The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1892-01-29

GINGER"


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
grange it was that all her friends should
eonspire TO keep her shut up in that
gloomy ranch house back under the
hill, when such strange and delightful
places were to be found just on the ont
side Of it.
The sun was high in the eloudless
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 pangent edor that
reminds you of old New England gar
dens, shut in 5y picket palings and
filed with beds of sage, thyme, rue, law
ender aud all the aromatic herbs cur
grandmothers knew and yalued-yet is.
withal, a wild. sweet perfume quite dis
tinctly its own
a little way out 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 one and base of another group OF
hills, wound its way down into the
canyon below, and was gladly accept
ed as a 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 .eots
writing letters. and the housekeeper.
who was deeply absorbed in the manu-
facture Of burberry jelly in the kitchen
had set out upon her travels.
Papa jack Papa Jack she sang IT
the top of her clear littlehoice, as she
wandered on, '.Goldy's comm to wide
on big toby along wild you, Papa jack
The prairie dogs came out and sat on
the roofs Of their houses and chartered
back at her: Il big RATHER" raised him
self into a few lazy coils and then sank
back under the protecting shadow OF Il
-greasewood; a lynx cat, stretched in a
crevice Of the ledge above, opened his
half shut eyes and blinked sleepiiy at
her; and the soft wind, s0ughing through
the tops Of the big pines that stood ev-
erywhere among the hills. caught up
the refrain-"Papa jack"
And so the words came just in time
to the cars 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 was "a cowboy Of the Crescent ont
fit and Goldy's papa's right hand man.
and though he was what Jack Fordham
sometimes called a "sulky brute no
better cowman ever coiled ii rope or be-
strobe a broncho. Jim-the name by
which his few and far between" letters
came addressed to the Oreana postoffice
was Cha. les Arthur Stakes but a
cowboy must needs be rechristened into
his rough calling, and since Charley, a
good name, and one we'll liked among
the boys, was ruled out of court b. the
fact that it belonged to him of right, he
was called Jim, and the lam suited
the man, and the man answered to the
name and 10 one demurred thereat.
Jim and his horse Ginger were worth
more on the round up" than any other
two boys or three ponies on the C~ottonois
or the Bijou, and Jim knew it as well as
everybody else on the river. He had
more thar once been offered "big money"
to take charge Of some rival outfit. but
Fordham had picked him up years be
fore away south on the Canadian when
he was dead broke bucking against his
luck at faro in julie Towards Place
in the Old Adobe Walls, and they had
staid together evor since that old time.
Ginger was the pride OF Jim'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
do at Jim's command you might be GER
tain that no horse could do. Rear till
you'd swear he was bound to fall back
ward and crush his rider; walk at Il nod
from Jim into Il saloon and knowingly
wink an eye at the man behind the bar,
and as for cows-holding, driving. haz-
ing or cutting out-he knew it as well
as his rider, and a great deal better if
his rider happened to be a green hand.
And now, as | said, horse and rider
were on top of the cut bank some twenty
feet above the road, along which trotted
little Goldy, lifting her small voice in
invocation of Papa Jack, scouting and
crashing along in hot pursuit Of a big
Texas steer that mad broken away from
beneath the branding iron, wild and
savage with pain and wilder and more
savage for tbs rough hazing given him
by Jim and Ginger.
The round mp had been working that
morning half a mile away across the
Cottonois; had Just made amp and at
that fateful moment Papa Jack" wal
saying, as he pulled the saddle from off
his tired horse:
s'I1l throw this onto lobe and lope
over to the ranch for dinner. It's only a
couple of miles; III be back before you
are fairly at work.
And so, with his coat thrown over his
arm and his right leg curled around the
pommel of the saddle, TO rest the tired
muscles, he galloped his fresh horse
easily up the slope from the Cottonois,
to see-his child, his golden haired baby,