The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1895-07-20

and the idea of stretchin out there
on the snow for ten minutes rest
just suited me. / sat down with my
back Resin against an old dead stump
thatcame up through the snow, un-
buckled the shoes. unslung the mail
pouch from my shoulder and took
out thelittle snack of bread and meat
I'd brought along and which l gen.
orally eat on the way without MAX
in any special stop for it.
While | was eatin, lookin off
down the slope I'd just climbed up,
thinkin what bad luck I'd struck all
along the last few months, my eye
caught on to some lines in the scrap
of newspaper I'd wrapped round the
lunch and which was lyin spread out
on my leg under the second piece of
bread just within good readin dis
lance. Idon't just recollect just how
the words read, but the drift of it
was that lots of men failed in gettin
what they wanted in this world just
because they didn't want it hard
enough and didn't keep askin and
prayin for it until they got it. These
lines somehow hit my case, it seemed
to me. l hadn't had much early re-
ligious trainin, and the idea of Just
prayin hard for what you wanted
and gettin it struck me as somethin
new and simple and very satisfac-
tory. There was no end of things l
wanted, and wanted bad, and if they
was to be had by just wantin EN-
bad enough and askin for 'em violent
enough 1 was goin to get 'em sure.
Then ! says to myself, why not
start in right now with a silent pray
er? So l set at it. closed my eyes
and squeezed my lids together hard
Il was so dead in earnest. 1t was a
terrible sweepin; vigorous prayer l
handed in. First, wanted good luck
in a general way and asked for it
hard. Then l got more down to par
tic'lars, and asked to be rich and
prosperous, and wound up with a
sort of side handed suggestion that
it would suit me down to the ground
to have Prot fall off his luck and get
poor, while I grew rich. All this
WASH right, of course, as l see now,
ma'am. But / wasn't SO much pray
in for bad luck to Prot for its own
sake, as for the effect of it all on my
gettin on with Kittie German.
when l. prayed for the blight on
Prot, / was SO sorter brought up by
the whole business that-just, l sup
pose, to give things a particular point
i fired out my right leg so vigor-
ouslike and struck the snowshoe to
which I'd buckled the mail pouch so
hard, that-zip!-whiz!- II a shot
it was on it's way down the hill. It
made a clear shoot for about 500 feet.
every now and then spinnin about,
when an end would strike a snag, un-
til it brought up short against a ledge
that cropped out across it's track,
sending splinters of stone all about
when it struck, for, with the mail
pouch buckled o to it, it picked up
considerable speed and hit hard. 1t
bounded up and turned clean over
and then stopped altogether, held
from slidin any further by the crop
pins.
well, ma'am, while that snow
shoe was pirouettin down the slope.
| was that surprised and mad all
through that, although I'd just been
within in prayer, as you might
say, let loose a line of language that
if there'd been any stop or feelin to
that snowshoe it would have brought
up within so feet. | mention this
with regret, ma'am, because l feel
now that if l hadn't been moved to
make them remarks, just fresh on
top of the prayer, things would have
turned out different. But, bein
young and hot headed and thought
less then, of course | didn't look
ahead for consequences.
There was nothin to do but go
down to the ledge where the snow.
shoe lay, pick it up and the mail
pouch and get on my way again. The
edge was rotten with the weather
and pretty we'll broke up already,
and aside from the small pieces just
knocked out of it there'd been one
big chunk loosened up, which had
rolled just away from the ledge and
lay with the fresh break turned up
to the sun and dazzlin me with it's
brightness.
mo, young man"-this to a know.
ing suggestion from Manton II
wasn't mica of course, nor mica at
all. That piece of rock was just criss
crossed all over and through with
coarse wire gold. l stood starin at it
a full minute before l could get it
through nay head that l was lookin
at rock that would go over S., 600 to
the ton; that I was the discoverer
and owner of that ledge, and that
findin it just meant to me everything
worth havin, includin of course first
and foremost riches and Kittie Cor
man.
"While l stood there I recollected
with a start that riches and prosper.
ity and Kittie German was what I'd
been prayin for hard for five minutes
before, and here it all was within
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