The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1880-06-25
The Mysterious Stranger at Laramie.

A~s 0A WAS NSA"s0A
MY attention has very recently been
called to stranger who seems to be q
feature of the great mountain exodus.
He wears Mexican SOmbrero, broad
at the base and shallow of crown. with
''strange, wild fancies," as Colonel
Downey would say, worked in scarlet
and gold upon it, and a gold cord with
cardinal tassels of great size. His coat
is long buckskin garment. cut plain
like night shirt, with beads worked
all over it, and buckskin strings attach
ed to it along the seams and around the
tail. He he's other odd, wild toggery
about him, and seems to feel disappOint-
ed because he hasn't killed anybody for
an hour or two.
When the passenger train from the
East comes in he stands at the depot
with far-away look, like one whose
thoughts are roaming among the ranks
of grass-grown graves in his own privat e
cemetery, where he plants those who
do not love him.
The passengers look at him with
solemn awe and respect and do not speak
to him, because they are afraid they
will disturb him and make him irritat-
ed, and he will put six-aush on the
train and mix up a CHASTITY array OF
mutilated corpses.
No one seemed to know who this man
was at first. Some said it was the left
wing of the James boys. Others, still,
said that it was a cut-throat known as
1.-THE Howling Demon of Pappoose
Canon The old frontiersman said
that it was 1.-THE Wild-Eyed Man Flat
tenerfrom Sinking Water" Others said
they recognized him as ''The Sanguin-
ary Gizzard- Eater of Yuba DAM
But he was none of these noted char
acterS.
The citizens called a convention and
decided that they would draw lots to
see who should hold an interview with
him and find out if there was any way
by which we could alleviate his woe and
ease the canker which was eating away
his heartstrings. It was decided that
the people of Wyoming should let him
have man to kill, if that was the Sc
cret of his consuming grief, and, rather
than see him pining his young life
away, victim would be provided for
him each week at least.
The bloody task of interviewing this
wholesale and retail dealer in funerals
and headquarters for cemetery and
medical college supplies fell on me.
babe adieu to my family, rehearsed
a part of "The Immortals'' to work in
dying speech, wrote to Washington,
sending in my resignation as United
States Commissioner, and, having put
on my new clothes, l went to this man,
who carries with him death record of
those who have died at his hands, which
looks like the advertised letter list of
the Leadville Post-office.
wondered afterward how came to
fly into the very jaws of death as did,
but I kept my piercing eye on the
graveyard monopolist till he quailed. 1
Strengthened up to my full height and
taking step ladder I went up and
threw back my aurora borealis locks
from the wide honest brow. If there is
any feature I possess which eXcites my
pardonable pride, it is my square open
brow. If had as much money, as l
have brow, I would ride around the
country on a special train, but haven't.
Year after year 1 am keeping over a
larger and larger stock of shop-worn
brow for which there is no demand.
came away from the interview with
this man greatly relieved. He was not
carniverous as we mad supposed. He
was not grieying for chance to battle
himself in gore. He was introducing a
new kind of grease-spot eradicator, and
he was suffering good deal of mental
anguish because he couldn't bring his
sales up to fifty cents per day.-"Wyo-
ming KIT" in DenUer Tribune.