The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-09-20
SOME ODD STORIES

came Prosperous Hotel Keeper-A
en- Lining-Bricks and Nuggets.
copyright, 1898, by American Press Associa-
ton.
AS the name implies, Franz Loeb was a
German, at least by birth and descent, yet
he felt not little proud of being an Amer
lean by adoption. He had shown his 10y
atty to the United States by serving gal
lantiy during the civil war. Being of an
adventuresome disposition, he drifted out
west in 1866, with dim notion in his by
no means active brain that he would reach
California and make his fortune in the gold
mines of that state, as others had done be-
fore him. But" he said to the friends
who came down to the Pacif@ Mail steamer
to see him off for Colon, ''eef so pc CANT
tig dem COLT de rocks oud, den meppe so pc
I dakes yrow unit obens a peer saloon al
realty"
There was general but unexpressed
opinion among Franz's friends that in the
event of his starting a saloon he would
prove to be his own best customer. But
they beered him and cheered him off with
Teutonic cameraderie, 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 a 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
lha bod at tho TharA
were five children by former husband,
but Franz regarded ready made family as
rather an advantage.
Soon after his marriage the digg;ngs
were practically abandoned for the want of
water, but while single men could make 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 hotel for the ac-
commodation of prospectors going into the
mountains with fortunes in taeir hearts or
coming back about broke.
Mrs. Loeb's first husband was a Mexican,
and he had a Mexican's fondness for the
adobes or sun dried bricks of his native
land There were the house, a one story
structure, the stable and half dozen little
outhouses clustered about, all constructed
of adobe, the clay for which the builder
found in a pocket along the bank of the
creek, in the bed of which, by the way,
water flowed for only six weeks in the year.
AS soon as the white miners and their
attendant camp followers, in the shape of
gamblers and dance hall women, shook the
dust of Grouse Gulch from their feet anl
HE'D 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 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 focking into
the bar of the Imperial Nevada hotel every
night They filed all the chairs and squat
ted on the floor, and they developed an in
ordinate liking for 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 month, and Franz was
in high spirits, but cloud came over the
sunshine of his prosperity when his wife
came into the bar one day and cried out:
Scott i'm himmel, Franz! De walls oaf
dem oudhouses is all goned, unit de sthable!
Unit some one, so help me krashus, peen
Giggin into de wallis oaf de Imberial Nifada
hoteln
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 ShineezeF' cried Franz.
"Bud vot for shall dey stheal unit garry off
dem NUT walls alreaty?"
He could not answer the question. neither
could Mrs. Loeb. Sothey stood and looked
ut each other with the awed expression of
people about to become homeless.
That night the Chinese, now regular
visitors, put in ar appearance again, but
instead of the amiable landlord ready to
draw the corks and fill their glasses they
were confronted by woman with carv-
ing knife, bulldog with one eye and that
a 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 Of
going out, as he was ordered, produced from
q little bag $500 in gold, and pointing to it
said:
''You ally same belly good man, Missa
Loeb. You savy me. You take money; I
take hotel Wat you say. Missa Loeb?"
''Goom back tomorrow, unit We talk mid
ourselves" replied Franz as he motioned
the man to the door with his gun and fol-