The Forrest City times., 1895-02-22
rOkEsI CITY ARK, FRIDAY AFTERNOON FEBRU AIRY P 1895

station before three o'clock. and if vou can climb we'll, you ought to get down to the road before he Is half-way to the dollhouse"
 Tate kissed his mother and started up the mountain. It was fully twenty nve hundred feet to the top. ard the path was rough and broken by the fallen trees. Near the summit was a long stretch covered with pine needles. where Tate slipped back almost as fast as he went forward. But at last he stood on the crest, and looked back at the mine entrance, which looked like a rabbits burrow far below.
 On the other side was the canyon ana at the bottom of the slope twinkled the creek. He had been longer in climbing than he had expected, and the shadows were already falling over the valley. The toll-road stretched along like silver thread in the lower distance as the boy started down the incline, anticipating a pleasant ride home with his father.
 He had gone but about two hundred feet when, on coming out from clump of spruce-trees, he heard voices. Tate halted. The speakers were behind a great rock near at hand.
 How did you git onto the thing, anyhow?' asked a gruff voice.
 "Oh, the superintendent talked too much, an heard him." was the reply. in voice which Tate recognized as that of one of the mine workmen who had raaapt1x- haa,,
 Well, the Maiden fellers won't get paid off Saturday night, after all!" laughed the other.
 No. The things pretty we'll fixed All them logs kin be touched off in a minute, an it'll be mighty strange if one of 'em don't clean out tn whole outfit"
 Hadn't we better look again?"
 'No, l just looked. We'll wait lit tie. You don't want ter hesitate when tn time comes, fer if them logs don't git there at tn right time"
 Tate stood still. It seemed to him that long time passed before he could bring himself to think what the tall, really meant, though he knew from the first that it boded some sort of mischief But presently it all came over him.
 The discharged and malignant men were plotting to rob his father on the way home-yes, to kill him, for the references to Hogs" and to touching them off could mean nothing less than to release timber on the slide, and pre- cipitate it upon hls father as he passed with the wagon on his way home!
 Tate crept back through the heavy clump of trees, made a little detour, and came out on the lower side, where woodchoppers had a year or two before denuded the surface of timber The long-abandoned Bonham slide lay be- fore him, smooth chute leading sheer to the valley. AS he looked, he under stood the plan of the robbers.
 Six heavy tree trunks, each from a foot to eighteen inches in diameter, had been cut and laid at right angles to the path, end to end across the slide. They were held back by pointed sticks, making braces on the lower side, and from these sticks small ropes went to the rock behind which the conspirators sat-
 A jerk on the ropes would loosen the tree-trunks, which, if rightly timed. would crash into Tate's fathers wagon, smash the outfit, and carry all to the foot of the slope. Then the thieves could rob the wagon at their leisure, as no help was nearer than the toll house.
 Tate, as he looked, caught glimpse through the trees of a moving speck on the road. It was his fathers white covered wagon, steadily approaching the fatal slide.
 How easy it would be to send those timbers down upon the traveller. They would crush the slender wall protect ing the road and destroy horses, wagon and driver!
 Tate trembled. A sick feeling came over him as he realized that he could not touch the ropes and thus ruin the scheme. An attempt would uselessly attract the plotters attention.
 There was but one way to save his father-he must get to the toll road be- fore the team reached the slide. AL ready he could see the team not many rods away, evidently being hurried on by his father, anxious to reach home before nightfall.
 Tate hesitated no longer. He was two thousand feet higher than the team. Seizing a sharp-pointed stick for use as a staff, he stepped down upon the smooth surface of the slide and started downward. He thought of a picture in a bNolx at boma-a pictrra of tourist descending Mount Vesuvius, taking giant steps and sinking to his knees in the soft lava.
 The boy wished he had bed of ashes to plunge downward over. The freezing and thawing of the seasons bad ynaHa ba ,,nra, fbraa ,nohae [