The Billings herald. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1882-1885, 1883-01-18

iyour country" said a Brooklyn
girl, folding her hands and lookin:
| up at him with a bewitchingly
pleading glance. 81 know they
must be just too sweet for any
thing!"
ooh, they're sweetnessw cjaculat
ed the Montana man, throwing one
leg oyer the other and warming tc
his subject. "You once get biz
zard after you, and you'll wish you
hadn't any skirts on to bother you
"And did you ever see one?" she
asked with profound interest.
"Well, I should fire a grinw res
ponded he politely. "I've been
around when our neck O. the woods
was toiling hard to save its county
representation! Why, miss, | seen
a blizzard tip prairie fire right up
on end, and it blazed away a streak
Of fire thirty miles high! just tip
ped it right up!"
"Graciousr' squealed.the girl. 81
should have thought it would have
blown it clear over!"
"There's where you catch your
heel! You see, the fire struck agin
a railroad locomotive that was pas
sing some eighteen miles up, and
the engine held it perpendicular"
exclaimed the Montana man. "You
can't fool a prairie fire much! When
it came down it kept right on blaz-
ing and the melted engine dropped
on the track and run right to the
round house in a liquid stream.
They had to pack it in ice so as to
freeze it into shape again! Oh, we
have ice tn our school district!'
81 had no idea that blizzard
was so powerful" murmured the
girl.
Powerful! Well, you just shout
sister! Only two months ago,
blizzard lifted the Powder river
straight up in the air and carried it
back seven miles in the woods.
You just deal your last giblet on the
power! That rivers up in the trees
yet, and we're building saw mills
upside down so as to get the water
privileges! You read about these
tornadoes. They're only gusts
"My" exclaimed the girl, "a biz
zard must be something terrible!"
"Well, | should gobble dis
Iinctlyn returned the Montana man
with a quiet smile. Gust before /
left an old he blizzard struck my
town, and whooped us up about
eighty feet! town and all. We
lidn't come down for four weeks.
md wouldn't have been down vet
only a Yankee threw a lariat over
hat streak O. wind and started an
elevator! Why, miss, you don't
know no more about it than an old
sock! Why, just south of us one
If 'em happened to hit a patch of
country some fellows were survey
ng and blue the whole line of the
'oad right through the surveyors
:ransit! You bet! And the COM
oany lost its franchise, because the
and granted to it was just rolled
over and they had to build the
,oad straight up and down or give
t upr'
II don't see how you manage to
i've in such a country" said the
lstonished girl.
"Oh, we peg alongr' was the
response. 'It's the
greatest country out doors! l re-
member one blizzard, though, that
bothered us some. 1t happened to
pop the Grow reservation plumb
center, and just blew the whole
business right over on our settle
nent-Indians, ground, crops, every
hing"
"On top Of you?" calculated the
girl,
''The same," replied the Montana
man. ''There we was, right among
em! The redskins didn't dare 60
off their reservation for fear of war,
and we didn't dare climb up
through for fear of violating the
treaty. |
"But how did you get out?"
lueried the girl.
ooh, you can't hold us fellows
down long! We're wild, woody and
hard to curry, miss. Then we've
got the best soil in the world. We
Just planted a grain crop under
that reservation, and in fourteen
days the wheat had hoisted it up a
hundred feet and there it stood.
When the winter froze it into that
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