The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1892-06-09
OUR JIMs.
Story Of Two Miners Who Parted In Anger
and Peace Cana =. Iast

and Peace Came al Last.
We always spoke OF them as .pur
Jims They were two of the best
men in camp and best meant =,
good deal in those days. When the
Grange Gulch men came over to Jump
our claims it was our Jims who rallied
US to drive them of. leaving six dead
men to be buried in the evening.
When the toughs and roughs OF Old
Mans Hill laid claim to our digeiugs
and appeared two to one to driv, US
of, it was our Jims again who led the
van and enabled US to win the VIC
tory. E" v
Jim Whntp Jim what? / do not
know. No one bu6 themselves knew.
NOW and then some miner gave his
full name but we had no use for it.
We were Jim and Bill and Pete to
each other and that alone.
Our Jlms were not quarrelsome
men. Big men and brave men never
are. They tented together and were
''pards. y and how it came about that
tney fell out none of us ever learned.
One morning when they bad been
eent-mates for many months one Jim
packed up and left camp He had
nothing to- say-nothing beyond the
statement that ME and Jim is out"
The Jim who remained made no state.
ment whatever. Among ourselves
we said there had been hot word
dropped and picked up just when both
men were out OF sorts. It was hard
work that. hunting for gold. We
worked like slaves and lived far
worse. and terminates quarrelIed very
often.
In day or two we saw that the Jim
who remained was troubled in his
mind. He had been too proud to hold
out bis hand and ask the other Jim to
stay. but now it was hurting him.
he grew sullen and morose and now
and then he paused in his work and
looked up the trail with a longing
look in his eyes--longing to see the
other Jim returning to camp. Five
or SIX days had passed when China
man came into camp with a note for
dim. 1t was written with blackened
stick on piece of brown paper and
read:
JIM: It's case of smallpox, and won1,
ask you to come. It's just to say I'm sorry
we fell out, and to bid you goot-by jim.
1t took three Or four" OF us half an
hour to make out the badly written
and mlsspelled message and when we
had finished our jim walked away to
his tent and began to pack up The
snow clouds were banking up in the
west and 1t was plain that a bad
storm was at hand The other Jim
was twenty eight miles away. sick
and alone in a rude cabin at the
abandoned diggings OF Crazy Woman's
creek. The trail led over the noun
tain and through valleys thick with
scrub and rough with boulders, and
the Chlnaman was completely broken
down when he reached us
You won't start with that storm
coming on?" we said to Jim. as be
came out of his tent with a pack on
his back.
Jim wants me-good- bye" he re-
piled. and in five minutes he was out
OF sight.
An hour later we were all driven to
shelter, and for three days and nights
there was never break in the storm.
There wasn't a tent on the diggings
in sight when the fourth morning
came-every one showed out of sight.
If we hadn't been showed under we
should have been frozen to death by
the cutting winds. Jim couldn't have
made those twenty-eighr miles in less
than a day with no snow under his
| feet We knew that he must have
| persisted in that storm before mid
night
1t was long three weeks before
the snow went off, says tho Detroit
Free Press and then two of us went
up the trail All day long we looked
for the dead body of Jim, who had
started out before the storm. but we
did not discover it. An hour before
dark we came to the abandoned dig
gings and caught sight of the single
shanty left standing. We should find
the other Jim in there dead Step by
step we advanced dreading to look in.
yet feeling that we must The door
was fast but the fierce gusts had
torn loose some of the light boards at
a corner and we had view of the in
terror. Lying on blanket-on the
earth. with another partly covering
them. and lying face to face with an
arm over each other. we're two dead
| men-our Jims. The one who had
sent the Chlnaman might have been
| raving in delirium when the othe"
| reached him through that awful
storm. but he heard his voice and
| knew it. The one who fought his way
over the snow bound trail. stumbling.
falling, praying-buoyed up by the
hope he would not be too late could
do nothing after his journey was ended
nothing but to lie down and die be-
side his partner.
A in