The Red Cloud chief., 1892-12-23

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 a wife
since her sixteenth year, would have
insisted on her daughters marriage Mt
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.
''Frank Hobart mout unmarried nat
gal, If he'd jest had the check to tell
her that he loved her, as he most sar-
tinly does; but, like n blamed eejet, 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 n thousand ter n that
she'll be engaged to some dandy dude
or eastern tenderfoOt."
This is what Sam Britton, the min
ing boss, said 10 his friends after Ella
had gone with her father and Frank to
Denver, and that is what all the MN
ers believed.
Time flies fast with the aged and the
busy. 1t was Christmas eve, 1886, and
Lanston's Glen was in a state of great
excitement. The ''sagebrush belle
was coming over on the stage that
evening from Salt Lake City, and one
and all agreed to nave a 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 corresponded. But III
bet" Sam Britton would say. ''that
Frank amt never had the spuuk to set
down in black and white the four
words: ELLA, / love YOU" And SAN
was quite right.
Capt. Lanston went to Denver &c
bring his daughter home, and it was
understood before he left that Howard
Ford, the son of the president OF the
mine, who lived liz Colorado City and
at whose home Ella had been a visitor,
would come back with them. Frank
Hobart brought, at his W expense, 8
band from Salt Lake, to play Mt the
ball; and the day before Christmas eve
he drove into the mountains with hi
Chinese servant and cut evergrecns Il
, decorate the dining and ball rooms
, When the stage drove up with Ella
. her father and young Howard Ford,
I was greeted with a grand sahte from
every gun and pistol in the glen. Al
the miners were dressed in their best
. though this did not prevent IL prepon
derance of red shirts; and, following
Sam Britton's lead, they gave thre'
cheers and a tiger for the ''sagebrusI
belief"
Ella had grown taller and more come
", il that were possible. Two year
of careful culture and intellectual assc
citation had destroyed the somewha
= h~oydenish expression of her face, an
so rather repealed her old admirers
with whom heartiness and a bolster
Gus recognition went hand In hand.
a 81 wouldn't give shucks for Fran
Hobart as n lover" growled Sam Bri
ton, after Frank had lifted Ella froi
% the stage. "Why, he didn't even kis
her, after these years and all he
done; and now she comes back tn
"a blessed Christmas eve with a dud'
n lest as I SAID she would, two year ago
n AS compared with the rough mine
G. in and about the hotel ut the glen M
10 Howard Ford was a fashionable exqu
site. Although under medium beigh
"a and five years Frank Hobart's JUNO
,o he was not bad looking, and, being IL
,r mine presidents son, he was ut Tn
10 moment the most important man
\. Lanston's Glen.
h. There were tall, wholesome, brigh
eyed girls by the score from the OLD
and the surrounding mountain scttl
ments at the Grand Occidental hot