Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-01-23
q" STACY'S GAL"
-Harper's Weekly.

the oratorical style for which he was
noted in the camp and was promptly
refused, much to his own and the
boys establishment. [ believe the
Judge was the next, but as he had
fortified his courage with large guam
tity of whisky his breath was strong
enough and his words thick enough to
ensure speedy rejection. He was con-
siderably mortified at it and never
able to explain the cause of his defeat,
but when d Mexican woman drifted
into camp shortly afterward and en-
gagged in washing for the men the
Judge tried his hand again and was ac-
cepted. It took him month to get
loose from the bonds and he swore he
would never give any other female
critter chance TO hook him again, J"
and he carefully avoided all Indian
squaws and homely senoritaS who &C.
caSionally passed through Mineral
City. After the judge dozen or more
of the boys offered their hands and
fortunes to "Stacy's gal'' and Jared in
precisely the same manner, while old
Stacy himself quietly chuckled and
''bet on his gal every trip" as he after
ward explained.
She had come into camp week or
two previously to the greatest surprise
Of everybody, including her father.
Old Stacy good many years before,
some eight or ten, had lost his wife,
and so great was his grief that he
could not be induced to remain longer
in the place she had made a little
heaven for him. So he placed his
daughter--his only child-in the fash
ionable female seminary of the State,
provided her with everything that
was necessary for her comfort or hap
pineSS, and then struck out for the
San Juan silver mines to forget his
loss among the eXcitements and priva-
tons of the frontier. Stacy was one
of the fortunate few out of the un-
lucky many that enter mining coun-
try, and in u few years he was posses
sed Of properties yielding him an ex-
celent income from their hard, white
quartz, He regularly cOrresponded
with his daughter, and kept her sup
piled in pOcket-money far in excess of
her needs OF requirements, but he new
er went back on q visit, and when that
1OIillS, ltVNkJ NtLo tIuAJ SltuutbUCo NlOh
hOnorS she determined TO seek out her
long absent paternal progenitor. With
an independence and courage, the
Wonderment of the boys, she travelled
across the plains, took passage on the
stages and finally rode into Mineral
City on horseback. the first white
woman in camp and the object of the
shy alteration of the men.
1t was some time before the boys
could stand their ground and face her,
instead of Scampering away at her ap-
proach, as had hitherto been the case;
but the Western miner is not long in
getting accustomed to strange things,
and it was not ten days after her ar
rival that the colonel inundated him
self on the altar of affections. En-
cOuraged by his example and mterri-
fed by his unceremonious defeat, the
boys one after another tried their luck,
though, rs I have before mentioned,
with no better success.
Stacy was Il partner of mine in the
Ajax miYie, in which there were three
of us Interested, and as we were doing
considerable development on the vein I
was Of necessity much in his company
and consequently IN that Of his daugh-
ter, She was q very pretty girl, with
dainty, delicate ways far more befit-
ting house on Walnut street than a
rough mining camp; but she loved her
father with an earnest, clinging affec-
ton that would not listen to her leav-
ing him, and so she continued to reign
queen of Mineral City all through the
summer of 1916.
I don't know when it was that was
UndUly attracted toward Nellie. l
think it was when she asked me to
call her thereafter by that name. She
made the request so innOcently, so
sweetly, and 50 tenderly, alleging that
as was her fathers partner, a gentle
man by birth and education, and such
Il kind friend to her, it would be ever
SO much nicer for me to say Nellie, in
stead of Miss Stacy, which sounded so
formal, that | came very nearly adding
other words to the name that our short
acquaintance would not justify, After
that spent most of my evenings with
Nellie; and sometimes of an afternoon
we took delicious little rambles tOgeth-
er on the mountain sides and into the
heavy timber lining the valley or can
on of the Uncompahgre. One evening,
as we were returning home, we stop
ped to rest on the rock-crested summit
of sMineral Point. A few hundred
feet below us lay the little mining
camp, its long cabins looking doubly
picturesque in the gathering cleaning.
The blue smoke was curling from Il
dozen chimneys is the men prepared
their evening meals; and here and
there, over the various trails, q blue
shifted miner, with pick and drills
across his shoulder, came striding
home. The sun sinking behind the
WaSatch mountains, one hundred and
siXty-tive miles distant, cast great long
shadows across the surrounding peaks,
and yelled the ravines and gulches in
deepening darkness.
Nellie sat on the cropping of vein
of quartz and lay stretched out at her
feet. watching her pretty. tender eyes
us they wandered about the horizon,
drinking in the beauty and the grand
eur Of the scene. She had some light,
feecy arrangement-a nuba, 1 believe
it is called-wrapped loosely about her