The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1890-01-18
A MINER SUNDAY
A Memory Picture From WAY
Back in the sos"
PRENTICE MULFORDS NOTE BOOK
The Miners Morning Sabbath Thoughts.
How He Adorned Himself--Where He
Went--Sunday Devotions--MOre Poker
Than Praise--"Csmp"-Cam Talk.

They may pass along the street about
the middle of the afternoon, and such
s'ragging out" was never seen before In
this camp. The curious have investigat-
ed the tracks made by their little CATERS
in the red dust of the upper road, and
report them the smallest feet ever seen
In this section. Billy Devins, OF the
Blue iay claim, is thought to haze the
hest show with the eldest, and COLDER
~. of the livery stable, with the young
est. No. lie won't let his best horse
and buggy to anybody now, and takes
her out riding three times week. But
they're snappy and uncertain, and no.
body can count on them for certainty.
So runs the weeks news, which he picks
up with sundry drinks.
He enjoys the luxury of hotel din
ner-a dinner he is not obliged to pre-
mare with his own hands-a decidedly
plain dinner in metropolitan estimation,
but to him, commencing with soup and
ending with pie, a sumptuous repast.
1t is moonlight, and he takes his way
back by the old trail home. Old not in
years, but in association. 1t is but the
track of twenty years or so, yet for him
how old is it in thought. How many,
many times he has Travelled over it.
That poker game is going on in one
corner of the Magnolia. The "hard
case" from over the hill is trying to beat
it. He has been 30 trying every Sunday
night in that same saloon and in that
same corner for the last twenty years.
He has grown old in trying. 1t has kept
him poor, yet he thinks he can play
poker. He is encouraged in this i'm
preston by Q considerate few. He
works for them. They scoop him in"
regularly. He will go home tomorrow
morning, and during the week wash out
q couple of ounces more for the benefit
of "Scotty" and Texas"
1t is II o'clock and time to go home.
That three mile walk is before him; he
has taken as many drinks as is prudent,
possibly one or two more. The camp
saloon revelries are beginning to quiet
down. Most Of the prominent DRINKS
have fallen in the cause. The chronic
drunk of the camp is talking at the bar.
But he will thus talk all night; he never
stops talking-or drinking. He has been
here more or less drunk ever since 1852.
He is phenomenal and not standard for
ordinary incorporates. Almost every
camp has known such drunkard. Some
are alive yet. They are of the immortal
few not born to die. 1t would be mad
ness to compete with such.
So he sets out on his lonely walk. OF
how much has he thought while plod-
ding over it. Here the same big buck
eye brushes against his face as it did in
the "spring of 49," when he was twenty
years younger and had sweetheart in
the Estates" whose memory was fresh
and warm. 1t has all died out since
The letters became less and less, the
years more and more, and then all came
to dead standstill, and he received the
village paper, and there, appropriately
below the column of deaths, he read of
her marriage, whereat he went to camp
and plunged wildly into all the concert
saloon could give, and made things howl
and boldly challenged the chronic poker
game and won.
The trail turns suddenly. 1t has run
over the rocks by the river, it's trail at
times for many feet almost illegible,
vague, smoothly worn streak over ledge
and loose powders, polished and strewn
with new white sand and pebbles by
some unusually high freshet. But here
the shelving bank suddenly ceases 1t
becomes precipice. Up the hard worn
path in the red earth he climbs forty,
fifty, sixty feet. 1t is closely hedged
with chemisal. Now he energies near
the brow of the high, rocky bluff. In
all its moonit glory surges, bubbles and
roars the river below. Its yellow muddi-
ness of the day Is now changed to dark
shade of brown, with tremulous silver
bars. Night and the moon are the art
lists 49,