The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1876-05-04
The Rivals.
A Yankee Sailors Yarn.

You see We was rather rough out
our way, where Hez Lane and we
went with our bit of tent aud pickers,
shooting-irOns, and sech like, mean
ing TO make pile of gold. We went
to Wasboe, and didn't get on, there.
Last we went right up into the noun
tains, picking our way among the
stones, for HeZ sez "LOok here, old
boss, let's get wher no ones been
afore. If we get where the boys are at
work already they've took the cream
and we gets the skim milk. Let's
you and me get the cream and let
some o. the others take the skim
milk.
"Good for you," says and we
tramped on day after day till we got
right up in the heart o. the mountains
where no one hadn't been afore, and
1t was still and quiet as it made you
quite deaf.
1t was q strange, wild sort of place,
like as if one o. them coons called
giants had driven a wedge into a
mountain and split it, making a
place for a bit of stream to run at
the bottom and lay bare the gold we
want to find.
"This'll do, Dab," says Hez, as we
put our bit of tent on a pleasant
green shelf in the steep valley place.
"This'Il do, Dab thar's yeller gold
in the pockets of the rock"
"TheH let's call it Yeller Guleh," 1
says.
i'Done, old hoss p' says Hez aud
Yeller Guleh it is.
We set to work next day washing
in the bit of a stream, and shook
hands on our luck.
"This'il do" says Hez. 1--WE shall
make q pile here. No one won't
dream of hunting this out.n
"Say, stranger p' says a voice as
made US both jump. "Do il wash
well ?''
And if there warn't a long, lean,
ugly, yeller-looking chap looking
down at US as he stood holding mule
by the bride.
Why, afoIe a week was over, so far
from us keeping it snug, reckon there
was fifty people in Yeller Gnlch wash
ing away and making their piles.
Afore another week was over some
had set up a store, and next day there
/ was gambling saloon. Keep it to
ourselves Why, stranger, I reckon If
there was a speck o. gold anywheres
within 500 miles our chaps'd sniff it
out like vultures and be down upon
| it.
1t warn't no use to gamble, and we
kept what we thought to ourselves,
working away and making our ounces
the best way we could. One day /
proposed we should go up higher in
the mountains but Hez said he'd be
darned if he'd move, and next day, if
he'd wanted me to go, I should have
told him I'd be darned if I'D move !;
and all at once from being red hot
chums, as would have done anything
for one another, Hez and me got to
be mortal enemies.
Who should come into the gulcn
one day but an old store keeping sort
of fellow, with as pretty a daughter
as ever stepped, and from that mo-
ment il was all over between HeZ and
me. He'd got away with him, you
see, as 1 hadn't, and they always
made him welkim at that thar store
when it was only ''How do you do ?'
and "Geod morning !" to me. /
don't know what love is, strangers,
but il Jael Burn had told me to go
and cut one of my hands of to please
her pd hs' done it,
But it wouldn't do. l soon seen
which way the wind blew. She was
the orly woman in camp and could
have the pick, and she picked Hez.
1 was bout stsrin' mad first time
met them together-she 3 hanging on
his arm and looking up in his face,
worshiping him like some of them
women can worship 8 great, big,
strong he and rs soon IS they war
got by swore a big oath as Hez
should never have her. But Hez and
Jsel were spliced up and l Rllus KEEP
away. When wanted an ounce or
two of gold 1 worked and when I'd
got IL used to drink-drink, because
wanted to drown all recoliections of
the past. HeZ used to come to me
but I warned him of. Then Jael
came to me and she began to talk to
me about forgiving him, but it only
made me more mad nor ever, and so
I went and pitched at the lower end
of the gulch and they lived at tOther.
Times and times I'd felt as If I'd go
and plug Hez on the quiet, but new
er did, though 1 got to hate him more
/ and more, and never half so much as
did nigh two years arter when
came upon him one day sudden with
his wife Jael, looking pootier than
ever, with little white haired sqeal-
er on her arm. AM it riled me above
bit to see him so smiling and happy
and me turned into q bloodshot
) drinking, raving savage, that half the
gulch was feared on aud t'other half
: daren't face.
had been drinking bard for about
q week, when early one morning, az
/; lay in my ragged bit Of tent,
: woke up, suddenlike, to a roarin'
noise like thunder, and then there
came whirl and rush, and I was
swimmin' for life, half choked with
the water that had carried me off