The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1897-11-03
THE SHUTTING
OF A WINDOW.
BY "A. F. KHnFUS.


DIAL CHICO was the son of Next
ID can matadore, and his early asso-
Citations were not of a kind to develop
a stable and law-abiding character. Bal
drank because he saw everybody else
drink, and red wine brought into action
in Bal that courage which the matadore
displayed in the arena with sagacity
and prudence. Red wine does not ma
ture wisdom, theoretical or applied, and
without these, which are indeed sagaci-
ty and prudence, courage becomes but
pugnacity that amuses or offends. Balls
soon became offensive, and in brawl in
an indecent quarter of his native town
he had the misfortune to knife young
grandee of tastes and weaknesses sim
liar to his own, but of influential con-
Dections. The wounded youth recov-
cred, but political influence was suffi-
cient to cause his assailant's removal
to penal settlement for 20 years.
Bal obtained no more red wine, but
the more he weighed the offense of
the knife attack, its provocation and its
punishment the clearer it seemed that
he was suffering out of all proportion
for his transgression. The sense of
foul wrong, done because it could be
done, burned in upon him as if brand
iron were held against him, ever glow
ing and never lifted. For months after
he had discerned the immense range of
this injustice he lived in a rage impedi
mental to speech-he became inarticu-
late.
Slowly his good sense came to the
rescue and he became calm that he
might live, grow strong of body and
powerful through accumulation and
meet Don Pico as master. There were
men of different nationalities in the
settlement, and Bal found that he alb
sorbed words as a sponge absorbs wa
ter, and he learned Portuguese, more
than one patois of his own land and the
dialect of Peruvian Indian sent from
his own province year before, whom
he had saved from imminent atrocity at
the hands of vicious fellow convict.
This Indian had virtue little known
to civiliZation-he was capable OF graf
itude-and the two formed mutual at
tachment that the friendships of CIV
ilization may scarcely parallel and
which was equaled but by their COM
mon hatred of all rulers, their own in
particular. This Indian Bal knew to be
a snake charmer of extraordinary &C
complishments. His gift was not trans
ferable to the younger man, nor did
the latter soon discover its singularity,
but in time he found that Juan's power
over certain reptiles might be expressed
as hypnotic. He seemed to impress his
own masterfulness upon the serpents
and to exert his power upon them at
distance, or to send them to perform
some definite mission at distance and
return within given time, after the
habit of human subjects.
Once Bal saw Juan with his pets at
recreation. No word was spoken, but
Juan looked meaningly at Bal and then
at the top of the wall. Bal looked and
saw lizard there, with its head a-tilt
and the sun shining pink through its
palpitant throat. Then something
slipped away from Juan, who watched
the top of the wall, as did Bal. By and
by O bit of the wall moved-it seemed
a bit of the wall-it moved and coiled
and leaped, and the little foray was
over. Then the devourer slipped back
and Juan snapped his fingers and whis-
pered to it.
"Was the lizard hypnotized, too?" Bal
Chico asked himself.
This branch of his accomplishment
Juan never showed the prison officials
when they sent for him to exhibit for
their amusement.
The weary years rolled by. 1--WE will
live; we must live. We will get even
you and me-" Juan whispered to him
self over and over; and he whispered it
to Bal when he could, with the same i'm
perious suggestiveness that he whis-
pered something to his snakes.
At last Juan's 20 weary years were
done; but the "man-witch" had gotten
much power. Some he amused when
tired of the commonplace, but the many
feared him, and when he chose to wan
der around the settlement clad in
brooches, poncho and viper, after he
was free to go far away, none objected,
and few wondered at the whims of SO
fantastic being.
When Bal, young man white-haired