The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1876-06-16
Crayon Sketches of Western Life.

Jay Ghallton in n Y. Letter to nanbury News.
Jim Kavanagh, formerly Member of Con-
gress from Montana, was telling me the
other day that ON one occasion there were
seven men standing on empty boxes and
with ropes around their necks under the
limbs of a tree, just ready to be hanged.
One of them, German, began to cry bit
terly as he thought that he vas about to
die. The man next to him was an IRISH
man who was much bothered by the Ger
mans weeping. So hitching his foot to
one side he gave the Germans box push
leaving him swinging in the air, and said,
"Stop, you big sucker, won't you?" But
the Same act toppled over his own box, he
could not regain his footing, and, with a
laugh at the trick he was playing on the
German, he, too, swung into eternity.
was one day standing on the platform
of the worst of all restaurants of the world
at Rawlin's, Wyoming Territory. A lady
and her little girl were sitting at one of the
tables inside. On the platform was hunt
er with broech-loading rife, and belt
full of cartridges. In fooling with the
piece it suddenly went off the bullet drove
through the thin clapboard, passed through
the coat of man inside, and whizzed be-
tween the heads of the lady and her little
daughter. He quietly smiled, and put in
T 4, r1,1r
dened at his cool Indifference, and under
the impulse of the moment, said
"I'd like to be big enough to lick you,
you big chueklehead."
He turned round indiferently, slapped
me on the shoulder till though the earth
was shaking for miles around, and said,
with a smile:
''Pard, yer amt big enuff, an yer can't
do it. Yer'd better git yer hair cut and go
West. Pard, OF boy, what'll ye drink
Nothiu'! Not even with mes Then yer'd
better tie a tin can ter yer tail and git
West. Say, pard," said he, patting the
clapboard, faint that purity smuthe hole?
Them Henry brich-loaders is"
When Horace Greeley was on his way to
California he met Forty-Niner coming
east. The Californian was in dreadful
stew about his accommodations. He kept
saying, "I wish I had some of them Cal
iforny pertaters. Them's eatin', them is.
Dern this yer kentrJ ennyways, I'd give
a thousand dollars for a snootful of oil Cal
forny air. That's the place to live in-on'y
kentry wuth liyin' in. Mountings and val
leys-strawbries in winter, sparrergrass al
lers, bes' BRAN water ennywheres, finest
climate ON the face ther yurth. Dern a
kentry like this down yer. Californy's the
on'y place fit ter live. y
Horace smiled that ohild-llke smile of his
and thought he Ind the Californian bad
when he said:
aMy friend, if California is such splen-
did country, why did you ever leave it ?''
'Becorse,a said the Sl0per, s were a
-- fule 7,
Your true Californian swears as heartily
as he brcathes. and Bret Harte is only cor
rect when he uses the words that are COM
monty printed with q three-em dash.
Next to Bret Harte no writer of Ameri-
can literature seems to me to be so purely
American in his tastes as the dear, honely,
crooked-face old Whittier, whose hymn was
sung at the Centennial opening the other
day. Il any young man or woman wishes
to instilI clear, honest ideas of virtue-even
though they be of the chastity of the icicle
in the mind of friend, send him copy
of Whitticr's poems. They are not great,
lsa.tt l,ss.t they are touchingly didactic and sweet
IL sung. He is sort of Thomas q Kempis
set to the music of an @olian harp. People
who count him only as u sweet yersiiier of
Maud Muller ditties and golden pumpkin
homilies viii be surprised to learn that this
quaint old Quaker with head like pictures
of Abraham should have written one of the
best arguments ever heard In favor of i'm
mortality Of the soul, when he SAYS:
yet. ii times see upon seet pale faces
flight 5agln
10 tremhle, as If from hog places
And shlines Within