The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1892-10-08
'GINGER."

Little Goldy strolled ~leisurely along
the smooth strip of road which runs
under the cut bank down to the crossing
of the Cottonois. thinking to herself how
beautiful everything was, and how
strange it was that all her friends should
conspire to keep her shut up in that
gloomy ranch house back under the
hill, when such strange and delightful
places We're to be found Just on the ont
side of it.
The sun was high i'll the cloudless
northern sky: but the soft breeze.
which came laden with the spicy breath
Of pines, lightly lifted the golden curls
under the brim of the old sun hat and
tempered its monday heat.
The short season Of summer bloom
was at its height, and lilies and wax
flowers were being crowded by golden
rod and the tall spikes of the yucca.
while the sagebrush exhaled. under the
heat of the sun, that pungent odor that
reminds You of old New England gar
dens, shut in by picket palings and
filled with beds of sage, thyme, rue, law
ender and all the aromatic herbs our
g~randmothers knew and v~alued-yet is,
withal, a wild, sweet perfume quite dis
tinctly its own.
A little way ont on the level which
topped the cut bank at the right lay the
foothills of the Antelope mountains,
rising and rounding against the dark
blue of the SKY, while on the other side
they fell as gradually into the plain be-
low. Between ran the road along one
of those lodges which. forming the top
OF n and base of another group Of
hills, wound its way down into the
canyon below, and was gladly accept
ed IS d highway ready to hand" by
the dwellers in these mountainous re-
gions; and upon this wild trail the little
maid. having slipped away from her
mamma, WHO was busy in her own room
writing letters, and the horsekeeper,
who was deeply absorbed in the manu-
facture of bulberry jelly in the kitchen,
had set out upon her travels.
Papa Jack! Papa jack" she sang at
the top of her clear little voice, as she
wandered On, ''Goldy's comm to wide
on big toby along wild you. Papa Jack!"
The pralroe dogs came out and sat on
the roofs Of their houses and chartered
back at her; a big '.rattler" raised MIN
self into a few lazy coils and then sank
back under the protecting shadow of a
greasewood: a lynx cat, stretched in a
crevice of the ledge above, opened his
half shut eyes and blinked sleepilv a.
her; and the soft wind, soughing through
the tops Of the big pines that stood CIV
erywhere among the hills, caught up
the refrain-"Papa Jack!''
And SO the words came just in time
to the ears of Jim, who was hazing a
long horned steer back to the bunch
which was being held for the work Of
the round up, half a mile away on the
other side of the Cottonois.
Jim vas d cowboy of the Crescent out
tit and Goldy's papa's right hand man.
and though he was what Jack Fordham
sometimes called a "sulky brute" nc
better cowInan even coiled a rope or be
strobe a broncho. Jim-the name By
which his few and far between letters
came addressed to the Oreana postoffice
was Charles Arthur Stakes but {.
cowboy must needs be rechristened into
his rough calling, and since Charley, a
good name, and II well liked among
the boys, was ruled out of court By the
fact that it belonged to him Of right. he
was called Jim, and the name suited
the man, and the man answered to the
name and no Il demurred thereat.
Jim and his horse Ginger We're worth
more on the round up than any otllel
two boys or three ponies on the Cottonoi
or the Bijou, and Jim knew it as well &c
everybody else on the river. He had
more than once been offered big money"
to take charge Of some rival outfit. hu.
Fordham had picked him up years be-
fore away south on the Canadian when
he was dead broke bucking against lii
luck at faro in julie Howard's Place
in the Old Adobe Walls, and they had
staid together ever since that old time.
Ginger was the pride of Jin's heart
the very apple of his eye. No common
broncho. but a clean built little mus
tang, with a record as a COW pony
brought from the wild Texas country
where jim found him. What he wouldn't