Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1894-08-10

uN I n: !: n e; s;.:'::;:, $s:s s:':s,
beer. The windows had all been
thrown open to admit the night air,
which, from radiation, becomes
quickly freshened in dry climates,
set, and bathes the thick-wnlled.
adobe buildings, tempering them and
making them habitable, and, il closed
in the early morning, seem cloisters
of coolness-welcome refuge, after
drill or duty done In the glare and
pitiless heat of day. No other mater
tal known to architecture so well re-
sists the penetrating ardor of untem-
pered rays shed in southern summer
by cloudless sun; for adobe is of
mother earth, the grand conservator
of heat and cold, and, like her, makes
stubborn resistance to changing tenn
perature.
The walls of the building now
seemed hot and exhaled through the
room the expiring heat of day. Stand
ing near them, hot air was breathed
on the face like the slow, warm
breath of q great animal sinking into
silent sleep. The sun had set, and
the dimness of twilight was creeping
from the valley over the foothills
and rising in shadowy cones of noun
tain purple up the pine-clad slopes be-
yond, spreading over forests that
framed the base of frozen bsstions,
whose faded whiteness, seen in fail
ing light, was that of SHOWS a sunset
had left cold. The curtains and
fanks of natures grand redoubt were
no longer visible, for the fugitive
after-glow had faded into gray, and
the sharp tracery of the divide was
lost for want of light.
Through the open window we could
see the sentry-lamps, just lighted, bor-
dering the rectangle of the bare
parade-steady, sultry, and yellow,
town. Around each, as far as the illu-
mination extended, lay disk of yell
low where the white parade had taken
up the tone of light that fell upon it.
Certainly in each disk lay a circular
shadow, cast by the base of the lamp.
On the side of the general bar-room
light near the door of the traders
store illuminated the compound as far
as the troop corral, where stable
guard paced the gravel in his rounds
past the heavy gates, challenging and
admitting mounted parties returning
from duty or from pass.
1t was shortly after dinner, and, be-
ing yet warm, the game had not grown
hilarious. Davis, out post-surgeon,
had not joined in the play. That
afternoon he had been shooting fool
quail on the mesquite fiat up the ella;
he was late at mess, so had missed the
arrival of the weeks mail, this being
Friday; and, still in shooting jacket,
was seated at the reading-table, look
ing over news contained in latest New
York papers, now ten days old, and
opening his letters.
81 thought l heard firing toward
Mackay" David had walked across
the room and was standing near an
open window. He spoke quietly to
the traders clerk, still giving the
alert attention of one uncertain that
he has heard a sound.
Mackay was an adobe village ad-
joining the garrison, where soldiers
became intoxicated and were then
robbed, for the territorial laws were
getting severe and 1t was not wise to
rob men sober.
Several shots fired in quick success
sion confirmed the doctors opinion;
there was pause in the poker game,
q shutting back of chairs, and some
one said: Remember, Jones, 1t was
your ante" as we Joined the surgeon
at the window.
The shooting had ceased, ana in the
village we could now hear the barking
of dogs, the hurrying of feet, and the
sound of an unshod horse galloping
over soft earth on the fat leading up
to the post. A moment later the
horse was halted under the sentry's
challenge at the corral, and a cowboy,
clad as on rodeo came into the gen.
eral bar and asked for the post-sur-
geon, saying, as Davis entered: Doc,
they've had scrap at the Harmony,
and need you and undertaken" Be
spoke with the short, quick breath of
one who has hastened.
THE undertaking can wait" said
Davis; but I'll go down at once.
Ride around to the hospital and tell
the steward to bring my operating
case and bandages to the Harmony.
I'll walk; you can overtake me-"
l accompanied Davis to the village,
distant few hundred yards and COM
prising double row of square adobe
fats along the Gale Audea, an un-
paved street lined with dcequids, now
dry. but containing a few Lombardy
poplars whose pivotal leaves were too
languid to futter, so still was tho
night air. There were no lights in the
streets, and in the most of houses they
had been extinguished as soon as the
firing began; the few that remained
shone through windows opened to adj
NIT the air and fell in RECTANGULAR
patches on the bare adobe footpath be-
tween the buildings and the dcequtd.
These desultory illuminations made
the rest of the street seem dark,
though, from the splendid starlight
summer nights in Arizona are never
really SO.
We were guided to the Harmony by
the tramp of feet and the sound of
voices at the lower end of the street,
and as we walked toward it and en-
tered the darkened space which sue
ceeded the illumination from solitary
window, we stumbled over what, on ex-
animation, proved to be the body of
man, lying where he had stumbled
over the edge of the dcequid in crossing
the street. We turned him over, and
Davis, on examination, found that he
was dead, being shot through the base
of the neck. We left him lying where
we found him and hurried on to the
Harmony, which, together with the
portion of the street directly in front
of it, must, when we got there, have
contained every inhabitant of the vii
lage. even to the last Chinaman and