The Wilmingtonian., 1886-08-21

where along the west slde oil Bltter creck' anu
he wanted us TO go along and help him to
find ii.
l had been in the west some eight or nine
years then, and had never seen an icthyo-
saurus myself, but thought the young man
must know his business, so | got out my
Winchester and went along with the group.
We tramped over the pale, ashy, glal1ng,
staring stretch of desolation, through burn
ing, quivering days of monotony and sage.
brush and albali water and aching eyes and
parched and bleeding lips and nostrils cut
through and eaten by the sharp alkaline air,
mentally depressed and physically worn out
but checred on and braced upby the light and
JOYOUS manner of the ever hopeful james
Triboite Eton, of Concord.
James Trilobite Eton, of Concord, never
moaned, never gigged back or shed hot, re
morseful tear in this powdery, hungry waste
| of gray, parched ruin No regret came forth
| from his lips in the midst of this mighty
cemetery, this ghastly potter's field for all
that nature had ever reared that was too poor
| to bear its own funeral expenses.
Now and then lean, soiled gray coyote,
| without sufficient moral courage to look a
| dead mule in the hind foot, slipped across the
| horizon like a dirty phantom and faded into
the hot and tremulous atmosphere. We
scorned such game as that and trudged on,
cheered by the hope that seemed to spring
eternal in the breast of James Trilobite Eton
| of Concord,
| -Four days we wallowed through the un
changing desolation. Four nights we went
| through the motions of slumbering on tht
arid bosom of the wasted earth On the iiftl
day James Tri obite Eton said we were nov
getting near the point where we would fine
A.
keen, rough blades of the seldom bunch grass
over the shifting, yellow sand and the green
ish gray of the bad land soil which never doe
anything but sit around through the accumu
lating centuries and hold the world together
a kind of powdery poison that delights +
creep into the nostiils of the pilgrim and stea
away his brains, or when mostened by In
tie snow to accumulate around the feet of tn
pilgrim or on the feet of the pilgrims mul
till he has the most of an unsurveyed "forty
on each foot, and the casual observer
cheered by the novel sight of one homestea
striving to jump another.
Toward evening James Trilohite Eto
gave wild Shrek of joy and ran to us frol
the bed of an old creek, where he had foun
an ichthyoSaurus. The ANIMAL was deaC
Not only that, but it had been dead LON
long time!
James Milton Sherrod said that IF COLES
} education was Of no more use TO man thG
that, he, for one, allowed that his boy Won
l have to gropc through life with an acaden
r cal education, and very little of it,"
a Iuncocked my gun and went back to can
t sadder and madler man, and, though yea
t have come and gone, l am still irrital
r when think of the five days we tramp
: along Bitter creek searching for an amin
i that was no longer alive, and our gu
a knew it before lie started.
Q Ilentured TO say to J. Trilobite Eton til
night as we all sat together in the gloamil
o discussing whether he should be taken hol
II with us in the capacity of guide or as a
Q mains, that it seemed to me man ought
re have better sense than to wear his young |
te away trying to have fun with his superiols
that way.
g why, blame it all, says James, what
s you expect! You ought to know yours
y that that animal is cNtnct!n
ID extinct" says James Milton Sherrod
'e shrill, angry tones. Il should say ne was
III tinct That's what we're kickin' about WI