The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-10-17

THREE FORMIDABLE FOES.
prove to be his own best customer. But |
they beered him and cheered him off with
Teutonic camera6 erie, and in due time the
ex-soldier found himself in that Mecca of
the worlds adventures, San Francisco.
Although convivial in his nature, Franz
had in him much of the race thrift, so that
when he reached the mines in Placer coun-
ty he had still on hand few hundred dol
lars of the back pay received when he left
the service. He found board with widow,
a country woman, whom he married before
he had been a week at the diggings. There
were five children by former husband,
but Franz regarded a ready made family as
rather an advantage.
Soon after his marriage the diggings
were practically abandoned for the want of
water, but while single men could m>ke up
their packs and start off on short orders
Franz found the wife and children impede
ments requiring more capital and prepare
ton.
After due consultation with his wife, who
had little money, it was decided to turn
the boarding house into a hotel for the &C
commodation of prospectors going into the
mountains with fortunes in their hearts or
coming back about broke.
Mrs. Loeb's first husband was Mexican,
and he had Mexican's fondness for the
adobes or sun dried bricks of his native
land. There were the house, one story
structure, the stable and half dozen little
outhouses clustered about, all constructed
Of adobe, the clay for which the builder
found in pocket along the bank of the
creek, in the bed of which, by the way,
water flowed for only six weeks in the year.
., Al
attendant camp followers, in the shape of
gamblers and dance hall women shook the
dust Of Grouse Guloh from tLeir fee. and
hied them to some more promising diggings,
the inevitable heather Chinese showed up
in mysterious swarms and settled down to
make fortunes in the abandoned camp.
With the first advent of the Mongols
Franz Loeb was inclined to regard them
favorably, but as they never ordered meal
or a beer at his house he soon found him
self treating them with more than the hate
born of race prejudice.
During the three months following the
advent of the Chinese Franz Loeb's bust
ness as hotel keeper amounted to next TO
nothing, and as beer, at least so he thought,
would not keep forever, he soon became his
own best customer, and his wife followed a
close second. Suddenly, and to his great
surprise, the Chinese began flocking into
the bar of the Imperial Nevada hotel every
night. They filled all the chairs and squat
ted ON the floor, and they developed an in
ordinate liking fer vile cigars and bottled
beer, while they generously insisted that
the landlord and Mrs. Loeb should join
them, which, with an eye to profit and
pleasure, they invariably did,
This went ON for a month and Franz was
m hioh snirts but a clou6 CANA oyar ba
sunshine of his prosperity when his wife
came into the bar one day and cried out; Z.
Scott ina himmel, Franz De wallis oaf
dem oudhouses is all goned, unit de sthable!
Unit some one, SO help me krashus, peen
diggin into de walls oaf de Imberial Nifada
hotell'
Franz broadly limited that the last bottle
of beer had unduly excited his wife's i'm
agination, but to be sure of this he went
out and looked over the ground for him
self Mrs. Loeb was right. All the adobe
outbuildings were carried away, and the
marauders evidently intended treating the
hotel in the same way.
Ids dem cussed Shineeze!" cried Franz.
bud vot for shall dey stheal unit garry off
dem NUT walls alreatyf"
He could not answer the question, neither
could Mrs. Loeb. So they stood and looked
at each other with the awed expression of
people about to become homeless.
That night the Chinese, now regular
visitors, put in an appearance again, but
instead of the amiable landlord ready to
draw the corks and fill their glasses they
were confronted by woman with cary
ing knife, a bulldog with one eye and that
bad one and an angry man with double
barrel shotgun raised to his shoulder.
Franz Loeb charged the men with the
theft of the outbuildings and with the in
tention of treating the hotel in the same
way, and they smiled knowingly for reply
but made no denial.
A man whose eyes were inserted with
more bias than that of his companions, and
who appeared to be the leader, instead oil
going out, as he was ordered, produced from
little bag $500 in gold, and pointing to il
said:
you ally same belly good man, Misss
Loeb. You savy me. You take money;
take hotel. Wat you say, Missa LoebS"
Coon back tomorrow, unit We talk mic
ourselves" replied Franz as he motioned
the man to the door with his gun and fol
lowed him out,
On getting into the moonlight outside
Franz Loeb's anger exceeded all bounds
for he discovered that the Cinnamon, whr
had left In obedience to his first command
were actually razing the hotel walls moi
three feet from the head of his own bed
He shouted to the dog to follow the flying
thieves, which the creature did, and he &C
CELEBRATED their flight with two charges o
buckshot.
Puzzled to know why the wretches should
indulge in this kind OF wanton and unhearC
OF robbery, Franz and his wife gathered NJ
the bricks that had been dropped by tn
fugitives and carried them in and laid then
for dissection on the bar.
With Mrs. Loeb's knife Franz opene,
and broke up one of the bricks, but foun,
nothing unusual He tried others with tn
same result and was about to give up 4
disgust when, picking upa brick that ha