Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-05-20

Anger, aud How Peace Came at Last.
We always spoke of them as Our
Jims" They were two of the best
men in camp. and best" meant a
good deal in those days. When the
Orange Gulch men came over to
lump our claims it was Our Jims who
rallied us to drive them off, leaving
six dead men to be buried in the
evening. When the toughs and
roughs of Old Mans Hill laid claim
to our diggins and appeared two to
one to drive US off it was Our Jims
again who led the van and enabled
us to win the victory.
Jim whol Jim whatl do not know.
No one but 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 Jims were not quarrelsome
men. Big men and brave men never
are They tented together and went
"parls," and how it came about that
they fell out none OF us ever learned.
One morning, when they had been
terminates for many months, one jim
packed up and left camp. He had
nothing to nothing beyond the
statement that Me and Jim is out
The Jim who remained made no
statement whatever. Among our
selves we said there had been a hot
word dropped and picked up just
when both men were out of sorts. 1t
was hard work that, hunting for
gold We worked like slaves and
lived far worse, and terminates quar-
relied very often.
In a day or two we saw that the
Jim who remained was troubled in
his mind He had been too proud to
hold out his hand and ask the other
jim to stay, dut 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 cyes-longing to
see the other Jim returning to camp.
Five or six days had passed when a
Chinaman came into camp with
note for Jim. 1t was written with a
blackened stick on piece of brown
paper and read:
JIM-It's a case Of smallpox and won't ask
you TO come. It's just to say I'm sorry we fell
out, and to bid you goodby. jim.
1t took three or four of us half an
hour to make out the badly written
and misspelled message, and when
we had finished Our Jim walked
away to his tent and began to pack
up. The snowcloudB were banking
up in the west and it was plain that
a bad storm was at hand. The other
Jim was twenty-eigbt miles away,
sick and alone in rude cabin at the
abandoned diggings of Crazy WON
ans creek. The trail led over the
mountain and through valleys thick
with scrub and rough with bowlders,
and the Chinaman was completely
broken down when he reached us.
"You won't start with that storm
coming on?" we said to jim, as he
came out of his tent with pack on
his back
Jim wants me-goodby," 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 a break in
the storm. There wasn't 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 TWEEN
ty-eight miles in less than day with
no snow under his feet. We knew
that he must have perished in that
storm before midnight.
1t was a long three weeks before
the snow went off, 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 aban-
doned diggings 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 a view of the interior.
Lying on a blanket-on the earth,
with another partly covering them,
and lying face to face with an arm
over each other, were two dead men
Our Jims. The one who had sent
the Chinaman might have been raw
ing in delirium when the other reach
ed him through that awful storm.
but he heard his voice and knew it,
The one who fought his way over the
snowbound trail, stumbling, falling,
praying buoyed up by the hope he
would not be too late, could do moth
ing after his journey was ended
nothing but to lie down and die be-
side his partner. Detroit Free Press. |
The First AllusiOn to the Horse.