Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-01-15

lives in a daily conflict with nature
tearing open the mountains md wrest-
ling with the streams, that Others
might wear the gold they won, would
gnther round the gambling tables to
"try their luck and this thing called
luck y in the early day was a strange
thing. Existing Oh the superstition
that is found in the composition of
every man, in a greater or less degree,
it was n phantom that haunted ali
Glasses and entered into all human cal.
culations. Luck shamed reason
and set at naught all mathemat-
ic;l certainties, aud, forgetting thai d
mans luck was much of his own max
ing, it was followed with a persistent
tatuity that led the feet of too many
into bad and dangerous places. 1t was
the scapegoat for all sins and short
comings. It was the rock upon which
were built the golden castles of the
hopeful future; the shifting sands that
carried away with it the unfruitful and
disastrous past the harvest whose
sheaves Of promise often yielded only
bitterness and disappoiataee mt. In
these tits with fortune the Bar drank
deep. If it was dry by day, it was I'm
quenchable by night. If luck vas with
the boys, they drank and dallied with
it: If against them, they drank still
deeper and cursed it.
Altogether, the Bar was a wild and
abandoned place but attrition with
these people taught me that there ale
solvents for even crystallized wicked.
ness, that there liz no cloud so dark as
to be without q single streak of silver,
no nature so rugged as to be impene-
trable or beyond the reach of human
izing influences.
L had been domesticated in my new
home about a month, when q circum-
stance took place which seemed to
change entirely the whole routine of
He'll Roaring. There was an arrival
one morning, and the Bar throbbed
with new sensation, a quiet, unassum-
ing lady-a Mrs. Hampton-and her
little daughter, who sought rest and
health liz the mountains. Mrs. Hamp-
ton was widowed, but no one inquired
into her history. She was welcomed
as a new and strange element among SO
much wild, reckless life, that brought
back memories of mother, or sister, or
sweetheart far away, and the Bar
was pleased. The Bar christened the
little daughter "Daisy," and she was
we'll named. From this day a marked
change took place. Every one desired
to be we'll thought of by the new
corners, dress became an object CT
solicitude, drunken yells rending the
quiet night we're less frequent, spirits
OF evil seemed quelled, and the Bar was
ON its good behavior.
Little Daisy was everywhere as a
ministeriDg angel. If there was q sick
bed in the camp, Daisy was beside it
with the little luxuries that the hand of
woman alone knows how to prepare.
If a poor fellow was about to "pan
out" his few last sands of life, Daisy
was there, to wet the parched lips, to
fill the poor neglected heart With hope,
or to write the last message to loved
ones over and beyond the Plains. Quiet
and unobtrusive, Daisy moved about in
her mlnistrations. AS she passed the
saloon on her errands of merc,-her
brown hair neatly folded over the pale
forehead, her little basket of " goodies"
OIL her arm, and Il word and a smile for
every one-oaths half uttered would be
choked back, and rough and brutal
jests shrunk unspoken, as if ashamed
in her presence. Even Ore
gon Sis-to whom q blush was
Il stranger-would hang her
mead silently when Daisy vas near,
and her eyes would fll-perhaps, poor
thing, with looking back to the old
days among the apple blossoms, when
she, too, was pure and innocent-at
least, I thought so. Somehow, the Bar
was not SO dry as formerly and Joe
Miles, its ruling spirit, neglected his
business and said he was tired Of whis-
k~ey-sel]ing. He laid aside a six
shooter, that, reports said. had served
him only too we'll on more than one
occasion, with the remark that " the
Bar was SO quiet now, it want no use
to carry it." Joe was very particular
now as to his personal appearance.
dressing in the once desplsed store
Clothes" and took to solitary rambling
about the neighborhood.
It was noticed if Daisy had occasion
to pass along the dangerous trail
through the canon, Joe was there with
his strong hand 70 guide her. If she
crossed the foot-log over the turbulent
stream, a steady arm was generally
there to support her, and more than
once o was found In earnest CONVEX
satan with her, or reading the books
with which she supplied him. Joe
finally sold out the saloon and invested
in a mining claim, which he was in.
dustriously working when I closed out
my business and left the neighborhood.
l visited the Bar G again. Down
the wild Sierra, by the same tortuous
and rugged trail that I had traversed
nearly two years before; winding
among the same lordly pines, rich in
fragrance, and standing like sentinels
in the mountain passes through the
same groves of laurel and m~anzanito.
glistening like waves of emerald and
silver in the MONDAY sun, full.
~blossomed and wondrous in their
beauty. I approached the Bar.
The place seemed changed. A
few little white cottages peeped out
from among the rich foliage, spots of
ground were under cultivation, and
the hand of industry had been busy.
The clap-boarded saloon stood in the
same old place just as I had first seen
it, but its dilaIsidatad condition s ow.
cd that the institution was poorly pat
ronizcd. A crowd had gathered near
lt-not such a crowd as in the Olden
time, but a sober aud quiet one. Every
one looked anxious to tell me some
thing, but no n spoke till I found nv
friend Thorp. Taking my hand kindly,
he led me aside, and for a moment was
silent. "Well, Cap" he said. earnest.
~, things is rough on the Bar they
amt like they was when you left.
She's gone-that's Daisy-and things
amt gone right for some o the boys
ever since. Yes, Cap, is is mighty
rough!"
asked you where Daisy had remov.
ed to.
20 no, Cap, you don't understand.
The old woman she went back to Sac
ramento broken hearted, they said
but Daisy, she's gone called tor, taken
up among tine stars where she belong,
Ell. We miss Daisy, Cap. She got
round some o. the boys, and she made
them promise to knock off their grog
T hain't touched it since, and I've saved
Il little. If she'd only staid, this thing
wouldn't a'haprened. You see, C,p,"
he continued, "here's how it was
One o. the boys got badly hurt in his
drift across the creek, and one mornin'
Daisy started over to take him some
t: in. and it was runnin' bankfull, and
the log vas slippery, and-well We
found Daisy a mile below, with her
brown hair all tangled among the viii
1nUs anI her h1nn oCas kind n, n1ooI