The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1892-05-01

summit, on turning sharp corner, the
ropes or coats or something caught against
a ]utting wall of rocks, and down. down!
down! tumbled the poor donkey, hundreds
heels!
All stood aghast for moment. And
then suddenly Laughing Joe threw back
his bare, black head, opened his immense
mouth and laughed and laughed as never
laughed man before or since. But harkl
What sound was that? necho? No. From
away down y0nder on the narrow, green
edge of the fOaming, silver Sacramento
River loud and long and son0rous voice
IS lifted in answer to the voice OF Laughing
Joe. Tho faithful little donkey! But it
took Hugh Slicer to tell this. He was tell
ing 1t only a few days ago to Judge Rose
borough. Sam Merritt. Billy Kent and others.
He said, Never was mu ic so sweet, so
pialntive and s0lemnlTke as was the voice
OF that Jackass away down there in that
bottomless and God abandoned canyon"
Sheer says they at once decided TO not
leave the little fellow there to be eaten by the
Indians, ana he aud another went back and
around and around, and finally reached him
and got him out, while the rest of the crowd
hShed up coats out OF the treetops. This
one incident must stand for sample
picture of Hugh Steers character-strong,
tender, appreciatiye. He was not all head
by any means. The fact is he was far more
heart than head.
The miners never blamed him In the
least fer the part he took against them in
the Greenhorn war. What You: never
heard about tile Greenhorn war? All, / for
got We are nearly all dead. 1t was in
f854-55 We were nearly all Oregonians
ia Greenhorn; miners. In .Yreka all the
merchants, lawyers, county officers. ard
so on, p0ked fun at us. We did not
like the Californians; - they did not
like u.s. They took our water from
E,-na L., o.. l.
tanned them. Then we tore out their dams.
Then Dave Cotton, the Sheriff (afterward
General D: ID. Colton) caught two of our
menin Yreka and threw them in jail ;; and
we went in a body, several hundred strong,
TO take them out: Cotton had summoned
Slicer. then president Of the bank, along
with others: to his aid. As we. came up
they, were ready, Cotton. Will "a shotgun, in /.
the door: :. =. ::
Slicer stepped in front: of Cotton. facing
dozens of pistols, and spoke to US kindly
and wisely; and the boys shouted with de-
light, for they all liked him.. He had
bought their gold dust bushels of it, aud
to stop, bat We couldn't. for hundreds were:
crowding down on US from behind. Then
Cotton fired, and a lot OF US fell as lie fired,
kept firing along with others. .Of course,
we snapped shots with Cotton. Slcer fell,
shot through the hip and elsewhere. Col
out, but got deal the worst of the
fight; and taking up our dead went back
TO Greenh0rn and built barricades. But
both parties cried quits soon, we keeping
the water by day and letting it go to Yreka
by night. When | went to see Slicer few
weeks after he was still suffering much. His
brother Charles, now in: Oakland, was with
him, alternating between his, bedside and
the duties Of buying gold-dust at the bank,
like the good brother that he always as.
Slicer' was: not only utterly fearless but
always very wise and cool. AS an instance,
more than thirty years after this trouble
Slicer had somehow gotit into his head that
one certain man of that mob was theman
WHO shot him. This man came to hear it.
Trouble was expected. Slicer and the man
met in Kent's saloon, Oakland: - ~.
Look here, Mr.. SliceF, why are you
telling it around town that am the one
who shot you?"
well, some one OF y0hr crowd did it;
and as man always prefers being shotby
gentleman instead of scrub, and as all
the world knows you area gentleman, sir,
why. I will you take drink, sir?"
But enough, and more than enough of all
this. bring these little incidents up out
of the dead past aud: lay them tenderly,.
reverently on the grave of a good man..
hard worker; one who did much for the
State He was a tremendous toller, mot
only in the head and heart but with his
naked hands,. And for this, among other
things, / loved him.: believing IL to. be the
best for man aud nation: :r.
Once, weary of town.. he went to his
ranch, threw off his coat and set tOwork
helping build an adobe wall. He forgot or
neglected to take a costly ring from his
finger Some one who inherits or purchases
that ranch will get a thousand dollar dia-
mond ring along with an adobe wall. Fare
well. old friend, tiil-to-m0rrow? -
Joaquin MILLER.