Evening star., 1896-02-29


guished, but the reply was lost, because
just then the mules struck q soft place in
the trail, and seemed to have all they could
do to pull their respective hoofs out of the
which the good, hard road was overlaid.
The snorer turned dyer once more.
It was day on Utah farm. First to
appear was the farmers wife. who, after
ceeded to get BREAKFAST by candlelight.
while her husband. creased his boots,
smoked his pipe, and, with his feet on the
parlor stove. wondered why in thunder
menced to sing and the chickens to wake
up; the hired man TOOK his usual allopathic
dose of bacon, homegrown coffee soda bis
cult and sirup;& the the calves Ca 3 bleated; the
and by the dinner horn sounded, and the
hired man fell off the fence on a young pig
in his anxiety not to be too late at the
table, Both the farmer and the hired man
plowed all through the afternoon and the
hired man couldn't keep his mold-board
clean, and, consequently, became impatient
and even querulous. 1t was wonderful to
note with what fidelity to nature the
snorer reproduced the graceful gait Of the
plowman and the unyielding outlines Of
the patch which protected large area of
the plowman's overails from the inclem-
ency of the weather. Then the sun went
down, and everybody ate once more Night
with all it's darkness and dreariness, came
on; the hired man and the children went
to bed: the farmer snored near the stove;
the farmers wife worked right along. just
as she had been doing for eighteen or nine
teen hours at a stretch
1t was a marvelously realistic piece of
work. We all enjoyed 1t very much; all of
us. except Capt. Day, and he would have
enjoyed it, too, had he not been asleep
while the performance was going on.
Almost n Dead Cnvalryman.
Some of us went hunting nearly every
day; some of us chopped through from
twenty-five to thirty inches of ice and
fshed; all Of us were tired when night
came, whether We had been successful or
not. 1t is harder work to hunt and not kill
anything than 1t is to fill three or four
wagons with game. Every day was over
loaded with incidents of interest, yet mar
row as were some of the escapes, no one
was seriously hurt. Capt Day achieved the
distinction of getting closer to the next
world than any other member Of the party
but he was not puffed up with pride there
at. 1t happened this way: He, in company
With his ''bunky,' was atop of a ten-thous-
and-foot hill away up White Rocks canon
that is. the hill was and presumably is still
ten thousand feet or so above hgh-Water
mark on the Pacific coast. A big buck,
whose tracks they had been following, hav-
ing eluded them, they turned their feet
campward. In the narrow valley of the
canon were the horses, a mile away end
precipitously downhill Jumping from rock
to rock is easy enough for mountain sheep.
but 1T is hard work for a cavalry officer
who has been on college detail for awhile,
SO there were frequent halts for recupera-
tive purposes, the altitude combining with
the exertion to render occasional inactivity
des rable. Landing on one very laI ge chunk
OF rock, the captain jumped therefrom to a
softer spot, intending to sit down for
awhile; had he done so, some Of him would
be there yet.
he
most precisely, for it's primary movement
was hardly visible. A shout of warning,
that echoed and re-echoed dozen times be-
fore 1t was entirely dissipated, caused the
captain to jump aside with more of alacrity
than he suspected was possible, and only in
the nick of time. The monster of many tons
grazed his near shoulder as it toppled over
and started down ihe declivity. 1t cleared
a pathway fully a quarter of a mile long
cutting down cedars and pines in it's wild
rush, and displacing other boulders. until
the noises were simply thunderous The
shock OF collision was simply terrific.
watching that chunk of quartz go down.
ward, 1t was easy to Understand why the
proverbial rolling stone gathers no moss:
when decent sized stone gets started it
mas no time to fool with moss Day seemed
to be thankful for hissescape, but he said
1t would be regrettedSsby all the cavalry
officers. who would have gained file had
he been less spry in responding to the warn
ing. "
harder Than PharaOh's Heart.
There is in the Uintah mountains stone
SO much harder than adamant that it may
be worth while to mineit when the reserva-
ton is thrown opensshis discovery was
made just after the resAsing stone tumbIcd
At moment when every thing appeared to
be well. the captains companion permitted
his feet to violate the laws Of gravita tion;
for moment or SO the feet and all else that
was mortal OF the unfortunate man re-
mained unsustained in the air. and then the
man sat down with violence sufficient to
have shaken the credit of every financial
institution west of Omaha. Comparison of !
the sensations with those incident to sitting |
suddenly on curbstone. fire-plug and in
the seat of the scornful were all in favor of
the Uintah hill rock. A sample taken to |
camp appeared somewhat soft and brittle |
but on Its, native heath and under certain |
that rock is several degrees
harder than the way of the transgressor
GEO. H. HARRIES