The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-02-02
BILL LEWIS.
KY WILLIAM B. PARSONS


 a deep canon at the headwatcrs of the Gunnison. One of the adventurous class known as prospectors' had, in the fall of 1881, wandered through that country, following a burro which bore upon its back all his worldly wealth, and had brought into winter quarters in the valley of the Arkansaw such promising speci- mems of brittle and ruby silver that many, seeing them, were induced to go in the spring to spy out the land. And so il happened. on a March night in 1882, that a dozen camp fires were brightly burning, dozen tents were dimly out lined in the shadows and openings of the stunted pines, and forty of fifty men, in groups of from three to six, were gathered around the fires smoking their evening pipes and relating their experiences and wonderful finds of the year before.
 Among fifty men brought together from every part of the world, in wild country, by purpose born, to some extent at least. of selhshness and greed, some are likely to be found in whom brutishness pre- dominates. There were several such in the camp al Half-A Moon.
 The poets say that communion with nature retnes and elevates the soul, and leads men onward and upward toward natures God The poets are somewhat wrong. The kindly spirit born and reared amid the best influences ot city home, where all the surroundings arc of refin- ing character, will become kind!ier and better as the years go on: while the dull man will become duller, and the mean man meaner, in the very presence and hush of nature. Al least 1t IS sometimes so and ii was so with Bill Lewis.
 He had seen nature in all her majesty. moods, and aspects for more than thirty years had tTaversed the country from the Missouri 10 the iacitic shore; lunched on the highest summlts and camped Tn the deepest gorges. And yet his depravity was immense He had been convicted of d dozen crimes and committed an hun dred others without conviction. Each succeeding fall had found him worse in every way than the preceding spring. and those who knew him best freauently re- marked upon the new and ever increasing capabilities for sin which he was con stanily unfolding.
 Bu, he was not wholly bad. Perhaps no nan ever was. There was rumor among the miners. credited by few. that once or twice during his career his rough voice had become gentler, and the light in his fierce eye softer. when he had been sur prised into speaking of his mother. Where he had come from, what made him leave, where his mother lived, or whether she lived at all, no one knew or had the hardihood to ask.
 There was another manor rather boy in that camp; but he could not be seen that evening around any of the fires He had come into the gulch in d crowd of seven who had been on the trail some twenty days together, and Bill Lewis was another ot the seven. His name was Leno Brown. lis comrades had failed 10 catch or comprehend his first name. and he had come to be called Little Iohn"
 He would have been remarked any where Tn a mining region as one wholly GU, of place. He was light. delicate, and fragile hough seemingly in good health before coming to the eulch-and was i'll ftted to meet the vicoissi,udes ofa moun- tain life. He might have been born for an artls, or poet, or both he certainly was never intended for miner. Everybody except Bill Lewis liked and pi,ied him. Bill apparently did not hate him but he despised him tor his soft. tender nature was in the habit of calling him Susie" and Nellie, and other feminine dimnu- lives. and never le, pass an opportunity to humiliate and wound him.
 In coming into the gulch the party had an unusually serious trip. The trail was Ill dehned: the snow was deep and soft they had been compelled to unpack their animals score of times. and to sleep in wet clothes aad wet snow. For all this, however. most of them cared but little. They were not invalid tourists, and they had crossed the range too many times in bad weather 10 be much troubled by one trip more
 But with Little John the case was diff ferent. He had never before been thus ex- posed, and was evidently not sustained 10 any considerably extent by a hopeful spirit, and he had succumbed. He lay in his tent Tn his rough blanket bed, sick, pros,Iated, exhausted. There was O phy- sician there. although most of those men krew something of sickness, and in dis cussing his case, while none could say that he had this or that disease. all agreed that he was "clean gone an likely to croak."
 They had been talking of him around the fire when some one, coming from a tent in grove near by, said:
 think Little John Il go up toni ght. He's crazy now, an thinks he's in Ohio. an keeps talSin' of his mother"
 Bill Lewis, before silen, and sullen. started up at once. " I'll go see the kid, ' he said.
 He went, and all followed in wonder The bed was warm enough, and soft enough. But it and its surroundings were terribly rough for one like him in his condition. The pale face amid th C shaggy blankets, Ii. up by a ,allow candle burning in can the saddles, ropes, ket- ties, and tools scattered around among the bushes upon the earth floor, all to- gether, formed a scene weird and impres- sive.
 As the man had said, Little Iohn was delirious and talking of his home and as- sociates away back in Ohio, but most of all of his mother, piseously begging her