The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-12-22

every mining camp for fifty miles
about, and more than one rich gallant
had laid his heart and his fortune at
her feet.
Mrs. Lanston, who had been wife
since her sixteenth year, would have
insisted on her daughters marriage at
this time, had not Frank Hobart in
duced the parents to send her for two
years to the best young ladies' semi
nary at Denver.
Prank Hobart mout a-married that
gal, if he'd jest had the cheek to tell
her that he loved her, as he most sar-
tinly does; but, like blamed eeiet, he
gets the Cap'n and Mrs. Lanston ter
send Ella off ter school at the other
side of the world. When she comes
back in two year, she won't know
Frank or no one else in the Glen, and
the chances is thousand ter one that
she'll be engaged to some dandy dude
or eastern tenderfoot."
This is what Sam Britton, the min
ing boss, said to his friends after Ella
had gone with her father and Frank to
Denver, and that is what all the MIN
ers believed.
Time flies fast with the aged and the
busy. 1t was Christmas eve, 1856, and
Lanston's Glen was in state of great
excitement. The "sagcbrush belle"
was coming over on the stage that
evening from Salt Lake City, and one
and all agreed to have ball at the
Grand Occidental hotel in honor of her
arrival.
During Elias absence Frank Hobart
had visited Denver once, but the camp
gossips were quite sure that he and the
young lady correspondent. but I'll
bet" Sam Britton would say. that
Frank amt never had the spunk to set
down in black and white the four
words: Ella, love you" And Sam
was quite right.
Capt Lanston went to Denver to
bring his daughter home, and it was
understood before he left that Howard
Ford, the son of the president of the
mine, who lived in Colorado City and
at whose home Ella had been a visitor,
would come back with them. Frank
Hobart brought, at his own expense, a
band from Salt Lake, to play at the
ball; and the day before Christmas eve
be drove into the mountains with his
Chinese servant and cut evergreens to
decorate the dining and ball rooms.
When the stage drove up with Ella,
her father and young Howard Ford, it
was greeted with a grand salute from
every gun and pistol in the glen. All
the miners were dressed in their best,
though this did not prevent prcpon-
derance of red shirts; and, following
Sam Britton's lead, they gave three
cheers and tiger for the 'sagebrus
belief"
Ella had grown taller and more come
ly, If that were possible. Two years
of careful culture and intellectual asso-
citation had destroyed the somewhat
hoydenish expression of her face, and
so rather repealed her old admirers,
with whom heartiness and bolster
Gus recognition went hand in hand.
81 wouldn't give shucks for Frank
Hobart as lover" growled Sam Brit
ton, after Frank had lifted Ella from
the stage. why, he didn't even kiss
her. after these years and all he's
done; and now she comes back this
blessed Christmas eve with dude,
Jest as SAID she would, two year ago."
AS compared with the rough miners
in and about the hotel at The glen Mr..
HOward Ford was a fashionabl exqui-
site. Although under medium height,
and five years Frank Hobart's junior,
he was not bad looking, and, being the
mine presidents son. he was at this
moment the most important man at
Lanston's Glen
There were tall, wholesome, bright
eyed girls by the score from the Glen
and the surrounding mopntain settle
ments at the Grand Occidental hotel