The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1876-03-31

stepped, and from that m IL was
all over between Hez and me. He'd
got a way with hin, you see, as l hadn't;
and they always made him welkim at
that thar store when it was only "How
do YOU doP" and "Good morning." to
me. 1 don't know what love is, stran-
gers, but If Jael Burn had told me to 60
and cut one of my hands off to please
her I'd ha' done it.
But it wouldn't do. l soo see which
way the wind blew. She war the only
woman in camp and could have the
pick, and she picked Hez. l was bout
starin' mad first time l met them two
together-she Arranging on his arm and
looking up in his face, worshiping him
like some of them women can worship
a great, big, strong he; and as soon as
they war got by l swore a big oath as
Hez should never have her. But Hez
and Jael were spliced up and l allus
KEEP away. When 1 wanted an ounce
or two of gold I worked and when I'd
got it l used to d~rink-drink, because l
wanted to drown all recollection of the
past. Hez used to come to me but l
warned him off. Then Jael came and
she began to talk to me about for
giving him, but it only
made me more mad nor ever, and so l
went and pitched at the lower end of the
Gulch and they lived at t'other. Times
and times I felt as if I'd 60 and plug
Hez on the quiet, but l never did,
though I got to hate him more and
more, and never half so much as I did
nigh two years arter when l came upon
him n day sudden with his wife Jael,
looking potter than ever, with a little
white-haired squealer on her arm. An
it riled me above a bit to see him so
smiling and happy, and me turned into
a blood-shot, drinking, raving savage
that half the Gulch was feared on and
t'other half daren't face.
l had been drinking hard for about a
week, when early one morning, as l lay
in my ragged bit of a tent, 1 woke up,
~sudden-like, to q roarin' noise like
thunder, and then there came q whirl
and rush, and was swimmin' for life,
half chOked with the water that had car
ried me off. Now it was hitting my head,
playful like, agen the hardest corners
of the rock it could find in the Gulch;
then it was hitting me in the back or
pounding me in the front with trunks
of trees swept down from the mountains,
for something had bust-a lake or some-
thing high up--and in about a wink the
hull settlement in Yaller Gulch was
sweep away. 1 sot on a bit o. rock, and
there was the water rushing down thir-
ty or forty foot deep, with every thing
swept before it-mules and tents and
shanties and stores, and dead bodies by
the dozen. just then | hears q wild
sorter shrek, and, looking down, l see
a chap half swimming, half-swepta along
by the torrent, trying hard to get at a
tree that stood t'other side.
"Why, it's you, is it, Hep" / saws to
myself as l looked at his wild eyes and
strained face, on which the sun shone
full. "You're a gone coon, Hez, lad,
so you may just as well fold your arms,
say amen, and go down like q man.
How l could pot you, now, lad, if I'd
got a shooting-iron-put you out of
your misery like. You'll drown, lad"
He made a dash and tried for a
branch hanging down, but missed it and
got swept against the rocks, where he
showed his arm between two big bits,
but the water gave him a wrench, the
Done went crack, and as l sat still there
| see him swept lower and lower, till
he clutched at a bush with his left hand
and hung on like grim death to q dead
niger.
"sarve yer right" I says, coolly.
"Why shouldn't you die like the resi-?
If I'd had any 60 in me l should have
plugged yer long ago"
"Halloa?" l cried then, giving a
start, sit ain't-'tis-tarnation! 1t
can't bet"
But it was.
There on t'other side, not fifty yards
lower down, on a bit of shelf of earth
that kept crumbling away as the water
washed it, was Jael kneeling down with
her young'un, and as l looked some-
thing seemed to give my heart q jigg,
just as if somc coon had pulled a string.
swell, he's bout gone, says "and
they can't hold out bout three minutes.
WHAT'S it got to do with meP l shan't
move"