Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1875-03-04

Bango Quintet Club. They Circulat
ed all day, drinking bad whisky ano
singing
| The nilIer's dog lay on the barn floor,
| And Bango his name,
| B-A-N-G-O
And Bango was his name
"They sang the first two lines o.
this beautiful lyric all in chorus. Their
one of them shouted B, the next A
the third N, the fourth G, and Their
they all howled-
And Bango icas his name
Every fellow they could catch
they surrounded and sang at him till
be set up the whisky for the crowd.
"They kept it up until nightfall,
notwithstanding smart snow-storm
which commenced about three O'Clock
IN the afternoon: They then adj
journed to one of the saloons and
supped on whisky, crackers, pickles,
and dried behring's.
"Of course they were noisy and
quarrelsome. One of the party re-
marked that the days were blamed
short during the cold weather. Maj.
Braoken corrected him, and said the
weather was blamed cold during the
short days. Then they fell to dis
putting and calling one another fools
and liars, and in the twinkling of a
bed post they were stripped for q
fight. 1t happened that the rest of
/ . La n int
pose and prevent them from coming
to blows. Then the Major sat down
on pile of sardine boxes and COM
menced arguing the point, and show
ing that the cold weather was due
to the shortness of days, and that
the days were not contracted and
shrunken, SO to speak, by the cold
weather, as some ignorant people
seemed to suppose. Of course no.
body listened to what he said. He
was about to resent the inattention
of his auditors when it suddenly oc.
Cured to him that he was talking
like a fool.
Christianity he resolved to leave the
noisy guzzIing crowd, and visit his
friend, Captain Merrick. He went
out into the storm and darkness, and
started for the Captains cabin,
which was situated about mile and
half down the hollow toward Ga
lena
GAS l said before, the Captains in
the mines were small men as rule.
1 suppose that Captain Merrick
was the smallest Captain in two
counties. He could not have been
over five feet high, and | should call
a hundred pounds an extravaganza
over-estimate of his weight. He
was quiet little fellow.
He wouldn't drink a drop of any
kind of liquor, and he once admitted
to me that he didn't know one card
from another. He was a brown,
wiry, hook-nosed little rip, well edu-
Gated and sensible, and he kept a
sharp lookout for the main chance. L
tell you, gentlemen, | do believe that
little fellow could make money where
John Jacob Astor would make an as
sgnment in less than six weeks.
You never saw two men that resem-
bled each other less than CAPTAIN
Merrick and Major Bracken. But
they were sworn friends, and We're
generally together good deal. OF
course the Captain hadn't seen the
Major during his eight days drank
If be had, be would have contrived
some way to straighten him out.
The fact was, be was over at Dubu-
que spending the holidays with some
friends be had there.
"The Captains cabin was the best
in the diggings. He had three rooms
The front room, which extended
clear across the cabin, fully twenty
feet, was his sitting room and library.
He had more than fifteen hundred
dollars worth of books, and quite a
cabinet of geological and mineralogi-
cal specimens. Back of this room,
and opening into it, there were a
kitchen and sleeping room side by
side.
major Bracken pushed along
through the snow, down the hollow,
at the rate of six miles an hour, until
be got out of the village. Then be
had to make his way more carefully.
The road ran along the bottom of
the hollow, so there was no danger
of loosing it. But the track was fill
ed and hidden by the snow, and there
were plenty of mineral holes on both
sides of it, many of them pretty deep.
The night was dark, and the snow
was falling, and the Major had to
pick his way with great care, The
| further he went the more nervous he
got. He seemed to be on the brink
of a mineral hole every minute.
This won't do be said to himself
Il must have good long stick to
feel my way with, or else I'll be
jumping some mans claim here, sure.
SO he got down on his hands and
feet and felt his way carefully to the
hillside, where there was plenty OF
brush and young trees. He took
his knife out of his pocket and cut a
young poplar and trimmed it, and
was about to start back for the road
when be was startled by a small
animal, probably rabbit, running
away. The Major jumped little to
one side, and down be went into q
mineral hole. Fortunately he held
on to the young poplar, which was
quite pole, and which caught
across the top of the pit and enabled
him to scramble out. He then
felt his way carefully, punching
the ground ahead of him for every
step, fer what seemed to him more
than two hours. At last be arrived
at the Captains. All was dark. He
knocked at the door until he was sat.
isfed that the Captain was not al
home. He then went to q place
where the Captain always hid bis
KEY when be went away, so that bis
| Ca oo,1I cot IN n no chOui2 aamn