The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-05

years. Yet to one witnessing these
changes it seemed the life of whole
generation OF such settlements Red
Mountain Bar was one. Red Mountain
lay three miles above Swett's Bar, 'up
river" lived 'off and on" at the Bar"
in its dying days. saw it decay gently
and peacefully. 1 saw the grass, trees
and heritage gradually creep in and re-
sumo their sway all over its site as they
had done ere mans interruption.
lived there when the few ''boys" left
used daily, after the close of an IN
successful river season, to sit in a
row on log by the rivers edge, and
there, surveying their broken dam,
would chant curses on their luck.
The Bar store was then still in ex-
isteaace. Thompson was its proprietor.
The stock on hand had dwindled down
to whisky. The bar and one filled bot
tie alone survived. On rainy nights,
when the few miners left would gather
about the stove, Thompson would take
down his fiddle and fiddle and sing
"WEat can't be cured must be en-
dured," or 1.-The king into his garden
cam e; the spices smelt about the same
| a quotation of unknown authorship Of
neighbors, living in their cabins strung
| along the banks for half mile above
the store, there was Keen Fam, an
aged mercantile and mining Chinaman,
with colony about him of lesser and
facially indstinguishable countrymen
Of varying numbers. Second, "Old
Harry" an aged negro, skilled per-
former on the bugle and singer who
offered at times to favor us with what
he termed a ''little ditto" He was the
Ethiopic king Of knot of Kanakas
gathered about him. Third, Bloody
Bill, so called from his frequent use of
the sanguinary adjective, and, as may
be guessed, an Englishman. Fourth,
an old Scotchman, one of the
Bars oldest inhabitants, who would
come to the store with the little bit of
gold dust, gathered after a hard days
''crevicing," complaining that gold was
getting as scarce as ''the grace of God in
the Heelands of Scotland" Fifth, Nc
Farlane a white bearded old fellow, an
other pioneer, who after yearly venture
into some strange and distant locality to
change his luck" was certain event
ually to drift back again to the Bar,
which he regarded as home. Down the
river, nestled high up in steep and
picturesque gulch, stood the buckeye
embowered cabin of old Jonathan
Brown, the ditch tender, great reader
of weekly 'story papers," who lived like
a boy in the literature of the Western
Frontier Penny Awful, and who, COM
ing to the store and perching himself on
the counter, would sometimes break out
in remarks about how "Them thar In
dams got the better Of 'em at last" to
the astonishment of the "boys," who |
imagined at first that he referred to In |
dians in the locality, suggesting posi-
bilities of repetition Of the great Oak |
Flat uprising of 1850.
At the top of the HILL" mile and |
half away, stood the Yankee RANCH" |
kept by busting, uneasy and rather
uncomfortable man from Massachusetts, |
aided by his good natured, easy going
son-in-law. One rainy winters day the |
boys" congregated about Thompson's
store became seized with whim for the
manufacture of little pasteboard men
turning grindstones, which, fastened to
the stove, were impelled to action by
the ascending current of hot air. So
they smoked their pipes and wrought all
day until the area of stovepipe became
thickly covered with little pasteboard
men busily turning pasteboard grind
stones. Then George M. c., the son.
in-law of the Yankee ranch, came down
the hill to borrow an ak.
George was of that temperament and
inclination to be of all things charmed
with warm stove on q cold, rainy day,
a knot of good fellows about it, fire.
quent pipe of tobacco, maybe an occa-
slonal punch and the pleasing manufgct-
ure of hot air driven little pasteboard
men turning pasteboard grindstones. He
forgot his ax-sat down and began with
the rest the manufacture of pasteboard
men and grindstoneS. And he kept on
TIL late hour of the night, and staid
at the Bar all night and all the next day
and that next night, until the stovepipe
was covered TO its very top with little
men, all working away for dear life
turning grindstones; and on the second
day of his stay the exasperated father-in- {
law suddenly appeared aud delivered :
himself in impatient invective with re- '
gard 10 srlch conduct on the part of a
son-in-law sent forty-eight hours pre- /
vlously 10 borrow an ak. Such was the c
circle Oft gathered on the long, rainy /
winters eve about the Thompson store 9
stove. All smoked. Keen Fam fire. c
ouently dropped in. He stood respect V
uIy. as heather should IN such a T
Christian assemblage. on its outer edge, b
II hUmbly appropriated some unoccupied Y
IeS, and for the rest-grinned. From $
III little piggy eyes 70 his double chin a
Aeen's face was permanently settled s
hin. z
Keen Fam had learned about twenty O
Words Of English and would learn no I.
more. In his estimation these twenty O
words. variously used. after SORT $,
i grammatical Kaleidoscope fashion, c
eemed adequate to convey everything q
equlred- One of his presumed English
IMPRESSIONS long puzzled the boys. Ask Z