, 1885-10-02
A f
The Quest of Charles Jones for sam
Smoot In Chicago.

NlnoOl mNIHlCagus
One man has returned from Chicago
who is disguised with the Garden City.
1t is Charlie Jones, a COW puncher who
halls from Texas. Charles came up from
the Lone Star state last spring as the
assistant yeller at a herd of long horns,
and he has been engaged in this county
ever since in the nomadic pursuits of the
wild vacquero. The biggest city he we
saw was Cheyenne, until a few weeks ago
he was sent on a cattle train to help han
die the beeyes shipped by the millionaire
for whom he works. From the neighbor-
hood in which Charles was brought up,
in Texas. went, a year or so ago, another
youth who reached Chicago through
pretty much the same kind of channels
that Charles has since reached that mid
way metropolis. This former chum of
Charles was named Sam Smoot and there
was a warm bond Of friendship between
the two. They had spanked the same
gals, had stolen watermelons together,
and in short had enjoyed in common all
of the bliss which pertains to rustic youth
in the same meek of woods or stretch
of prairie, and as Sam had concluded,
when he got there, that Chicago was too
good a place to leave he had caught on
some way and had become a citizen there,
or at least was a resident in Chicago at
the latest accounts which Charles had re
ceived, and naturally enough Charles was
full of commercially happy anticipations
of meeting the friend of his youth, and
because he didn't he is full of disgust, and
bitterness, and things, about it.
He says that after the cattle had been
sold he struck out around town and
asked four thousand people if they could
tell him where Sam Smoot lived. Some
of them laughed at him, a sickly laugh,
but most Of them turned up their noses
and passed by on the other side, and
others didn't notice him as much as if he
had been a stray coon dog or a last years
almanac. Charlie noticed. however, that
nearly everybody smoked a cigar and he
thought hat perhaps because he had
never contracted that habit and only
''chawed, ~ that maybe he was ostracised,
as it were, on that account, so he fell into
a cigar factory and told the he1d man to
give him a dollar worth Of the cheapest
cigars in the shop. He found that
cigars were cheaper than he had ever
suspected, for the man began piling them
out on the counter until he had his peck
els full. and Charles told him that he had
enough, but the man seemed anxious to
have him take the dollar worth, and
Charles filed his hat and fled, leaving a
large lot still on the counter. Charles
has since thought that the man wanted
to get him arrested Tor carrying deadly
weapons, for when he lit one of the
the cigars and smoked it, he became so
sick that he wished he had never been
born. He was brave enough, however,
to stand it for the sake of seeing Sam
Smoot, and he went along the street offer
ing everybody a cigar and inquiring in the
same breath for his friend. The quest
was as big a failure that way as without
the cigars, and the result pretty much
the same. So he went and bought a bot
tie Of whisky and offered a pull at it to a
few people, not achieving anything until he
struck a squad Of men who were digging
in a new cellar and he found they were
willing to drink, and he believes they
would have told him where Sam lived,
but when they had all taken a ''sniftcr'
from the bottle and got their breath back,
he found that they were "furriners' who
could not speak a word Of United States.
Discouraged, he took several hearty pulls
at the black bottle himself, hoping to
raise his spirits up by pouring spirits
down, and inside of ten minutes he was
drunk enough to climb out of the cellar
and give a wild yell, n cross between a
COmanche war whoop and a Texan tiger,
and immediatoly a rooster in brass buttons,
blue clothes and a boilcr-hat came sud
denly forth, and got the drop on him and
took him to a Jail big enough Tor a peni-
Tertiary. Charles was locked up iuntil
morning, and despite his explanation
about hunting for Sam Smoot, he was
fined nearly all the money he had. A
policeman aiterward showed him how TO
get back 10 the stock yards. where he