Connecticut western news., 1890-01-08

proud of it, although neither himself nor any one in his house could play upon it. He had hundreds of beauti- fully bound books in his library that were no more value to him for any use he could make of them than the stars in Orion's belt. Sandy's magni- ficence extended not only to his house and immediate surroundings, but it reached out in grateful recognition to the mine that had made him rich. In the mill that was built to crush the precious ore the beams were of mahog- any, and the wood, the cost of which was trebled by the expense of getting it over the mountains, was lavishly used in the whole structure. It made no difference that the flying dust and powdered rock hid it from sight; Sandy could spit on his large rough hand and rub it off if the mcredulous visitor doubted and must see the wood itself.
 So lived Sandy Bowers in pleasure and ease, and day by day his wealth multiplied. Seated on the porch of his mansion, his eye roved over the beauti- ful garden he had made to blossom in the desert, and beyond he beheld the growing city nearer the bright blue waters of Washoe. The imaginative eye beheld in the future populous metropolis grown from the village of his making; Ophir still pouring out of its deepening depths and endless stream of silver and gold, and he himself en- toying the sunny days of his old age in his garden grown more beautiful.
 Bowers mansion still has local habitation and 8 name, but only the ghost of it's former beauty survives and casts over it the consuming shadow of decay. The little lake is empty and dry, the walls of masonry have crumbled down, and the shifting sands have crept in upon it. The lizard and horned toad live there now, and the snake winds his length along where then the goldfish swan and the carp turned his sides to the sun. The gray spirit of the desert comes to reclaim his own, and the sagebrush has crept up from the plain below and down from the hill above over the once beautiful spot. The grass and the trees have found no life in the moistureless soil, and for all the rare flowers that once lent the air the fragrance of their breath there is now to be found only the pink wild rose.
 The sombre desolation of the hills has encroached upon the place, and holds it now as firmly as if man had never made it beautiful. The house is deserted and ruined, and all the many chambers open to the winds and the rain. The ophir of Sandy's time is now as worthless as the ophir of the Cd1 111Ci odySs W dSuOC1 IAS1C SCOOu O bustling town of many thousand peo- pie, is to-day as deserted and dead as is Bowers mansion. Sagebrush grows where once were streets, and those who chung to the place, hoping against hope that fortune might revive and Ophir might again pour out into it's lap the millions that it did, tore down houses for fuel and sadly bided the hoped-for-time. But the dust set tied on them while they waited, and they, too, at length gave up the fight and rendered Washoe back to nature.
 Half way up the steep side of the hill that rises abruptly behind Bowers mansion, under great large pine trees, in whose waving branches the wind murmurs a requiem, Sandy Bowers slceps.-Kansas City Times.