The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1885-06-13
Orlando j. Dowd.

the purpose of this sketch, will be
Orlando j. Dowd, come from the far
east and settled down in Montana in
a quiet, unassuming way, with the
ultimate object of becoming citizen
of the new young commonwealth.
He could not disguise his open-eyed
wonder over the new and startling
features of the wild west, and SO he
at once became the victim of the
hardened frontiersmen, more es-
pecially 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 Mr.. Dowd
some sunny day with tribe of bogus
Sioux and soaring the nervous tender
foot into an early grave. He tod his
friends about it and they were at
once wild with delight. He told Or
lando's employer and he also laughed
and slapped himself with Joy. No
pains were spared to make it sue
cess. Half dozen COW boys got the
proper war paint and other toggery,
and with no warning whatever one
pleasant day, while Orlando J. Dowd
and his employer were engaged in
building a corral on the summer
ranch, they were startled by wild
whoop that froze their blood, and less
than mile away they saw band OF
armed and yelling sas..ges descend
i;ig upoi, them like tie wind.
"Here are the blankety blank In
dians, Orlando" said the proprietor.
Ely for you lie. 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 flv for your life.
Tell my friends that | died peacefully
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 in
tended to get behind the cabin and
laugh 70 see The scared pilgrim flee
with squad of bogus braves after
him, armed with tin tomahawks and
wooden Winchesters. So Orlando J.
Dowd vaultcd swiftly into the saddle
of $500 blooded racer that was
picketed twenty yards away, and
proceeded to fly Before the distance
was too great, however, he practiced
on the Indians with his Boston re-
volver and put lead nugget into
the thick part OF leg that belonged
to a warike Sioux from st. Lawrence
county, New York, and who hap
pened to be little in advance.
Orlando J. Dowd then proceeded
to fiji the air with alkali dust and to
accumulate intervening space.
1t is now three years and four
months since the events narrated IN
the foregoing took place. Orlando ].
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
fed. He always did everything
thoroughly, and SO when he fed he
didn't do it specifically or sighting
ly. He did it with al, the ardor of
young enthusiast. He not only fed,
but he staid fled.
OF course, he did not want to come
back to place where his employer
had met with such tragic death.
Everything would remind him of his
dear, dead friend, who so unselfishly
gave up his life.
SO Orlando j. 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 young
man whose life was full of golden
possibilities driven from his home
and compelled to drag out misera-
BILE existence IN foreign land.
Ii has also been valuable lesson
to those who suggested it. The In
dian who got Mr.. Dowd's parting re-
mark in his leg says he never sits
down without feeling of soreness
and remorse, and Orlando's old en-
ployer saws he will never play any
more practical jokes. He enjoys
them heartily at the time. but they
come too high, he says. lie is pas
eionately fond of mirth in any form,
but those jokes that you can get two
for quarter are good enough for
him.-[Bill Nye, in New York Mer-
curry.
Life OF Ancient America. THE gi-
gantic animals which existed in the
western part of the United States dur
ing the tertiary age, and which con.
stitute an order known to science as
the Dinocerata, form the subject of an
elaborate treatise by Professor o. &.
Marsh, OF Yale College. 4 basin in
Wyoming Territory, drained by Green
river, is the only locality in the world
where remains Of these creatures have
been found This basin, now from
5000 to 5000 feet above sea level, is
the sight OF an ancient lake, on whose
borders the great beasts, nearly equal
ing elephants in size, roamed in great
numbers, and in which many of them
were intombed. In the same region
ancestral forms of the ,apir, the horse
and the pig fiourished at the same
geological period; and the lake
swarmed with croeodiles, tortoises,
snakes and fishes, while its shores
were fringed with palms and other
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