National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1884-10-25

morrow" IL was addressed to somebody
in Philadelphia. | collected toll and
looked the fellow over, but / did not
place much significance upon the wording
of the message, and after while forgot
all about it. We used to get
some awful queer messages. About
one year later nicely dressed stranger
came in. and. handing me the Philadel-
phia copy of that dispatch, asked me
| ir 1t had:,been sent from there, and If
could tell him where the sender was.
told him that l remembered the circum.
stance, but that had not seen tho man
since. The next evening this man came
in and handed me for transmission to
Philadelphia "a message reading: Found
Charley. VIII leave for home with him
tomorrow AS he was paying me
made some inquiry, because l was curious
to know something about the case. Tho
man said he would tell me the next day.
l never saw him again. Two or three
months later man came in, and, showing
me that Dispatch, asked mo If remem-
bered sending IL. j told him did. Can
you tell me whore the mau is who sent
itT ho said. l couldn't. Then ho
went out and / yelled to him !:
Say, hadn't you better tic b string
to YOURSELF I'm losing you fellows
pretty fast This led to an explanation,
and he told me all about II. 1t seems
tho three were brothers. The first one
was little tightly, aud was continually
running off to some out of the way cor
ner of the globe. Only few months
before he appeared in Nevada he had
been in Iudia. His brother paid no
attention at first to his crazy telegram,
thinking it was only one Of his looney
jokes, but when several months had
passed and they heard nothing Of him
they began to fear that he might have
fallen into trouble, and 1t was decided
that one of them should go after him. This
was the second gentleman, and his
failure to return brought out the third
under the apprehension that tho others
had been foully death with. Well, he
was gone week. and began to believe
that he had gone up the spout,
too, when the first one came
sneaking into my office and
said: Say, ifanybody comes around here
looking for me just tell thom you don't
know where am, Where's your
brotherP said I. He looked at me
stock with me- Where's your other
brotherP He's down east No he
isn't | replied; he's here, in this town,
and he's looking for you, and going to
find you Just then the second one
came in and said to the first, come on,
Charley, let's be going While was
questioning him in walked the other,
and there was great Handwriting all
around. The whole three Of them seemed
to enjoy the thing immensely. Well, l
began to think those were about the
craziost cranks J ever saw, when tho last
ono said kindJof pityingly to me:
"It's all right, my boy. Those mes
sages Amt just what they seem. A little
cipher, you know. We've got silver up
here till you can't rest, and We couldn't
be telegraphing everything! You see l
was young in those days, and when two
of those lunatics came in at different
times with copies of messages, inquiring
very particularly after the men who sent
them, what was l to thinkP No Phila-
delphian could como any such game on
me now, I'll bot you. Thoy all got rich,
and when they came to sell out one of
them made me present of silver brick
worth about $685."
The last speaker was ono who had no
hair on his head, but who said in re-
Spouse to an inquiry that no scalping
knife had ever taken it off. ut was
just scared off," he exclaimed, down
toward old Julesburg. One day / was
Mt my desk when the man up at Hooper's
siding, ten or twelve miles away. tele-
graphed down thathe was surrounded by
redskins, and that they were whetting
their tomahawks ON the wires. / thought |
it was a pretty good joke until he tele-
graphed that the station was in flames,
and that a lot of the Indians had set out
for my place. Then l began to prick up
my ears. There were not many of us
there just then, and we were in no CON
dillon to fight Indians anyway. We
threw up breastworks and got everybody
who had q gun, a pistol, club. or a
knife to fall in. 1t was about shutdown |
when we got all ready for them. While
we were waiting nervously for the
onslaught, one of the citizens, saloon
keeper, came riding up in mad haste |
and shouted that there were just |
millions Of them coming You fellows |
are all as good as mastered now he said. |
There's only just one thing to do, and
that is to telegraph up and down the line |
for help. Put it strong, now he said to
me. Beg, implore. exhort Them Well, |
| could rattle key pretty we'll in those
days, and everastingly begged for help. |
was thoroughly scared. and l threw my |
whole soul into the work. After about |
an hour Of agony Cheyenne broke in |
with, oh, turn yourself out. you big |
calf! What's the matter with your
This cooled me of a little, and l looked |
outside and saw the people going and
coming as usual. They had put up q
gorgeous joke on me just because was |
tenderfoot. My hair fell out |
soon after that, and it has never grown |
SINCE"