St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-30
ONE NEW YEARS.

SAsA AsA w AAAAA ~
1t was on the last day of December,
1850. that Jonas Boyd, a pioneer settler
on the Goose river, in North Dakota. re-
turning to his ''shack" from trip to
the nearest town, found awaiting him
this note from his wife:
81 have gone for good. Do not at
tempt to follow me, for will never
come back alive to this wilderness. and
besides Ned (name half erased) loves
me, which you do not"
Giving his horses an hours needed
rest, Boyd closed the house and drove
to his nearest nelghbor, hunter and
trapper known as Bill Tuedge.
-"
Tuedge was a bachelor; man OF
noted bravery and honesty OF character
among all the early settlers of the cOun-
try north of the Northern Pacific in Da-
kota. When Boyd made known his
misfortune, and that he had come for
advice, Tuedge, after hearing all the
facts in the case, told him that there
was but one punishment in his mind
for Sucl an Offense.
"Kil4 'em BOTH" was his lacOnic re-
mark, land do ct sod Others'u take
warning"
He readily consented to accompany
Boyd in his search for the truant wife
and her Seducer. whose identity they
could not determine. The two men,
heavily armed. drove that night to a
settlement near what is now the town
of Portland, and there learned that
man by the name of Ned Ross, a land
agent, had driven through there at
noon, accompanied by Mrs. Boyd. Ross
had stopped to rest his horses, and be-
ing somewhat under the influence OF
liquor, took no pains to conceal the TACT
that Mrs. Boyd was clipping with him.
He said that they were en- route Tor
Casselton, and from there would go to
Fargo.
The trail was hot one. Tuedge and
Boyd kept it like hounds on the hunt.
When their horses gave out, they told
their story and borrowed others. AT
dawn New Years morning. 1881, OPP
pressed by the cold and fatigued with
their long chase, they drew in to farm
house five miles out from CaSselton and
asked for temporary shelter. The
farmer was willing enough to grant it,
but he had done SO once before that
night.
"Who TOP"
ga man and woman from the Goose,
bound for CaSSeltOn."
On hearing this Boyd pushed the door
in, strobe by the surprised farmer, into
the kitchen and confronted his wife and
Ned Ross sitting by the fire. They had
arrived but an hour before, nearly dead
from the cold. There being no bed for
them. they had sat by the fire, doing
and waiting for daylight.
Ross attempted to draw his pistol
when he saw Boyd, but the sight of the
latter drawn weapon turned his face
deathly pale while his hands fell nerve
less by his side. Mrs. Boyd laughed
and said:
swell, Jonas, what are you going to
do about it?"
She was pretty woman, young, and
with none of the sallownesS in her face,
SO common to Western women. The
excitement of her flight had heightened
her color and made her eyes sparkling
bright. She shook her head Saucily at
her husband, amused both at his angry
face and the fear of Ross. She gave
Tuedge little nod with the remark:
You needn't have bothered yourself
so much about me.n
Boyd looked at Tuedge and Tuedge
looked at HIM. The eyes of each
flashed with the same Interrogation.
Nellie" asked Boyd, whats this
thing" pointing to Ross, ''to y0u?''
Something more than you are" was
the retoft.
Nellie" persisted Boyd, 'are you
guilty of-of-."
AL you choose to think or say" she
replied.
Again Boyd and Tuedge looked at each
other. By that glance, their course was
determined upon.
The farmer who had listened ia
amazement to what had been said, was
more astounded when with bound,
Boyd threw himself upon Ross, and at
the same instant Tnedge seized Mrs.
and with their wraps drawn closely
about them, they were bundled into the
sled of the pursuers.
Telling the farmer that he might
have the team which Ross had driven,
Boyd turned his own horses toward the
north, back over the trail they had come
down on. At his feet, under the robes,
lay his wife. Behind in the box was
Ross, with Tuedge sitting beside him.
Two, five. eight, twelve, fifteen miles,
into the very depths of the wintry wild
erness, the sled, its burden and the
steaming horses flew. The cold was in
tense, 26 degs. below at daybreak, so
dogs. below at noon. The sun was hid
den most of the time behind light banks
of gray clouds and the air, filled with
fine. driving sleet of ice, which cut and
stung the faces of the travellers.
Where Boyd pulled his horses up and
stopped there ran to all points Of the
earth one waste of high-piled snow,
broken by no tree nor roof OF habita-
ton. A desolate, sad place, where the
wind made deadly moan over the coolies
or whistled in the depths overhead. A
place of death, two marks across it, run
ming in opposite directions-one the
half-concealed trail, the other the faint
tracks of starving wolves. whose cries
at night were the requiem for souls lost
in this place of cold and ice.
Boyd helped Tuedge remove Ross
from the sled. They loosened his
bonds and, despite his shrieks and cries
for mercy, stripped the clothes from
him, until naked he threw up his arms
to the gray sky, and calling on God to
save him, fell PROSTATE on the snow.
A faint stain of blood marked where
the ice had cut his feet. Tuedge kicked
loose snow over it. got back into the
sled, Boyd took the reins, and again
they went on.
Once they looked back. A figure
with out-stretched arms was running
after them, and cry like that of a wolf.
long-drawn agonizing, human, came
down on the wind.
Mrs. Boyd saw nothing Of all this.
She heard the screams of Ross but
could not understand them. buried as
she was under the robes. She did not
know until at the door of the home she
had deserted that he had been left
behind. Boyd carried her into the