
my girl! You’re as fresh as a daisy; an’ when
you git your roses back I wouldn’t trade you
fur the finest princess of them all, blow me if I
would!”

She smiled her appreciation of his tenderness,
and he was happy.

But when, within a week, he got down from
his engine to find his pleasant home in ashes,
and his wife and little Jack indebted to the
hospitality of a neighbor for shelter, he sat
down with his elbows on his knees, his hands
clutched in his beard and a discouraged frown
darkening his brow, and said it was “a dog-
goned shame,” and “luck was dead ag’in’ him.”

Then Mary put her arms about his neck and
comforted him and cheered him, like the brave
little wife she was, until his courage revived.
But it took all the money that was due him,
and a mortgage on the property besides, to
rebuild their home; and for the first time in his
life Cap chafed under the yoke of the debtor.

Misfortunes never come single-handed, and
now Cap’s evil genius seemed determined to
crowd him to the wall.

It was the busy season in the fall when grain
was moving to market. The road was short of
competent engineers, and Cap was run day and
night, until he sat on the box scarcely able to
keep awake. \Vhenever they came to a clear
stretch of track he was sure to fall asleep, to be
roused by his fireman when the way demanded
his attention.

To sustain his flagging energies Cap had re-
course to the too common resort—alcohol. Not
that he was a tippler. Cap sometimes get a
“ little boozy ;” but he was no drunkard. How-
ever, before he was aware, he had taken too
much, his relaxed system being unusually sus-
ceptible to the influence of the poison. .

Then, in a moment of recklessness, he tried to
“ steal a station ”—a process not unlike “ stealing
a base” in “ the National game.”

The result was a collision, in which several
cars were wrecked, the track torn up, and the
business of the crowded road delayed for several-
hours.

For two weeks no measures were taken in
the matter “ at head-quarters;” but evil tongues
had been at work, making the case the worst
possible for Cap, and when the stress of business
was over he was ordered “in,” and got his
“ walkin’ papers.” . . .

That night he went home to his wife “With
the blue devils big.” .

“What do you think of luck now?" said he,
with a sardonic smile. .

For answer she sat down on his knee, and,
with arms about his neck, said:

“ It is a shame, dearie, after you’ve worked
yourself to death for them. Butyou’ll get work
again, and, meanwhile, I’ll take in plain sewmg,
and we’ll keep along somehow.”

“ There’s the mortgage fallin’ due next month;
an’ the deuce knows where the money’s comin
from to meet it—I don’t,” replied Cap, dejected-
ly. ” We’re bound to git kicked out 0’ house an’
home before luck lets up—that’s plain.”

“ Oh, no, Cap. Not so bad as that,” said his
wife, consolingly. “You can get time on the
note, can’t you 3”

“Old Quigby’s a doggoned old screw, an’ he’d
just like the chance to foreclose an’ gobble up
everything. Wal, everybody’s free to kick a
man when he’s under. Curse the beggarly
whelpsl The more you do fur ’em the worse
they use you. But I’ll be even with ’em yet,
doggone their hides! They don’t chuck me into
the mud for nothin’l” .

“Hush, Cap! don’t get bitter,” said Mary.
“Everybody has their ups and downs. It'll be
all right, by and by.”

But matters did not improve. After the press
business was correspondingly slack; and his dis-
charge stood in his way. _

” Cap,” said Mary, one day, “ hadn’t I better
go out home for a few weeks? It’ll benefit both

«skills he

Jack and me; and we’re only a tax on you
here.”

She was ailing again, and had been unable to
take in the sewing as she had proposed.

With his forebodings hidden as best he could,
Cap let her go.

“She won’t have the worry of it until it’s
over,” he said to himself, “and that’ll be time
enough, the Lord knows. Curse the whole lot of
’em that I should bring her to this!”

After she was gone, while he waited for the
day when the mortgage should fall due, a feel-
ing of gloomy desperation grew upon him.
The day came, and with it Quigby demanding
his money. Nothing short of immediate pay-
ment would satisfy him. He had become in-
volved himself, he said, times were so hard; and
he must have the money in order to save ten
times as much.

But even as he spoke, his eye roved over the

' little homestead in avaricious speculation; and

he rubbed his hands and compressed his lips
as he thought that he could bid it in himself for
a very slight advance on the face of the mort-
age.
3 “ You cursed old Shylock l” muttered Cap be
tween his teeth, when his creditor departed. hav-
ing expressed his regrets at the necessity of put-
ting the case in the hands of the sheriff. ,

Then he sat with his head hanging on his
breast, wrapped in moody thought.

In the same mood he saw his home and Mary’s
go under the hammer. His surplus was less
than a hundred dollars; and he set his teeth hard
and slouched his bat over his darkened brows,
thinking that now Mary and little Jack were
homeless.

What occurred during the next few hours he
did not know; but at last he found himself walk-
ing rapidly along the railroad track, through a
tempestuous night, with an iron wedge in his
hand, himself terrified by the dark thoughts
that flitted like ghouls through his mind. What
his purpose was he hardly knew; and yet be
3-16de hurried forward by a resistless fate to
put some dark project into execution before his
courage failed.

Faster and faster he strode until he was al-
most at a run. The wind buffeted him, moan-
ing dismally through the trees as he passed.
The shadows of the clouds seemeda horde of
ghouls keeping pace with him, just far enough
in advance to peer into his face; and he felt
their chill breath in the mists that brushed his
cheek.

Oh, on, until the broken surface of the ground
was in keeping with the storm and his perturbed
soul. Then he stopped and listened.

The chill November wind made him shiver,
and he drew his coat closer over his breast. It
bore to his ear a deep, rumbling sound, and,
presently, the short, sharp intonation of a lo-
comotive-whistle. .

He knew that a train was approaching, and
that the signal he. heard was the warning given
on nearing a country road.

He was standing on a curve. On the inside
was the bald, rocky face of a cliff; on the out-
side were jagged spurs of rock, with interstices
here and there. and beyond a declivity to the
darkly-rolling river.

A gleam of lightning showed his face ghastly
white, his lips quivering, his teeth chattering,
his knees trembling. Holding the iron wedge in
his hand, he half-stooped as if to lay it on the
track, and thus waited, looking in the direction
of the approaching train.

The rumbling sound grew louder.

Again he heard the whistle. '

The surface of a wave reflected a flash from
the headlight.‘

With terror-protruded eyes he stooped and
laid the wedge on the outside rail of the curve,
its point toward the approaching train. Then,
pursued by the wind-fiends that screamed through
the tree-tops, he ran at the top of his speed, and
hid himself among the rocks.

Cowering there, with his faceto the ground,
and his hands clutching the jagged rocks, his
craven soul waited for the ruin his guilty hands
had prepared.

On came the train, rushing headlong to de-
struction and death. Its sinuous length swept
round the curve, pulsing with life and happiness.
The headlight cast its beams along the track,
but no eye could distinguish the wedge from the
rail on which it lay.

The first warning was a wild shriek of the
whistle as the engineer felt the locomotive leave
the rail. Then, before the brakesmen could‘ leap
to their feet, there was a terrific crash, followed
by the splintering of timber, the hiss and rear
of escaping steam, then groans and shrieks of
anguish, and, after an interval, cries of horror
and shouted commands and appeals from the
lips of excited men.

Cowering amid the rocks, Cap Lollard heard
all this; and then through the shadows of the
night gleamed the lurid light of a confiagration-
The wrecked train was in flames!

An irresistible fascination drew him from his
hiding-place, and with knees smiting together he
approached the ruin his own- band had wrought.
His roving eye took in every horrible detail of
that awful holocaust, and scared it into his
shrinking soul.

Suddenly he uttered a cry, so fierce, so agon-
ized, it was like the snarl of a wounded animal,
and leaped to a portion of the wreck where an
arm protruded from the debris; It was a wo-
man’s arm, and on the third finger of the hand
gleamed a wedding-ring. How often he had
kissed it since he placed it there five years ago!
And now— Great God! '

“ Cap! Cap! Cap!”

Her voice had caught his ear, and with a sen-
sation as if his brain was afire, he realized that
she had returned homeward unexpectedly, just
in time for him to be her murderer, perhaps.
And little Jack! What of him?‘ lVas he, too,
in that wreck?

The fierce anguish of the stricken man con-
strained others to his assistancc, as strong na-
tures always attract followers in moments of
great excitement. Somehow he found an ax in
his band; and then began the battle with the
fire-fiend. His ax fell fast and fierce; but the
cruel tongues of flame lapped at the dry wood-
work, running along the painted surface. The
wind shifted hither and thither, spreading the
fire in every direction, and almost smothering
the workers with dense smoke.

Like a demon Cap Lollard hacked his way to
his imprisoned wife. He could see her. One
arm she extended to him while the other hugged
her dead child—his little Jack. that he was so
proud ofl—to her breast.

“Save us, Capl—save us!” she cried, strug-
gling to free herself.

But the cruel timber pinned her down. Then
the flames that had crept upon her stealthin be-
neath the débm‘s lapped her garments and thrust
their cruel barbs into her tender flesh. ‘

“ Cap l—oh, Cap!” she cried, with a gasp, and
fainted.

A puff of wind spread the flames over all, and
blinded and fainting with the smoke and heat,
the wretched man cast himself upon the pyre his
own hand had ignited.

“ Mar !-—my murdered wife l—we die to
gether l” he cried, and——

“”Cap! Cap! What’s the matter? Wake

u l
p“Eh,llifary? Great God! Are you safe? And
leetle J ack-did they git him out, too?”

“ Out! Out of what?”

“ Hyer I be, dad l”

“ Mary! Jack l—daddy’s leetle man!”

So it was but a dream, after all, about his get-
ting drunk, and the collision, and his being dis-
charged, and the loss of their home, and his
threwing the train of! the track, and all the
horrors that followed—it was all a dream, born
of his weariness at the overwork and his anx-
iety over Mary’s and Jack’s illness with the
measles, which Were facts. He had fallen
asleep, after the big dinner, when he had come
in so tired and hungry; and Mary, hearing
him moan in his sleep, was shaking him into
wakefulness; and J ack—“the leetle dog ”—was
as chipper as a bird! And, in his happiness, Cap
resolved that if he ever had anything to revenge,
“ he’d let the job out.”

 

 

llulllllllldlllllllllllll‘

l

 

In a Tight Box.

BY HAP HAZARD.

 

 

WAL, fellers, thar was times an’ seasons, in
the old days on the Mississip’, when a galoot
could git into a mighty tight box jest when he
Wa’n’t expectin’ it, if he didn’t keep his eyes
peeled. I was raftin’ on the Wescons’ in them
days; an’ we floated fifty string at a time down
to market at St. Louis.

Thar was pretty gay boys in some 0’ the
gangs. The aloot what could stand up under
the most tang efoot, an’ empty his six-shooter in
the quickest time, was sure to be cock 0’ the
walk. Some prided ’emselves on scientific car
vin’; an’ they alers had the respect 0’ the com-
munity, you bet!

Wal, one night thar was seven ur eight gangs
tied up at Rock Island; an’ the boys mostly
took the scows an’ went over to Davenport fur
a lark. Thar was'a play to be exhibited; an’ we
might as well spend our money fur that as any-
thing else.

ix men went from our crew, me amon the
rest. I was green at that kind 0’ life, then, ein’
right off the farm; but I reckoned I could hold
up my send 0’ the plank. So settlin’ my six-
shooter an’ carvin’-knife whar I could git at ’em
handy on sudden call, I went in to makea night
of it. .

The play was like all other blood-and-thun-
der plays; an’ the boys yelled ’emselves hoarse
when the hero got the villain in Chancery an’
larrupped him until the heroine begged him to
let the poor devil go. Then we went down on
the levee, to a low doggery whar throat-cuttin’
was at a premium.

The ceilm’ wa’n’t more’n seven foot high,an’
smoked blacker’n our raft galley, from the cam-
phene lamps at the sides 0’ the room that you
could scarcely see through the chimbleys.

When we got thar the room was chock full,
packed closer n sardines in a box, about half an’
half raftsmen an’ river-rats what hung round
the town. If a raftsman tackled one 0’ them
sharks, it was a long chance if he didn’t ‘git
floored. It wa’n’t healthy fur ’im if he showed
any considerable sum 0’ money. They’d lay fur-
’im outside; an’ like’s not he wouldn’t be around
to draw his pay no more.

Among the crowd was a little cha not more’n
five foot high; but what he lacks in size be
made up in looks—you wouldn’t lose no mone
on that proposition! If there was a spot on his
ugly mug that didn’t have its scar, there was
a bruise ur a fresh cut. He was lame in the
right leg, an’ two fingers was gone from the
left band—mementoes, I reckon, 0’ past scrim-
mazes.

He was what ’u’d be called “all month ” in
any crowd; jest the kind of a galoot that’s in
hot water all the time.

He had already run afoul 0’ one or two, an’
come nigh gittin his face slapped—when a six-
footer come boostin’ through the crowd fur the
bar. He wa’n’t such a sassy leetle whelp as
t’other; so. when he pushed a man aside, he jest
got; an’ you didn’t hear a whimper out 0’ him,
nuther! It was plain to be seen that, if ary
galoot give any back jaw, he was jest the man
what was goin’ to git it knocked off in mighty
short meter!

The new-comer had a big black beard which
didn’t make him look any milder, fur rocks! He
wore a gray woolen shirt, open at the neck ads
to show a shaggy breast, with a black silk hand-
kerchief knotted where it come together; an’
his blue Overalls was tucked into the tops 0’
rough, cowhide beets. On his head was a broad-
brimmed, black felt hat. . .

There wa’n’t nothin’ peculiar about this rig.
Perhaps a dozen more in the room was got up
in the same style—me, fur one. But every one
didn’t carriguch a whoppin’ navy-pistol as-he
had in his it; an’ his sheath-knife had a pow-
erful hungry look about it, as if he was in the
habit o’ spittin’ somebody with it every mornin’
before breakfast, an’ had mined that mornin’!

The stranger straddles up to the bar, plants
himself with his feet wide apart, tips his hat
onto the back of his head, chucks his handsdown
into his pockets, an’ yells out:

“ Hello, ole man! How air ye, anyhow?”

“Sick abed. How air yeou?" says the bar-
keeper, larfin’, ’cause it was easier to larf than
to git mad jest about that time 0’ day l'

“ Hawl Haw! Haw! Haw!” yelled the
stranger, mighty tickled, as a drunken man
sometimes is at jest nothin’ at all.

“ I say, ole man,” he yells ag’in, “ have ye got
an’thin’ to drink?”

“ You bet, ole boss!” says the barkeeper.
“ What’ll ye have?”

“Oh, it’s your treat, then, is it? What'll I
have? Le’ me see! ~ Brandy-smash! Trot ’er
out, ole man i"

The crowd began to grin, to think he’d got it
on the barkeeper; an’ that individual began to
git red in the face, a—hesitatin’ what was» best to

o.

“Trot ’er out, ole man! I ain’t in the habit
o’ callin’ twice fur li'ckerl” yells the stranger, _
wrathy all of a sudden; an’ drawin’ his sheath- '
knife, he jabhed it into the bar so’s to make-
things jingle; an’ I allow the p’int wa’n’t far
from goin’ through the inch plank.

Thar wa’n’t no two sides to that question; so
the whisk y-slinger sot the required beverage out,
gittin’ a leetle white about the gills, an’ shaky in
the knees, I reckon!

“That’s done like a leetle man! Hyer’s to
long life; an’ may yer canteen never give out!"
says the stranger, tossin’ off the smash like so-
much water.

“ An’ hyer’s yer money,” he added, plankin"
it on the bar. “I mostly pays my way, I reck- '
on; but when I says git, I wants a man to git,
an’ no words about it!”

Then he whirls round an’ yells:

“ Whoop!" I allow I’m cock 0‘ the walk inthis
hyer shebangi' If ary man wants anything 0"
me, he can jest sail in lemons an’ git squeezed!
Don’t all speak to once, gentlemen! I’m yer
huckleberry fur a rough-an’-tumble, a square
stand—up an’ knock-down, side-bolt, back-bolt,
square-halt, take-an’-ketcb—it, knife-stickin’,ur
pistol-shootin’l Does ary galoot call me! Don’t
all speak td once! Whoop l”

An’ he jumps up an’ slaps his feet together,
flourishin’ his knife so’s them anigh him give
 all the elbow room he wanted, an’ no mis-

el -

“ Whoop!” he yells ag’in, straddlin’ toward
the middle' 0’ the room, an’ everybody makin"
way fur’im, you bet! “ Oh. reach fur me, some-
body; fur I’m sp’ilin’ fur a fight! Whoop! I’m
the rampageous high-cock-alorum 0’ this hyer
section 0 country 2”

Now this hyer sort 0’ thing didn’t seem to set
well on the stomach o’ the leetle chap that I told
ye about; so he ups an’ growls out:

“ The rampageous—fool 0’ this hyer section 0’
countr !” .

“ Wh it’s that, yen yawp-mouthed leetle
whelp?” yells the giant. “ Chaw them thar
word, ur I’ll wh do the daylights out 0’ you,
inside 0’ two minutes l”

“I reckon if I chaw anything, it’ll be your
ear!” says the leetle ’un, as sassy as ever. “ You
go an’ out yer head to soak, you—”

But he didn’t finish; fur the giant let drive a
left-hander at him that he had to be spry to
dodge. ‘

Quicker’n scat he whips out a rib—tickler, that
was a beauty in its way. Then he jumps fur
the giant, with snarl like a hungry hyena, an’
strikes out spiteful, you bet a boss! But it
wa’n’t no go. The giant ketched his wrist, an’
whaled into him a lick that cut his heart plumb
in two!

When be seen that he’d fixed the little ’un, he
straddled fur the door, sWeepin’ his knife right
an’ left, an’ yellin’:

“ Cl’ar the track, tharl I’ll cut the heart out
o’ ary doggoned fool that stands in my way!”

An’, tellers, the 100k out 0’ them bloodshot eyes
wa’n’t noways mild, ur I’m a liar! ‘

Nobody didn’t seem partic’lar to git six inches
0’ cold steel into ’em; so they made a mi hty

wide track fur him, an’ he dug out 0’ that ive-

 

 

the traveling sportsman.

en an’ then see it whaps around on the ground?
Wal, that’s jest the we that little feller acted.
Oh, but he whaled, an’ e fiounced, an’ he spun
round an’ round, like a parched pea on a hot
griddle!

I was standin’ a-nigh him; so I ketched a holt
of ’im. But, gents, he was all over me in a
minute, until I looked like a first-classslaughter-
house! Then he give a screech like seventeen
cats with their tails caught in the jamb o’ the
door, an’ straightened out stifl’er’n a mackerel!

I helped carry him into a back room; an’ then
Ibegun to look around fur the boys; but thar
wa’n’t one of ’em in sight; so I set out to find
my way back to whar the boat was.

t was twelve o’clock at night, an’ hlacker’n
Egypt out; fur a fog had settled down since we
went into the saloon. I didn’t know hyer from
nowhar; an’ when I found the river at last I
walked up and down the shore fur a mild but
nary a boat did I find.

I calculated as how the boys had showed off
an’ left me behind, an’ I’d have to stay on that
side 0’ the river all night; so I’d better be hunt-
in’ some place to roost.

I didn’t knew nothin’ about the lay 0’ the land,
but I reckoned if I pushed back from the river
I’d meet somebody as could tell me the way to a
lod in’-house. So I set out; an’ I allow lstum-
ble about that town a lumb hour before I struck
alight; an’--would ye lieve itf—I found myself
back ag’in to that saloon!

I swore a few; but I didn’t have time to say
Jack Robinson, before a hand was clapped onto
my shoulder; an’ then the bracelets clicked on
mywrists before I seen who done it. Tbar’s
somethin’ mighty ticklish in the feel 0’ the cold
steel, when you’re in a strange place, without
nobody to back you; an’ although I knowed I
hadn’t done nothing, I reckon I got white around
the in113 an’ my voice shook some when I says,
as s :

y

“ What in thunder’s the meanin’ 0’ this?”

“ We’ll mighty soon see. if you’ll jest step in
hyer,” says the galoot what had nabbed me. ,

I seen his blue uniform an’ brass buttons an’
the star on his breast; an’ then he waltzed me
into the saloon. ,

“Have you got your meat already, Hank?”
says the saloon-keeper, a—looki‘n’ through the
smoke to ketch a glimpse at me.

“ I reckon this hyer’s the bird,” says the per-
lice. “ You seen ’im. Am I right?”

“That thar’s the galoot, so help me John!”
says the whisky-slinger. “Whar in blazes did
you pick him up so quick l”

“ Right hyer at the door; I reckon he come to
the funeral,” says the perlice, chucklin’.

“ Hold on, gents,” says 1, ” thar’s a mistake
somewhat. I hain’t the man you’re after; I
hain’t done nothin’. It wasn’t me that passed
in the leetle ’un’s checks fur ’im. I helped carry
him into t’other room, after the big galoot what
struck him had cleared out. This byer’s all a
dog-gauned mistake, take my word,” says 1.

“ Black hat, full beard, gray shirt, blue over-
alls tucked into boots, navy an’ rib-tickler—I
reck’ we’re all right,” says the perlice. “An’
jist look at the blood!”

There was only half a dozen left in the saloon,
an’ they an’ the man behind the bar swore that
I was the murderer; so it wa’n’t no use fur me
to talk. I was lugged off an’ chucked into the
jug, feelin’ might’ queer, an’ no mistake about
it!

I had plent 0’ time to think between that an’
mornin’, an’ reckonl lost some flesh. I was
two hundred miles from home. an’ not a friend
in the world nearer, exceptin’ the raft crew.
Maybe they’d hunt me up, and maybe they
wouldn’t, because they was to start in the
mornin’, an’ one hand less in that part 0’ the
river wouldn’t make much difference to ’em.
Anyhow, ‘if they didn’t ha n to see are
stickin’—-an’ I didn’t know w en they left the
saloon—I was a gone coon, with more’n half a
dozen men ready to swear ag’in’ me. Come
:0 think of it, I did look a heap like the mur-

erer.

Wal, cuts, I didn’t have no appetite for break-
fast, an’I did sweat some before nine o’clock,
you bet! When I was took into the court-room,
the fu’st thing I seen was all our boys waitin’
fur me; an’ you better b’lieve they loo ed hand-
some !—though I’d never set ’em down fur beau-
ties before. I reckon I could ’n’ hugged ’em all
round!

They all swore that it wa’n’t me; an’ then
another raft o’ tellers steps up an’ says that the
big galoot an’ the leetle chap both belonged to
their gang, an’ that they’d been quarrelin’an’
fightin’ all the way down the river. That let
me out, an’ you’d better h’lieve I stood treat fur
the boys, an’tho other gang, too, with a mighty
good will!

They never ketched the real murderer; but I
always thought I escaped swingin’ in his place
by the skin 0 my teeth!

The Antelope Goat.

BY BERT. L THOMPSON.

 

 

 

PROBABLY the least known of all the big
game in our own Rocky Mountains is the ante-
lope goat. The old hunters who did their share
toward exterminating the buffalo and the elk
knew nothing of him. He was little more than

a tradition among the sheep-hunters who ranged

among the higher peaks, until the opening up
of the British American hunting grounds where
he is much more plentiful, made him familiar to
Then it became more
generally known that he might be found in lim-
ited numbers on some of the steepest and most
inaccessible heights of our Northern States and
Territories, and as the difficulty of the pursuit
enhances the value of the quarry,there were not
lacking adventurous spirits who would risk their
necks for a crack at .the white-ileeced, ebony-
horned, wary yet inquisitive creatures that had
held their far fastnesses for so long undis-
turbed.

Two of these hunters, Fowler and Crinko, had
driven their pack-ponies an eight days‘ journey
into the heart of the great Northwestern wilder-
ness. They had pitched their camp in a narrow
valley at the edge of the timber line. They could
stand on a high bluff and look dewn on impene-
treble forests as far as the eye would reach, but
above them were the bare ranges, the knife-
blade ridges, the splintered peaks and pinnacles
of the eternal frostlands, whose snow—caps fed
the clear, icy streams that trickled downward,
full of delicious mountain-trout and the home
of the water-ousel which dove and warbled in
utter fearlessness of the unkn0wn invaders.

They had hardly established their camp, when
the forms of a half—dozen heavy-bodied animals
could be seen nmbling slowly along as creating
ridge, stopping often to peer curiously down in-
to the valley.

They had sighted the hunters, and were on
their guard against them evidently, for days
passed before either of the men succeeded in
coming within shooting range of one. Then a
keener and more active hunter than he had the
advantage of him.

It was Crinko who, after hours of themost
painful and arduous mountain climbing, having
gained the top of one of those narrow, broken,
isolated ridges, felt his heart jump and his blood
thrill at the sight of a solitar ram feeding
scarcely a hundred yards away rom him upon
its slope. He was winded and trembling from his
lon -continued exertions, and he crouched be-
hin a howlder until he could regain his breath
and steady his nerves for an effective shot. He
saw nothing of the long, slim, tawny body ap-

crouching and creeping, with its eyes on the
same prey, but of a sudden the ram reared
upon his haunches. just as the yellow body shot
out and down to alight upon him with a fierce,
snarling cry. It was that action saved him, no
doubt, for the cougar missed its hold or was
shaken of! in the first instant, and with a light-
ning-like swiftness which was hardly to be ex-
pected from so lumbering a creature, the goat's
head dipped, its needle-sharp horns caught the
great cat underneath and pierced its vitals to

 

y.
Gents, did you ever wring the neck of a chick-

their full length, then tearing loose he fiercely

preaching from the opposite end of the ridge,

batted over the struggling, bleeding body, and
trampled it under his sharp, powerful hoofs.
How it might have been had not the cougar
been worsted from the very first instant, is hard
to say. As it was, the goat danced a hornpipe
on the quivering carcass of his prostrate enemy,
and reduced it to a pulp of crushed flesh and
bone before he seemed satisfied of his unques-
tionable victory. Crinko sent his bullet in at
that supreme moment, and the victor was van-
quished—killed outright by the first shot. ,

This was a circumstance which did not hap-
pen again during their stay in the camp. The
goat is very tenacious of life. He has been
known to take nearly a dozen balls and then
waltz away over rocks and slides as if be rather
enjoyed the entire proceeding. He will drop
from heights that seem incredible to those who
have not witnessed the performance, and he will

pure orce of muscle that carries him unswerv-
ingly over the dizzlest hei hts. He must be a
sure-footed, steady-brains , tough and tireless
mountaineer who can hope to follow him suc-
cessfully when he has once sniffed the danger of
pursuit. '

Crinko had succeeded in surprising and kill-
ing two more of the difficult game, before Fow-
ler’s turn come. He had stalked a fresh track
high up on a sugar-loaf peak, only to find that
it doubled and wound down by devious ways to
the timber line. Here he loat it, but remember-
ing that there was a clay lick at no great dis-
tance, he made for the spot, and reached it in
time to see an old she-goat and kid, startled, no
doubt, by some sound he had made, running
across the open face of a steep semicircular
slepe which dropped down to the verge of a
dizzy precipice. He pumped several shots at
them, one of which struck a rock before the old
goat and turned her obliquely back upon a
downward course. The kid had been hit and
was going lame, and the mother goat made fre-
quent stands to let it keep up with ker. Seeing
that she did not intend to desert it, Fowler
made a run to shorten his distance, but just as
he paused to take sure aim, a slab of rock under
his feet gave way, carrying him with it, and
started a small landslide of loose shale and
bowlders down the slope. Down he Went, un-
able to stop himself, slipping, sliding, stumbling,
falling and rolling, and rapidly overtaking the
goats in that “greased lightning” trip to the
bottom, where he would have plunged over the
precipice but for the obstacle that a fallen tree
interposed in his course. It had been uprooted
by some recent storm, and its bristling top was
still green and pliant. He brought up with a
resounding crash deep in the heart of the yield.
ing branches, and he lost '-no time in forcing
hifiself still deeper beneath their mar-wrapping
to s.

It seemed that the wounded kid had been over-
taken and carried away by the slide, while the
old nanny had: taken refuge on the fallen tree-
trunk, and was determined now to hold him re-
sponsible for the loss of her offspring. She
danced about, stamping and snorting, threaten-
ing in unmistakable goat language to make
mince-meat of him, but her first rush was ren-
dered ineffectual by the bristling snags which
fenced him around. How long they would
wfifthstand her determined assaults was another
a air.

The face of matters had changed in a way he
did not like. The hunter had become the hunted,
and the goat’s ire shOWed no signs of abating as
the moments dragged on. He had lost his gun
somewhere in that wild descent, and his only
available weapon was a hunting-knife which he
co ld not bly use in his present cramped .
p tion. 0 add tohis general discomfiture, he
was scratched and bruised from head to foot;

.svery bone in his body ached, and every me ‘ "I,

was strained to an unnatural tension 7 .

She was renewing her assaults u n the bar-
rier which hedged in her enemy, w n the faint
bloating of the kid came up over the clifl and
reached the old nanny ’s ear. She seemed loth
to give up her scheme of vengeance even to re-
spond to that call, but the plaintive cries grew
more and more importunate, and at last the
mother instinct could resist them no longer.
With a final snort she sprung from the tree-trunk
and made for the cliff.

Fowler crawled out of his hiding-place, so stiff
and sore that he could scarcely move at first, but
finding his gun in the edge of the branches lent
him new activity.

The old goat had wheeled about, as if studying
whether to go on or return, and d 'ng u 11
one knee to secure a rest, Fowler aimed at or
eye, and she dropped as the ball tore its way
through her brain. .

The kid had fallen upon a tooth-like crag which
projected from the sheer cliff-wall, but there was
no means of reaching it and it seemed to be
mortally wounded, so he shot it dead to put it
out of its miss , and left it there; but the anew-
white skin an polished horns of the old goat
are today the most valued of all his trophies of
the chase. '

 

Telephone Echoes.

 

MB. B.—“Congratulations old fellow. Boy
or girl?” Mr. B. isomwtuuyl—“ Both."

Hl—" I think Miss Fairleigh is a dream of
beauty.” She (spitefully)——“ Dreams go by con-.
traries.” ‘

Dmxs—“ Was Smith’s purpose of whipping
the editor carried out?” Banks—“No; but
Smith was.”

Cinusrm—“ That you Mr. Sspp talks just
like a book, doesn’t he?’ Kathryn—“Yes, a
blank book.”

“ SERVES me right,” said the drum. “ I
thought 1 could keep tight and never feel it—
and here I am beaten at my own game.”

“How are you getting along learning to,
operate your typewritel-i” “ First rate. I
can almost read some of the things I write.”

HICKS—“ What is that horrible stench—gas
escaping?” Mrs. Hicks—“No-o-o; cook was
out shopping for perfumery again to-day.”

HUSBAND (irately)—“You think you know
ever thing, don’t you?” Wife (softly)—“No.
dea ; I never did know why you know so little.”

UNCLE GEORGE—“I trust. Henry, that you
are out of debt?” Henry—“No, I haven’t got
quite so far as that; but I am out of everything
else.”

“ GoonLucx has had his salary raised; was it
for extra work?” “ Yes; he always listens
whenflthe proprietor tells his baby’s smart say-
ings.

Tun difference between the wealthy idler and
the leader of an orchestra is that the former’s
sole ambition is to kill time, while the latter
beats it.

“ Bannurrr tells me he never destroys a re-
ceipted bill.” “No; he's more likely to have
them framed and hung up in his parlor as curl-
osities.”

MANIA—“What are you and Freddie quar-
relinz about?” “ We were playing keep house
and Freddie came home and found dinner was-
n’t ready.”

852—“ Is it true that a lover never eats any-
thing?” 89—“ Not after he becomes engaged.”
She—“ Why not?" He—“He never has any
money to spare.” A

“ I WISH," said a railway passenger as a
bunch of comics were dropped into his Iap,b
the train—boy, “ that these people would q t
poking fun at me.” .

BUNKER—~" I was fool enough yesterday to
tell that doctor of yours that you sent me.”
Hill—“ What difference did that make?” Bun-
ker—"He made me pay cash.”

FLORA—“ I have just found a dollar and am
hesitating whether to giro it to the missionary
society or buy some ribbon for deer little Fido.
Frank—“ Ah, I see; undecided whetherto ‘ point
a moral or adorn a tail.’ ”

Tnacnna—“ Thomas, I saw you inn 1: just
now. What are you laughing about!” 0mm
—“ I was just thinking about something. '
Teacher—“ You have no business thinking dur-

 

ing school hours. Don’t let it occur again.”

 

 

 

 

bolt u ward over almost perpendicular cliffs by I

  

 

 

 

.   =-

s

» ’1.