Milford chronicle., 1888-02-17
BIG BEN AND THE WAIF.
Voc we afrnid of Dlg Ben,

silver country, and Big Ben was boss Of
| the ranch for several reasons. First and
foremost, he was too much for any one Of
rs single handed, and, secondly, he had
many good points about han. While he
was overbearing and brutal at times, he
was the best miner in the party, and no
bad luck could discourage him. With
any one else as boss we should have scat
tered at once, for the winter was coming
on and we had been down on our luck all
the fall.
"Break upl Hunt for luckn sneered
Big Ben whenever anything was said
about abandoning our claim. ''Well, you
are a lot of coy0tes-a cussed bad lot.
| You haven't got the pluck of a sick woI.
/ I'd like to see some of you try to walk of
and leave me in the lurch-yes, | would.
D. your eyes! but III turn to and lick
the huh crowd out Of your boots if hear
another growl.n
Big Ben insulted rs a dozen times a
day, and on three or four occasions he
laid hands on us in a violent way, but
somehow we stuck there. As told you,
he was a practical miner the hardest
worker in the lot, and we leaned on him
in spite Of the fact that we hated him. We
could have shot him down in some Of the
| quarrels, and the verdict would have
been, ''served him right;n but we knew
that he had a good heart down In his
bosom, and the hand which clutched
knife or pistol was always restrained.
One afternoon, while was minding the
cabin and the other men were at work in
the tunnel or shaft, a stranger entered
tic had come up from the Forks, three
miles away. He was boy of 10 or there
abOuts, with a girls voice and shyness,
and he was hungry and in rags. 1t was
bitter cold, and yet his clothing was Of
the thinnest kind, and he had hungered
so long that he was hardly more than n
shadow. / welcomed and fed and warmed
him. and then he told me that his name
was Charley Bland, and that he had wan
dered out there TO look for his brother
James, from whom he had received no
word for two or three years. They were
orphans, and both had been bound to
farmers in Illinois. Doth had been i'll
used, and Charley finally followed James
example in running away. This boy mad
been knocking around the silver camps
for six months, sometimes meeting friends
and sometimes treated like dog, and he
had found no trace OF his brother Some
one down at the gulch-it was a cruel
thing TO do-had told him that James
was at our camp, and he had periled his
life to come up there and see. On that
day, as l shall never forget, there was a
foot Of snow on the ground, blizzard
raging, and the thermometer marked 10
degs. below zero.
The boy was asleep when the men re-
turned from the shaft. Big Ben was out
of sorts at the way things had been going,
and no sooner did he hear and see the lad
than he called out;
"He can't stay here another hour. We
don't run a poor house and we let 10
baby faced swindler eat our hard earned
provisions" "
''I'll work III work as hard as ever 1
can, protested the boy with a sob in his
throat
"There's no work for you. You've got
to move ON to the camp above"
The four of US protested in chorus, and
we took such a firm stand that deadly
weapons were drawn, and would have
been used but for the action of the boy.
lie was terribly frightened over the row
he had been the innocent cause of, and as
the four of us had four pistols leveled at
Big Ben and meant to shoot if he moved
a foot the boy opened the cabin door and
glided out into the dark and bitter night
with the silence and swiftness Of q
shadow.
"You are his murderer" we said to
Big Ben as we lowered our weapons, and
he growled:
On himl If we took in every strag-
gler we should be crowded out Of house
and home before New Years What IS it
to us whether he lives or dies?'
/ think lie felt conscience stricken
within the hour, however, as he went to
the door and acted as if he hoped to see
the lad standing outside. The boy had
been gone half an hour before we fully
realized what his going meant, and then
two of us went out with the lantern and
searched and called for him. The snow
was being whirled about in a furious
manner, and the wind was rising to a
gale, and the bitter cold drove us back
after quarter Of an hour. 1t was true
that we had little enough to eat, and that
we were cramped in our cabin, but the
idea of driving that pale faced orphan boy
out to freeze was something we could not
get over. 1t was just the thing needed to
set us up in rebellion against our boss,
and that night we threw off the yoke and
gave it to Big Ben right and left. We had
two or three rows before bedtime, and all
turned in sulky and indignant
Whewl But what night that wasl
The cold increased until the rocks were
split, and the wind rOared until our cabin
threatened to topple over at every blast.
At midnight Big Ben crept carefully out
of his bed and opened the door, and then
l almost forgave him for his brutality.
Conscience had been at work, and his
heart was touched. He hoped to find the
boy erouched on the threshold, and
heard him sigh and mutter to himself as
he shut the door and returned to his
blankets. The strongest man in our party,
clad as we were for the winter. could not
have stood against that blizzard Lalf an
hour, and fell asleep to dream Of finding
poor Charley's frozen corpse on the trail
leading down to the Forks, and Of his big
blue eyes being wide open and staring at
me in a reproachful way.
For breakfast next morning we had
some canned meat-opened new can
from our slim store We thawed it ont,
and all ate our fun shares, and were on
the point of starting out to search for the
boy when one Of the men was taken i'll.
Inside of half an hour all of us were taken
down with pains and cramps, and it was
evident that we had been POISONED by the
meat. We had no antidOte Of any sort,
and one after another went to bed to suf-
fcP the most agonizing pains and to lose
consciousness. Big Ben was the hardest
hit of all, while I, perhaps, suffered the
least. That is, while all the others raved
and shouted and lost their senses, l was
all the time dimly conscious of everything
going on. The blizzard was still raging,
and the thermometer was marking still
lower degree when the door opened and
Charley walked in. / saw him, but !
was flighty, and it seemed to me that lie
was dead. remember his looking down
upon each Of us in strange, scared way,
and starting to retreat when one Of the
men shouted loud curse.
I was the first to come back to life, as
it were, and that was twenty-four hours
after being first taken The pains were
gone as l opened my eyes, but was weak
and wretched, like one just over a terrible
fever The boy Charley was standing
before me as I opened my eyes, and he
bant down and whisDered,