Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1883-05-09

York and do as she did. I can't sing.
an I amt no actor, but if I lest act out
my natal life, an be myself, I kin coin
money shown them eastern tender
foots what kind of life Mountain Jim
lives. 1 kin be in the theayter what I
am in the Rockies, arter git used to it,
p'r'aps I kin do something different.
Ida allus told me I could do anything I
set my mind ter. I'll make myself wor-
thy of her, whatever happens" he con-
tinued as his purpose assumed form,
"I'n not drink another drop; Ill be a
better man; so help me God an if I
don't git along, I'll at least deserve her. "
Jim broke his whisky flask over
stone, and as its contents sank into the
sandy soil, for the first time in nearly q
score of years, bent his knees and PRAYED
heaven to bless his endeavor to lead a
better life. Unconscious of any incon-
gruity, he also prayed ferventIy that his
career as an actor might be successful.
The idea thus conceived was not
easily made reality. To begin with,
Jim had no money. To be sure, on get
ting back to Denver, he easily borrowed
where he had often lent; but when, igno-
rant that his course was hardly in &C.
cordance with bis recent resolutions. he
endeavored to increase the $50 thus OBJ
tanned at the gambling table, his .aas
tomary good fortune deserted him, and
he lost every dollar within an hour.
His was a nature, however, which
difficulties inspired, and he determined,
| encountered by his rifle and two bear
skins, which he egarded as his stock. in
trade, to walk the 1900 miles which
separated HIM from the goal of his
hopes.
Fortune favors the bold. Tho good
na'ured superintendent OF the Kansas
Pacific Railway gave him pass to Kan
sas City, nearly 700 miles OF his jour.
ney; thence by dint of stealing riues in
freight and cattle trains, persuading the
conductor to let him act as an extern
porized brakeman, he found his way as
| far east as Ohio.
His difficulties, however, increased in
geometrical proportion to the distance
Travelled. He was a regular tramp by
this time, and tramps were no novelties,
ard were CORRESPONDENCE unwelcome
in the regions where he had now arrived.
Sleeping out of doors and walking fifty
miles day were no hardshlps to jim,
but it Inundated his really noble nature
to descend to the shifts prac-
ticed by professional beggars to save
himself from starvation. He was often
sneeringly advised to sell his skins and
rifle, but here ready wit served him in
good stead, and he earned many meal
by making his rife peg on which to
hang a host Of frontier stories. Indeed,
he very nearly became IN time, a pro-
fessional improvisatore.
Three months from the start found
him in New York, footsore and weary,
but many months of weary waiting fol-
lowed before the tramp became the poor
sort of actor he aspired to be.
Jim, with his garments worn and
travel-stained, and tramp written all
over him, was but an object Of derision
when he applied for admission to the
stage OF even the humber variety
theaters.
By good luck, just as he was giving
up in despair, Lord Duneagle, an Irish
peer, who bad added to his acres in his
native Isle square miles in Colorado,
met and recognized him. We'll he
might for Jim had saved his life once by
oppoltuncly shooting a mountain lion
which had his lo1dship in its grip.
Under the auspices OF the noble lord,
Jim had little difficulty in making an en-
gagement with Bowery theater, and
Lord Duneagle. who had done such
things before, good-naturedly wrote a
play for his protege.
1t was u shockingly poor play, being
q condensation OF all the Indian horrors
which had occurred since Columbus had
discovered America, and making Jim,
as the chief character, tue most impossi-
bic OF frontier heroes; but it apparently
succeeded all the better on that account.
Jim was soon earning what seemed to
him the p1incely salary of fifty dollars a
week; for, although he had often won
many times that amount in single sit
ting at the gambling table. he had never
earned, except in his Pixies Peak ven
ture, a consecutive weekly ten-dollar bill
before.
He carefully concealed himself from
Ida, who continued to coin her dulcet
notes into money at the Academy, all un-
conscious of his proximity. He played
under an assumed name. and although
the fair singer often read blood. curdIiDg
notices of Jim and his play she never
dreamed that it was her western lover
who was the recipient of all the plaudits
which enthusiastic Bowery audiences
could bestow.
Jim determined to postpone their
meeting until he had, to some degree,
made up for the deficiencies of his early
educa alton. He went through therefore,
under instructors, various polishing and
preparatory processes, which, it is need
less to say, were almost entirely ineffec-
tual. In fact, they we're damaging;
they reused him to sense of his def
ciencies.
His long curls he had, after strug-
gle, determined to sacrifice, for it was
evident, even to his obtuse faculties,
that they were by no means a la mode;
but his employer put a stop to his laud-
able designs. He made it condition
CT Jim's engagement that he should
preserve intact his typical costume; and
Jim walked the streets his own adver-
tisement.
Owing to his professional engagement
he was unable all this while to see Ida
on the stage, but his unoccupied time
was spent in stratagems to obtain
glimpses of her. he haunted the
neighborhood of her hotel like q per
turbed spirit, and at night watched her
window for hours in the hope of seeing
her shadow on the curtain. He fol-
lowed her in her drives to the park,
where concealed by convenient rock,
he gazed on the fair face, as, enveloped
in furs and with an indefiuable air OF
grace and fashion which women so cas-
lily adopt, she reclined in her carriage.
She seemed removed further from, yet
was no dearer to Jim than in the days
when with shabby scant skirts she
moved lightly about his mothers cabin.
On one occasion, while lowering about
the hotel, Jim was near coming to grief.
An ever vigilant policeman mistook him
for house-breaker watching his oppor-
tunjty to commit burglary, and
dragged him to the station-house where
fortunately he was recognized and re-
leased.