The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1894-12-17

| there alone, wondering i'll his dumb
| helpless rage wha it all meant-why
he couldn't git ON" as other men did.
Dick Hunts i'll luck had become pro-
verbal i'll the san Juan country. LAS
cussed onlucky as Dick Hunt" was a
comparison often banded about in sa-
looms and eating houses. Every dweller
in that region knew the silent, lonely
man who had lived for years in the DESC
late cabin on the windswept side of Lost
Chance gulch, close by Ophir trail.
Everybody laughed at him for vision
AIRY. Dick had spent ten years locating
claims. The mountains were marked
with his signposts, rude, wooden crosses,
zach in turn marking ii fresh grave of
his hopes.
Dick saw other men prosper-"tin
horn" gamblers who cheated the min
ers out of their dearly earned wages,
tancehouso proprietors in the camps
who grew rich out of the blood and
tears of wretched women; scamps, vaga-
bonds, blacI,legs succeeded where he
failed-he who had always tried to
lead decent life and do the square
thing by his fellows
"What's the meaning of it, he de
manded furously of the mountains, his
only companions, his only friends. But
the mountains turned, rs ever, their sol
made no answer.
Strange, wild thoughts come to men
i'll solitude. 1t is not good for man to
| be alone And to poor. disheartened,
lonely Dick Hunt, away up there near
| timber line, i'll that tremendous, appall
| ing wilderness, evil thoughts came
trooping these days, thrusting their Sc
ductiye faces close to his and indicating
with tempting fingers a downward
path.
Money money - was what Dick
wanted He was tired of digging and
deving for the gold which ever beck
oned and allured and then mockingly
vanished at the sound of his pick and
shovel.
There are other ways to get money be-
sides working like dog all your days
Dick had heard the ways and means
canvassed too many times not to be
well up in details. Had he not rubbed
elbows many night with men whose
| lips could tell tales of violence and
plumber and afterward comparative
sase? Those fellows did not toll in the
mountains year in and out, enduring
all sorts of privations and hardships.
Not they. They lived in Silverton and
other camps and were feared and re-
spected of men. There was Shorty
Young, for instance. Everybody knew he
was a thug and a cutthroat Did any
body have any doubts about his being
HE leader of the gang that robbed the
Hesperus stage and shot the driver in
cold blood? OF course not And Shorty
Young was power i'll the San Juan
and compelled the admiration of all.
There were Tony Drew and Jere Bus
hardt Everybody knew that Tony was
tin horn gambler, and yet because
he was always flush he was favorite
snd had mighty soft time of it. And
Jere Burkhardt had shot an inoffonsive
Chinaman, and yet see how he got onl
No, there was no use i'll being square.
IL didn pay, after all.
Twilight deepene! into dusk, and
ono by one, the cold. white, glittering
stars swung out above the cold. white,
glittering peaks. Then the pale moon
slowly drifted up from behind the
mountain ramparts aha sent flood OF
light down Lost Chance gulch and
athwart the Ophir trail
And Dick Hunt looked down the trail
and saw again that alluring, reckoning
seductive procession tossing maddcning
faces III the moonlight and heart their
diaholictl whisperi!gs: Why work any
more? Why rot take the shortest snrest
way 10 is,Dne: Fortune is coming up
tn Up i 81. to yea. Seize her, cap
| tn, Eea, Id her h. hcr threat ana
cunpal t.r - he youra
by Col that's what I'll do said
Dick Hunt
He rcsc, Went INTO his cabin and
lighted hi. lan.p, the lamp which many