The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-01-27

moccasins, might have been seen
proudly prancing over the Great Ameri-
Can Deseret, meanwhile bathing his
feet in the morning dew which glistened
like door knobs on the velvety tips OF
the tall Kentucky blue grass indigenous
to deserts
Reader, have you not already sur
missed who it VASE 1t was none other
than Moccasin Mac, the primeVal PROV
Ter of the plains. BIT hush He is
about to discover a country.
CHAPTER II.
Death like stiffness reigned. broken
only by the soft thud OF the
falling dew. No moccasin save Macs
had ever trod the black aIluvial loan
of tnat far off barren waste. No human
voice save Macs had ever pierced the
dreary solitude of that blooming, grassy
paradise. Shading his shaggy eyes
with his brawny, tawny HANDS, Mac,
the ripping, roaring, rover OF the
Rockies gazed out deeply into the
vOiceleSs distance.
CHAPTER Ill.
Presently herd of megatheriums
came bounding out of cluster OF
palmettos which grew hard by. lowered
their colossal heads to dead level with
Mac and issuing low moan, threat
ened with their huge horns to hurl Mac
into the meridian of time. 1t was not
that they had any particular nl-will
against Mac but they seemed Inclined
to the opinion that if they did Mac up
in good shape it would be better for
mankind and as stated. their heads
were level and SO they came snoring
on, their short, sharp breath kissing
through the tall Timothy.
CHAPTER ".
It was but the work of an instant for
Mac, the mammoth monster tanner, to
arrest the threatened onslaught OF the
now maddened megatheriums. What
would he do? you ask. H would SIM
ply announce his identity and then en-
Joy the humiliation of his pursuers as
they recoiled in horror before his words.
Accordingly posing gracefully one
hand in air and imperturbably stroking
his moustache with the other, he began
by commanding the infuriated animals
to stand back, and then knitting his
shaggy brows into a scrubbing brush,
he thundered forth the following.
CHAPTER v.
"H4ar me, We brutes and tremble
Know you who I am? Learn that 1
belong to the pioneer class. L am Mac,
the prairie prince OF pathfinders, the
wandering wonder of the wilderness.
the shaggy eyer trantler of the trail. |
am the foster brother of the original
wandering Jew. Cur vocations are
similar, only he is on different beat.
He is across the pond, aud his mission
is to visit cities and disseminate disease
and death. while l am Mac,
the Methuselah of the mountains,
the tried and trusty trapper of the
tooeles and my mission is To discover
countries and say nothing about it
until after they are settled and popu-
lous. and then to bob up Serenely with |
nv little story of many years age. You
Will therefore consider yourselves undsr
arrest; you may curl up and die now
and your COLOSSAL carcasses will lie
bleaching upon the plains until they be-
come fossils even as l, Mac, the ancient
antscedent of the earth, seer And now
to business. l came here to discover
you. Aha you are discovered.
CHAPTER vi.
So saying Mac dismounted and cut
ting swath Of high-priced hay off the
virgin soil for his horse and hastily par
taking of some megatherium soup for
supper, he threw himself heavily, for he
was very tired, into rheumatic swamp
so common in that section and after
making a brief entry in his diary with
the point of his bowie knife, dipped in
the fresh, warm blood of the dying
mammals, he fell into troubled sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
The abject eligibility of Macs hand
writing attested that he was man
learned in the law. The reader will
therefore not be surprised that the
scrap of diary which he wrote was drawn
up in due legal form: It ran as fol-
lows:
Know all men by these presents that
J, Moccasin Mac, the primeval party of
IQS uISl part ucluS " uboOuoO mihuS
have this day discovered all or the fol-
lowing described piece or parcel of
country, situate, lying and sticking
to-wlt in the Great Salt Lake Valley
and more particularly described
as follows: Beginning at a
point seven rods due north
of the Dad-Lands of Dakota and run
ing thence up Salt River to the south
east corner of No Mans Land, thence
sou herly along The Golden Shore of
the Sweet Long Ago, to the center of
an old Indian trail known as Pennsyl-
vania Avenue, thence nor by nor
west seventeen chains, three links. and
hop, skip AMI jump to the place of
beginning To have and to hold the
same, with the grass and the dew and
the lumb ago and all the appurtenances
belonging to said original discovery,
and I'll the establishment which may
hereafter be made thereunto by con-
slant repetition or otherwise, forever,
be the same more or less.
Witness the hand of Time and the great
seal OF the Sllurlan age this first day OF
the glad green Earth.
LSignedl MCCAIN Mac, the shrsWo
and shaggy shyster of Sheol.