Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1890-02-21

cred to home privacy, defended nom
invasion by universal respect for the
decencies and duties of social life.
For more than fifteen years the
stranger( who, from the address on
his letters, had come to be known as
John Wilson, without even q Mr.. or
an Esq. lived in the old house, while
the land around it went to waste,
brush grew over the clearing, the
mountain brook wore a new course
for itself in freshets, and covered
what had been the garden behind the
house with broad sheet ofsand, dry,
hot, and white in the summer sun.
Now we come to the mystery.
One August day Josiah Bolson, q
farmer, drove up the-lane between the
naples to the door of the old house.
He went by appointment to get
from Mr.. Wilson some medicine
promised him for sick horse. He
knocked but got no answer. Then
he walked around the house. Across
the bed of sand, ON the edge of the
brook, he saw some one lying and
called out. The motionless figure
frightened him. He went nearer. 1t
was John Wilson, dead; shot through
the breast with pistol or rife bullet.
Josiah BolsOm was q selectman, in
telligent, judicious. dissatisfied him
self the man was dead, past help, then
went as fast as his horse could carry
him for the doctor, the minister and
three or four of the most intelligent
men he could pick up. In an hour or
two they reached the house
all together, and Josiah,
with much anxiety, bade them
follow in single file across the sand,
leaving footprints only where he had
before crossed it. They carried the
began an examination. There were
other footprints on the sand, which
was much trampled. Some of these
were made by the boots of the muir
dered man. Others were by boots of
a smaller size. For a long time these
two sizes of footprints were the only
ones found. AT length the doctor ut
tered an exclamation. He had found
a third sort of footprint, clearly q
woman's. 1t was small, and in those
days, when shoes were mostly hand
made, was recognized as the print of
what they called city shoe
In the house there was nothing to
attract notice. 1t was conjectured
that in the night time man and
woman had come, had called the sol
itary man out in the moonlight, had
held an interview of some kind with
him, which had ended with the pistol
shot. There were few facts on which
to found conjecture. The mystery of
this violent death now made his life
a mystery. Among his effects they
found nothing to Indicate who he
was, and there was therefore no one
| to whom the fact of his death could
be communicated "Shall we open
the next letter which comes to him
at the pOstoffice?" was q much-dis-
cussed question. 1t was useless dis
cussion, for, to increase the
mystery, no letter ever again came
addressed to him. How did his cor
respondents know that he was dead?
The entire contents. of the house
were sold by due process of law to
pay his funeral expenses, for he had
only trifle of money in his pocket
book. The minister bought the
pocket-book, and the only other
books found in the house, to wit, a
small Bible, and beautiful Antwerp
edition of Sophocles. In the Bible he
found an occasional marked passage
marked only with black dot of a
pencil on the margin. Each of these
passages had reference to the ingrat-
itude of children. The same style of
mark directed his attention to pass
ages of similar character in the Greek
tragedies. In after years the people
used to say that the minister found
something important in the pocket
book about the man. But this was
not till after the minister was dead,
and he had never spoken of such find.
All this happened fifty years ago.
How old were they whose footprints,
man and woman, marked their pres
ence and the probable guilt of one or
both in the murder of John Wilson?
Are they living still, old people, going
on heavily loaded with the weight OF
this ancient crime? Or have they
met the murdered man in n country
where all wrongs done here are sure
| tn no taI Inv /, II oa,, ,,ll;,.. ,,.>,,....