The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1874-01-29
KlTTY'S FORTY.
By EDWARD EGGLESTON,

boys school in which there was not
tendency to rowdyism. And lum bermen
sailors, fishermen, and all other men tina
live only with men. are prOverbially I,
half-bear sort of people. Frontie. mer
soften down when women and children
come-but l forget myself, it is the story
you want.
Burton and Jones lived in shanty b,
themselves. Jones was married man
but finding it hard to support his wife il
. down East village, he had emigrated tt
Northern Minnesota, leaving his wife
under her fathers ROOF, until he should be
able to make start" He and Burton
had gone mo partnership and had ''pre
empted a town site" of three hundred and
twenty acres.
There were perhaps twenty families
scattered sp2rsely over this town site a,
the time my story begins and ends, for i,
ends in the same week in which it begins
The partners had disagreed. quarreled
and divided their interests. The land was
all shared between them except one valu
able forty acre piece. Each OF them
claimed that piece of land and the quar-
rel had grown SO high between them tina,
the neighbors expected them to "shoot Il,
sight" In fact, it was understood tina,
Burton was on the. forty acre piece, deter
mined to shoot Jones ii he came, and
Jones had sworn to go out there and shoot
Burton, when the fight was postponed by
the unexpected arrival of Jones' wife and
child.
Jones' shanty was not finished, and he
was forced to torego the luxury of fight
ing his old partner, in his exeltions to
make wife and baby comfortable for the
night. For the winter sun was surround
ed by "sun. dogs" Instead of one sun
there were four, an occurrence not un-
common on this latitude, but one which
always bodies terrible storm.
In his endeavor to care for wife and
child, Jones was Modified a little, and
halt regretted that he had been so violent
about the piece of land. But he was de-
termined not 10 be backed down, and he
would certainly have to shoot Burton or
be shot himself
When lie thought of the chance of be-
ing killed by his old partner, the prospect
was not pleasant. He looked wistfully at
Kitty, his two years old child, and
dreaded that she would be left fatherless.
Nevertheless, he wouldn't he backed
down. He would shoot or be shot.
While the father was busy cutting
wood, ana the mother was busy otherwise,
little Kitty managed to get the shanty
door open. There was no latch as vet,
and her prying little fingers easily swung
it back. \ gust of cold air almost took
away her breath, but she caught sight Of
the brown grass without, and the new
world seemed so big that the little feet
were fain to try and explore it.
She pushed out through the door,
caught her breath again, and started away
down a path bordered by sere grass and
the dead stalks of the wild sunfower.
How often she had longed to escape
from restraint and paddle out into the
world alone! So out into the world she
went, rejoicing in her liberty, in the blue
sky above and the rusty prairie beneath.
She would find out where the path went
to, and what there was at the end of the
world! What did she care if her nose was
blue with cold, and her chubby hands red
as beets. Now and then she paused to
turn her head away from rude blast, a
forerunner of the storm; but having
gasped moment, she quickly renewed
her brave march in search of the great
unknown.
The mother missed her, and supposed
that Jones, who could not get enough of
the chi'Fs society, had taken the little pet
out with him.
Jones, poor fellow, sure that the darling
was safe within, chopped away until that
awful storm broke upon him, and at last
drove him, halfsmothered by snow and
half-frozen with cold, into the house.
When there was nothing left but retreat,
he had seized an armful of wood and car
ried it into the house with him, to make
sure of having enough to keep his wife
and Kitty from freezing in the coming
awfulness of the night, which now settled
down upon the storm. beaten and snow
blinded world.
1t was the beginning of that horrible
storm in which SO many people were
frozen to death, and Jones had fed none
too soon.
When once the wood was stacked by
the stove, Jones looked round for Kitty.
He had not more than inquired for her
when father and mother each read in the
others face the fact that she was lost in
this wild, dashing storm of snow.
s, fast did the snow fall and so dark
was the night, that Jones could not see
three feet ahead of him. He endeavored
to follow the path, which he thought
Kitty might have taken, but it was
buried in snow-drifts, and he soon lost
himself
He stumbled through the drifts, calling
out to Kitty in his distress, but not know
ing whittier he went After an hour of
despairing, wandering and shouting, he
came upon a house. and having raped
on the door, he found himself face to face
with his wife. (. &
He had returned to his own house in
his bewild.rment. m&
When we remember that Jones had not
slept for two nights preceding this one,
on account of his mortal quarrel with
Burton, and he had now been beating
against an arctic hurricane, and tramping
through treacherous pillows of snow for
an hour, we cannot wonder that he fell
over his own threshold In . state Of ex-
IRENE exhaustion. - W. <.
Happy for him that did not fall bewil-
dered on the prairie, as many another
poor wayfarer did ON that fatal night!
As it was, his wife must needs give up
the vain little searches she had been max
ing in the neighborhood of the shanty.
She had now q sick husband, with frozen
hands and feet and face, to care for.
Every minute the thermometer fell
lower and lower, and all the heat the
little cook-stove in Jones' shanty could
give WOulu narQly Keep them from
freezing.
Burton had stayed upon that forty.acre
lot all day, waiting for . chance to shoot
his old partner Jones. He had not heard
of the arrival of Jones' wife, and 90 he
concluded that his enemy had proved .
coward and had left him in possession,
or else that he meant to play him some
treacherous trick on his way home.
So Burton resolved to keep q sharp
lookout. But he soon found that impos-
sible, for the storm was upon him in oil
its binding fury. He tried to follow the
path, but he could not find it
Had he been less Of . frontierman he
must have perished there, within fur
long Of his own house. But In eudeavor.
Ing 10 kesp the directlcn q the path b.