Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1886-11-21

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Above and beyond all in my reflections
stood ont this man Broener. In one sense, l
WAS. his follower, absorbed by him, led by
him He was entire master Of the situation.
7 looked ND to him and admired his keennesS
Of Judgment, his ease and a~daptability to men
and circumstances, his outside appearance OF
rocklessness. which seemed but a cloak for
the caution underneath.
Yet I did not feel wholly to like Broener.
One reason was, he repealed anything like a
warm expression Of friendship.
Don't try to thank me for what you say
I've done for you" he remarked one evening,
when in certain set and to some extent pre-
yiously-composed phraseology, l attempted to
do 50. You owe me nothing. You are as
useful to me as / am to you We suit and MT
into each other for the time being. Some
power fashioned US to do 50. Thank that,
whatever it is, not me. When things shape
themselves for US to part, we Part-accorulng
IN the same law-for our mutual advantage.
We NAV part friends, perhaps enemies. We
| can't tell what we shall grow into or what
NAV GROW into Us thatll make US friendly,
indifferent or hostile to each other. That's
nv doctrine. In plain, old-fashioned words,
itS every man for himself in reality and the
Old Scratch take the hindmoSt You donE
Hte IL I see. You believe in friendship to
the last and clinging to whatever you like
until it's in the last stage Of decay and killing
Won, with its poison. You believe in hanging
| on 10 a friend while he, maybe, out Of pure
Ignorance or selfiShneSs, is, through his weak
MS dragging YOU to ruin along with him
/ don't. / like strong people, so long as they
are strong. l pity them if they become
weak. l cut from 4 cripple when he leans
| on me too heavily"
And how with womenP l asked.
That's somewhat another affair. am as
10 women a tyrant in this way. l, or rather
the nature inside Of me, eXacts OF q woman
who attra, Is my admiration-or compe5 1t,
rather-tbat she shall continue to do so. II
she doesn't, | cut, the sane as with men To
remain true as it is called, is for INC to re-
main a hypocrite and pretend a sentiment
which is not felt"
Broener seemed to me an iceberg, glitter
inc in the sunlight and rejecting that light
from a thousand pinnacleS, but cold to the
touch: full of power, too, but unpleasant to
near approach; pleasing only so long as one
maintained the proper distance.
Yet socially, he was ever to me most IS
cinat!ng, and when he chose could make one
forget him as the iceberg. An educated
man, but not q pedant; book learned, but
no: bookish or book laxative; alive to the
past, but as much if not more fully SO to the
prn-ent, and especially keen i'll seeing and
more in making others see the points III the
varied array Of human nature on Bull Bar.
II Is true much Of his conversation was i'll
terlarded with the slang and Common phrase
ology OF the day.
Il like, he said, 1.-The luxury at times of
talking en- deshabille. It's hard work to feel
obliged continually to express oneself in a
dinner dress of nouns, verbs and propositions
previously arranged for you by some old
pedant. Why couldn't there be a compromise
made between book English and every day
English! TwOuld make life easier. There's
Il good deal of slang, too, born OF necessity.
Times, eraS, circumstances develop expressions
which can only belong to that time and era.
People must nave their every day words as
they have their every day clothes"
In a letter from home it was casually men.
toned that Blanche Seton had left East
port and was living, they believed, in New
York. She had become, it was added, more
mysterious than ever, and had quite sun
dered herself from PASSPORT people. From
! Blanche herself | heard nothing. One of her
remarks on the evening We parted was that
she would write if she had anything to
write" and would like me to do the same.
She dsliked, she said, to have letters ex-
pected of her at regular intervals by any
one. Ii was too much like correspondence
by machinery.
About a fortnight after Broener left, n
stranger came saunteriug along the bank
and stopped at the hole from which | was
taking and washing gravel. | was some
what excited that day from having come on
a deposit of hard, heavy gravel lying on the
ledge and in a deep c~revice. 1t was yielding
richly and without aid of any of BrOener's
Sailing" When a man knows that every
bucket lie dumps into his head Seive' is TO
wash out fifteen or twenty dollars, work be-
comes more like play. Occasionally ! would
pick a bit of ''Shot" or coarse gold from the
dirt. and dirt must be very rich to show gold
on the surface. Usually that metal is about
the last thing to be seen, so marked is its ten
dency to sink underneath the lighter gravel.
The stranger watched me some minutes III
silence. He was u man of middle age, peaked
in feature, and without further describing
his appearance | will say only that he made
me feel diSagreeable. The air felt meddlc-
some about him. l felt from the moment
his look was fixed on Inc n danger-and no
small one.
My apprehenSions were increased on seeing
that he carried a hammer-a ~mineralogiStS
hammer, shaped expressly for breaking up
small pieces Of rock. / knew by this he was
one of the new men Broener had feared,
who would SO Soon come here TO hunt quartz.
"HowS't payin'f' asked the stranger.
"Middling, " l replied, CURLY.
Been here long,
No. said.
ANY ground open here to new ComersF
IL don't know"
"Ground claimed next to you|
You must try for yourself. Take up a
claim, and if anybody holds it they'll be
around quick enough"
The stranger came close to the edge of the
hole, peered into it, and then, without further
ceremony, jumped therein as | was on my
way TO the rocker. | heard the clatter he
made in so doing, and Immediately came
back without putting my bucket of dirt
through the rocker. He was kneeling down.
looking very closely at the face of the gravel,
near the ledge, and had just pulled there
from a bit of quartz about rs large rs ones
fist. Holding it up TO the light he exclaimed
Quart gold, by thunder 1t was a 'speci-
men, and | could see gold on its sides.
And you will please let the gold and
everything else in this claim alone!" | said,
jumping down and snatching the rock from
his hands.
'Oh, don't be alarmed, Young a l
dont want your gold. | S'pose a man can
look at it, cant heF' said he.
He can look where he has a right to" was
my reply. But you have no more business
on my ground here than in my house, and
you ought to know it"
He clambered out Of the hole, taking all
my peace OF mind with hin as he went In
his discovery of that bit Of white rock,
hecked with the yellow metal, l saw no end
of future trouble. 1t was giving the hound
the true scent, and | felt that this man
would never cease his efforts till he had run
the gam 10 earth.