The Irish standard., 1897-04-03
CHAPTER, vi.

! 1t has passed the court Of appeals"
CHAPTER vi.
! Windy Gulch seemed bare and bak-
ing in the sultry afternoon sunshine as
Dorothy Meredith idly looked out upon
! its one dusty street from her window at
, the Palace hotel. The Palace, II limsy,
tWo-stored frame structure, wholly UNI
| Pretentious except as to name, occupied
! a position well to the center Of the
place, it's back to the creek which dis
! puted with. the road for right Of way
! I'LL through the narrow deflle in which
! the camp had located itself. Across the
| street was a general store, which also
served as post Office, thanked on either
i side by saloons, that to the west being
+ joined to an unHnishe building of
which the sun-browned timbers told of
work long since abandoned, the one on
the east followed by a small log house
set well back from the street, which
gave 1T an air of burrowing into the
/ steep hillside behind. Farther along,
! as one looked in either direction, were
!. to. be seen other stores ard saloons, the
latter considerably predominating,
| their lines broken at near intervals by
| the door yards Of modest residences
! where the home1na!ying instinct strug-
! gled against heavy climatic odds in a
sickly showing Of geraniums and morn
!; ing glories. There were a Chinese
laundry and a bakery; a ricl1ety frame
blacksmith shop Haunting covering of
! out-of-date circus posters, and an I'M
i pretentious drug store, developed out
of the office of the one physician, who
! generally attested the healthfulncss Of
the place by sitting all day long before
his door, idly occupied with literature
which bore no outward resemblance to
! medical treatises.
The houses were generally of logs, the
! few of frame for the most part left I'M
| painted, and, like their more primitive
neighbors, wearing an air of premature
age and decrepitude from the dark
brown stains which the fierce Colorado
sunshine had wrought on those sides
which looked to east and west. Few
were of more than single story in
height, although the stores and saloons,
as q rule, had reached after more i'm
! posing effect in the square, sham fronts
SO populari in 1nining-camp'arch
| while these had further emphasized
their pretensions to style by washes of
/ paint in which preference for pure
white had with the passage of time
brought a painfully bedraggled appear
ance to the dusty place. -,.-
81: nh l,,1> ,1>,
| procession of buildings on that side
facing the hotel was mighty hill ter
| ,ninating in castellated heights of red
sandstone, a mass of color showing in
superinduced brilliancy above the faded
slopes which appeared dead hey ond any
hope Of resurrection; and the stunted,
'dull-hued pines, sparsely dotting the
expanse, gave scarce more vivid show
ing of life. All up and, down this color
starved surface yawned prospect~hofes
beyond counting, few gray dump
piles at intervals telling of deeper
work; the smaller number still that had
gone SO far as to erect shaft-houses
showing now for the most part deserted.
It is the common background of the
mining camp, this disproportionate
showing of failure and success; and es-
pecial]y were failure and gaunt woe
most in evidence in Windy Gulch in
this summertime of 1894, for its veins
were mostly but rich in silver, the ILL.,
omened metal at this time cast into
limbo by the powers that shape the
financial policy of the world.
But the camp wore an air of lethargic
indifference to all its ills on this warm
August afternoon. It's day begansearly,
when the steam whistles of the working
mines shrilly cried out for change of
Shifts" and up and down the bills on
every side the miners, always with tin
dinner-pails swinging in their hands.
might be seen going to or coming from
their labors like struggling professions
of overgrown ants. Then women, bare
headed and bare-armed, came out to
fetch water from the creek or to stand
gossi ping at their doors, while with
loud cracking Of the drivers whip the
stage for Orodelphia would wheel up
before the post Office to have the lean
mail-sacll heayed on board with mighty
show of Importance. And after the
stage would come q disjointed follow
ing Of men on horseback and dusty
couples in open carts; more often still
heavy Ifreig lit wagons laden with ore
and 81 hers piled high Vi th fresh lumber
exhaling clean, resi- nous odorss I'LL l
these chm Nitrous conveyances with agay
Linz of the lHitI
.lsl