The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-23
In AN ARIZONA TAVERN.
THRILLING EXPERIENCES OF A
NEWLY-ARRIvED TENDERFooT.
Then He Made Old Ephraim Cut
Pigeon Wings For the Crowd.

[Owen Wister, in Harper's Magazinel.
Ephraim, the proprietor of Twenty
Mile, had wasted his day in burying
a man. He did not know the name.
He had found him, or what the Apach-
es had left of him. sprawled among
some charred sticks just outside the
Canyon del Orc. It was useful dis
covery in it's way, for otherwise Eph-
rain might have gone on hunting his
strayed horses near the canyon and
ended among charred sticks himself.
Very likely the Indians wer far away
by this time but he returned to the
Twenty Mile with the man tied to his
saddle, and his pony nervously snort
ing. And now the day was done and
the man lay in the EARTH and they had
even built fence around him; for the
hole was pretty shallow, and coyotes
have a way of smelling this sort of
thing a long way off when they are
hungry, and the man was not in a
coffin. They were always short of
collins in Arizona.
! Day was done at Twenty Mile, and
the customary activity prevailed inside
that f1at-roofed cube of mud. Sounds
) of singing, dancing and Mexican tunes
on the concertina came out of the win
dows hand in hand to- widen and die
among the hills. A timber, pretty boy
who might be 10, was dancing ener-
getically. while a grave old gentleman
with tobacco running down his beard,
pointed a pistol at the boys heels and
shot hole in the earth now and then
to show that the weapon was really
loaded Everybody was quite used to
all of this excepting the boy. He was
an eastern newcomer passing his first
IN a q Tl1o nf an a inn nj
! Night in and night out every guest
at Twenty Mile was either happy and
full of whisky, or else his friends were
making arrangements for his funeral.
There was water at Twenty Mile-the
only water for two score of miles. Con-
sequently it was an important station
on the road between the southern coun-
mines north of the MescaI range. The
stunt liquor-perfumed adobe cabin lay
on the ground floor of the desert like
an isolated slab of chocolate. A corral
two desolate stable sheds and the
slowly turning wind mill were all else.
Here Ephraim and one or two help
ers abode. armed against Indians and
selling whisky. Variety in their voca-
ton of drinking and killing was
brought them by the travellers. These
passed and passed through the glazing
vacant months-s5me days only one
ragged fortune hunter, riding a pony;
again by two and threes, with high
loaded burros; and sometimes they
came in companies, walking beside
their clanking freight wagons. Some
were young and some were DID, and all
drank whisky and wore knives and
guns to keep each other civil. Most of
them were bound for the mines, and
some of them sometimes returned. No
man trusted the next man, and their
names. when they. had any, would be
O'Rafferty, Angus Schwartzmeyer,
Jose Maria and Smith. All stopped
for one night, some longer, remaining
drunk and profitable to Ephraim; now
and then one stayed permanently, and
had fence built round him. Whoever
came and whatever befell them, Twen-
ty Mile was chronically hilarious after
tsundown-a dot of riot in the dumb
Arizona night.
On this particular evening they had
a tenderfoot. The boy, being now in
Arizona, still trusted his neighbor.
4 Such people turned up occasionally
This one had paid for everybody's drink
several times, because he felt friendly,
and never noticed that nobody ever
paid for his. They had played cards
| with him, stolen his spurs, and now
I they were making him dance. It was
an ancient pastime; yet two or three
were glad. to stand around and watch
it, because it was some time since they
had been to the opera. Now the tender
foot had misunderstood these friends al
the beginning, supposing himself to be
among good fellows, and they therefore
naturally set him down as a fool. But
even while dancing you may learn
much, and suddenly. The boy, besides
being timber, had tough black hair, and
it was not in fear, but with a cold
blue eye, that he looked at the old gen
tleman. The trouble had been that his
own revolver had somehow hitched, sc
that he could not pull it from the hols-
ster at the necessary moment.
Tried to draw on me, did YER said
the old gentleman. Step higher! Step
now, or I'll crack open yer kneepans, We
robins eggs"
Thinks he's having bad time re-
marked Ephraim. Wonder how he'd
like to have been that man the Injuns
had sport within
Weren't his ear funny?" said one
who had helped bury the man.
"Ear?" said Ephraim. You boys
ought to have been along when 1 found
him, and seen the way they'd fixed uI
his mouth" Ephraim explained the de
tails simply, and the listeners shivered
But Ephraim was a humorist. won
der how it feels" he continued, ste
have''-
| here the boy SlCkeHSu DIT Ills COlI
ments and the loud laughter Yet few
hours earlier these same half drunken
testers had laid the man to rest witt
decent humanity. The boy was taking
his first dose of Arizona. By no mean:
everybody was looking at his jig. They
had seen tenderfeet so often. There
was a Mexican game of cards; there
was the concertina; and over in the
corner sat Specimen Jones with hi:
back to the company, singing to him
self Nothing had been said or done
that entertained him in the least. He
had seen everything quite often.
Higher! skip higher, you elegan
calf" remarked the old gentleman t.
the tenderfoot. "High-yer! and HI
placidly fired fourth shot that scrapet
the boys foot at the ankle and threw
earth over the clock. so that you could
not tell the minute from the houl
hand.
g Drink to me with only thine eyes