The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1878-02-23


with her lover, and my heart swelled so that
gave a sob like woman, as swung Hez
round into safety, and taking his place like,
"Shove me over" says, "and put me out
of my misery"
Then he held out his fist but couldn't
take it, but turning off, ran hard down
among the rocks till l dropped, bruised and
bleeding, and didn't go back to my tent that
night.
got bit wilder arter that. Hez and
Jael were spliced up, and allus kept away.
When wanted an ounce or two of gold /
worked, and when I'd got it l used to drink
drink, because l wanted to drown all re
collections of the past.
Hez used to come to me, but I warned him
off, Last time he come across me, and tried
to make friends, "dez," says, "keep away,
I'm desprit like, and l won't say l shan't
plug yer"
Then Jael came, and she began to talk to
me about forgiving him; but it only made
me more mad nor ever; and so went and
pitched at the lower end of the Gulch, and
they lived t'othcr.
Times and times I've felt as if I'd 60 and
plug Hez on the quiet, but never did,
though got to hate him more and more,
and never half SO much as did two years
arter, when came upon him one day sud
den, with his wife Jael, looking potter than
ever, with little white-haired squealer on
her arm. An it riled me above bit to see
him so smiling and happy, and me turned
into blood-shot, drinking, raving savage,
that half the Gulch was feared on, and t'other
half daren't face.
had been drinking hard-fery Bour-
bon, you bet!-for about week, when early
one morning, as lay in my ragged bit of a
tent, | woke up sudden like, to a roaring
noise like thunder; then there came whirl
and a rush, and I was swimming for life,
half choked with the water that had carried
me off. Now it was hitting my head, play
ful like, agen the hardest corners of the rock
it could find in the Gulch then it was hit
ting me in the back, or bounding me in the
front, with trunks of trees swept down from
the mountains, for something had burst-a
lake or something high up-and in about a
wink the hull settlement in Yallar Gulch
was swept away.
"Wall," l says, getting hold of a branch
and drawing myself out "some on 'em
wanted good wash, and this'll give it 'em;
for you sec water had been skeerce lately,
and what there was had all been used for
cleaning the gold.
sot on bit O. rock, wringiAg that water
out of my hair-leastwise, no; it was some
one else like who sot there, chaps knowed.
you see; and there was the water rushing
down thirty, or forty feet deep, with every
thing swept Before it--mules, and tents, and
shanties, and stores, aud dead bodies by the
dozen.
"Unlucky for them,"I says; and just then
hear a wild sorter shrek, and looking
down, | see chap half-swimming, half
swept along by the torrent, trying hard to
get at tree that stood tother side.
"Why, it's you, is it, Hez?" says to my
self, as l looked at his wild eyes and stain
ed face, on which the sun shone full.
you're gone coon, Hez, lad so you may
as well fold your arms, say amen, and go
down like man. How could pot you
now, if I'd got a shooting-ironj put you out
- 4 1ol
He made dash, and tried for a branch
hanging down, but missed it and got swept
against the rocks, when he showed his arm
between two big bits; but the water gave
him wrench, the bone went crack, and as
l sat still there saw him swept down lower
and lower till he clutched bush with his
left hand, and hung on like grim death to
a dead niger.
"sarve you right" says coolly. "Why
shouldn't you die like the rest? If I'd had
any go in me should have plugged yer
long ago."
"halloa! l cried then, giving start
at hin't-tis-tarnation it can't be
But it was.
There, on t'other side, fifty yards lower
down, on a bit Of a shelf of earth that kept
crumbling away as the water washed it,
was Jael, kneeling down WITH her young
'uij and, as looked, something seemed to
give my, heart jigg, just as if some coon
had pulled a string.
"Well, he's bout gone," says "and they
can't hold bout three minutes then they'll
all drown together, and she can take old
Hez his last babby to 'nuss; 'em Pm safe
enough. What it got to do with me2
shan't move"
took out my wet cake of 'baeca, and
| whitfield off a bit, showed it in my cheek,
shut my knife with a click, and sot thar
watchin' of 'em-father, and mother, and
bairn.
you've been happy, YOU have" l says
out loud not as they could hear it, for the
noise of the waters. "Now you'll be sorry
for other people. Drown, darn yer! stock,
and lock, and barrel I'm safe"