The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-02

tered it that Indian Spring had always be-
fore its eyes the abandoned trenches and
ruined outworks of its earlier pho eel J.
What mattered that the eloquent eulogist I
the,Eureka Ditch had but few years before
as prodigally scattered his adjectives and
his fortune on the useless tunnel that con-
fronted him on the opposite side OF the
river The sublime forgetfulness OF youth
ignored its warning or recognized 1t as a
joke The master. fresh from his little flock
and prematurely aged by their contact, felt
q stirring of something like envy as he
wandered among these scarcely older en-
thusiasts.
Especially memorable was the exciting
day to Johnny Hlgee, not only for the de-
lightfully bewildering clamor Of the brass
band, in which, between the trombone aid
the bass drum he had got inextricably
mixed; not only for the half-fr ghtening OK
plosions of the anvils and the maddening
smell of the gunpowder which had exalted
his infant soul to sudden and irrelevant
whoopings, but for a singular occurrence
that whetted his always keen perceptions.
Having been shamelessly abandoned on the
veranda Of the Z lreka hotel while his
brother Rupert paid bashful court to the
pretty proprietress by assisting her in her
duties Johnny gave himself up to unlimited
observation; the rosettes of the six horses,
the new harness. the length of the drivers
whip-lash, his enormous buckskin gloves
and the way he held his reins; the faScidat-
ing odor of shining varnish on the coach,
the gold-headed cane of the Hon. Abner
Dean; all these were stored away in the
secret recesses of Johnny's memory, even as
the unconsidered trifes he had picked up
en- route were distending his capacious
pockets. But when a young man had
alighted from the second or truly" coach
among the real passe lgers, and strolled
carelessly and easily in the veranda as If the
novelty and the occasion were nothing to
him, Johnny, with gulp of satisfaction.
know that he had seen princel Beautifully
dressed in white duck suit, with a diamond
ring on his fin Ier, a gold chain swinging
from his fob, and a Panama hat with
broad black ribbon jauntily resting on his
curled aud scented hair, Johnny's eyes had
never rested on a more resplendent vision
He was more romantic than Yuba Bill,
more imposing and less impossible than the
Hon. Abner Dean, more eloquent than the
| master-far more beautiful than any col
ored print that he had eyer seen. Had he
brushed him in passing Johnny would have
felt thick; had he spoken
to him, he would have been
speeches. to reply. Judge then of his
utter stupefaction when he saw Uncle Ben
actually Uncle Ben approach this para
gon of perfection, albeit with some embar-
TdSSIueub, anu WOlu VI bWO VI uhlu
| telligible conversation. walk away with himl
| Need it be wondered that Johnny, forgetful
at once of his brother. the horses, and even
the collation. with its possible goodies" in
stantly followed.
Thetwo men turned into the side street,
which after a few hundred yards opened
upon the deserted mining fat, crossed and
| broken by the burrows and mounds made
| by the forgotten engines of the early gold
S ekers; Johnny, at times hidden by these
Irregularities, kept closely in their rear,
sauntering whenever he came within the
range of their eyes in that side-long,
spasmodic and generally diagonal fashion
peculiar to small boys, but ready at any
| moment to assume utter Inconsistencies
and the appearance of going somewhere
else or of searching for something on the
ground. In this way appearing, If noticed
at all, each time in some different position
to the right or left of them, Johnny fol-
lowed them to the fringe of woodland
which enabled him to draw closer to their
heels.
TO BE Continued