The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1877-10-11
OUR STORY TELLER.
THE POT OF DIAMONDS.
BY MARCELLA.


1t was sometime-I have a poor mem
ory for dates-in the autumn of '72
that | found myself just at dark in the
little town of Hollister. l ate my sup
per served by waiter who shouted
every order at the top of his voice to
John in the kitchen (I knew the indi-
vidual presiding there was John by the
taste of the viands, and retired to my
room. | had had a long hard days
travel for an invalid, all the way from
Monterey, only resting for an hour at
Selinas, and had walked a good
deal crossing the mountains, so went to
bed early. 1 do not know how long 1
had slept, when / was awakened by the
voices of two men in the next room.
Now have heard it intimated as sly
slur on our sex that two women occupy
ing the same room do not sleep, but
talk all night. Now this is not true
l have slept in the same room with many
one, and was never guilty of wasting
whole night that way but twice; once
when the young lady who shared my rest
had taken too much new cider, which
an officious friend had cunningly i'm
proved to suit his own constitution,
by the addition of Just the least bit in
the world of whisky, and she insisted
upon confding to me the experiences she
had never known and circumstantial ac-
counts of offers that she had only yainly
wished for; and once when my room
mate was a very dear friend, Presby-
terian several shades bluer than myself,
and we differed upon point of theology
till we were both too much out of temper
to sleep.
But men in the same circumstances, if
they do not talk all night, do certainly
talk great deal, for it has been my fate
in the course of my life to be compelled,
owing to thin partitions to hear them
several times. And will do them the
justice to add that in every instance ex.
cept the one / am about to relate, theil
talk was as innocently insipid as that OF
school girls. But these men spoke oi
the strange experiences in new lands
They were familiar and confidential like
old friends, yet they said nothing to in
dicate that their acquaintance dateC
further back than to that evening"
drinks at the bar, the merits of which
they briefly discussed. Much that
heard was too fragmentary to gather up
and there was only one story that / re
member well. They were apparently
believers in Luck, and this story was re
lated by one of them as an instance O
the peculiar cussedness of the luck tina
had usually attended him.
az was dead broke-had spent the las
of q good-sized pile / had made in tn
mines trying for pretty, fair lookin,
Spanish widow with a good ranch.
thought / had a sure thing, but blue
eyed chap with light hair came alon,
and cut me out. So l took to shee1
herdiDg. 1t was confoundedlyl lonesom
you may bet your life, so when a mai
rode up to my hut one evening, and Jus
dropped off his lean broncho, and beg
ged me to take him in for Gods sake,
felt considerably willing. He had go
lost among the foothills he said, bu
he'd most likely been hiding. He at
like wolf that night, but the mex
morning he couldn't get up, and he pc.
on board-a little too short for him
was-and shut him in the cabin for da
or two and camped outside. The ownt
of the sheep and some friends of h
came out about that time for
hunt and we took him out and burie
him.
"Ouiuh HdfC SUODDcu UUcTt Il Ud
longer if / could have got off but ha
to wait nearly month for my pay, an
then went. Afraid Oh, no, there w.
nothing to be afraid of. The ground
full of dead men and they are safer gel
orally than live ones. But he told n
his story and gave me paper, leastwa,
it looked like very thick paper, it migl
have been very fine buckskin, with a fe
words and figures on it, and had goc
reason to think had fortune with
reach and didn't feel like herdir
sheep. What he told me was about thi
He was one of the desperadoes wi
run the Yankee Blade on the rocks som
where near Point Conception, a goo
many years ago. Never heard of i
Well l can't give the particulars, b.
they, took passage aboard the boat,
seems, and got her wrecked. 1t was we
known that there was immense wealth
board. In the confusion they got
with what they could get. 1t was sa
that several of the richest passenge
were murdered, though this man didr
say 80. He and his partner got off wi