The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-04
ORLANDO ]. DoWD.
[Bni Nye, in New York Mercury. I

lOh GNySYtu NGW HOEk HaGICuIy.I
 Rather a severe and cruel joke was played on a young pilgrim near Ubet, Montana, few days ago. have ex- pressed myself so often as the foe to all classes of practical jokes that l need not declare myself again here. This young man, whose name, for the purpose of this sketch, will be Orlando ]. Dowd, ceme from the far east and settled down in Montana in a quiet, unassuming way, with the ultimate object of becoming a citizen of the new young commonwealth. He could not disguise his open-eyed wonder over the new and startling once became the victim of the hardened frontiersmen, more especially the COW fraternity, with whom he was thrown a good deal.
 Some crude COW humorist soon con- ceived the bold and highly brilliant idea of coming down on MT. Dowd some sunny day with a tribe of bogus Sioux and soaring the nervous tenderfoot into an early grave. He told his friends about it and they were at once wild with de- light. He told Orlando's employer and he also laughed and slapped himself with joy. No pains were spared to make it a success. Half a dozen COW boys got the proper war paint and other toggery, and with no warning whatever one pleas ant day, while Orlando ] Dowd and his employer were engaged in building corral on the summer ranch, they were startled by wild wh0op that froze their blood, and less than a mile away they saw band of armed and yelling sav- ages descending upon them like the wind.
 Here are the blankety blank Indians, Orlando" said the proprietor. "Fly for your life. You are young and have all of life before you. will stay and meet death in the sere and yellow leaf of my closing year. Do not make a moments delay. Jump on horse and fly for your life. Tell my friends that died peace fully at the hands of the savage foe. Do not stay to mourn for me, Orlando, but fly"
 Orlando did not know that this kind and self forgetful employer intended to get behind the cabin and laugh to see the scared pilgrim flee with a squad of bogus braves after him, armed with tin IS. So Orlando ] Dowd vaulted swiftly into the saddle of $500 blooded racer that was picketed twenty yards away, and pro- ceeded to fly. Before the distance was too great, however, he practiced on the Indians with his Boston revolver and put lead nugget into the thick part of leg that belonged to warlike Sioux from St. Lawrence county, New York, and who happened to be little in advance.
 Orlando J. Dowd then proceeded to fill the air with alkali dust and to accu- mulate intervening space.
 
 It is now three years and four months since the events narrated in the foregoing took place. Orlando J. Dowd was SO frightened by this cruel hoax that he did not slacken his pace, but, with the last words of his dying employer still ringing in his ears, he fled. He always did every thing thoroughly, and SO when he fled he didn't do it super6cially or slight ingly. He did it with all the ardor of a young enthusiast. He not only fled, but he staid fled.
 Ot course, he did not want to come back to place where his employer had met with such tragic death. Every thing would remind him of his dear dead friend, who so unsel6shly gave up his life.
 So Orlando ]. Dowd crossed over into the British possessions with his beautiful steed and has never had the heart to come back. We should learn from this to eschew all species of practical jokes. Here was a young man whose life was full of golden possibilities driven from his home and compelled to drag out miserable existence in foreign land.
 It has also been a valuable lesson to those who suggested it. The Indian who got MT. Dowd's parting remark in his leg says he never sits down without a feeling of soreness and remorse, and Otlando's old employer says he will never play any more practical jokes. He enjoys them heartily at the time, but they come too high, he says. He is passionately fond of mirth in any form, but those jokes that you can get two for quarter are good enough for him.
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