The evening bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1887-1905, 1897-07-02


mountains of gravel everywhere in their
desperate search for the yellow gold.
David Dodd, who kept the store in
Downieville, returned one day from
Sacramento, whittier he had journeyed
to purchase stock-red shirts and pick
axes and tin plates and plug tobacco.
In his store he sold about everything
but rum. He confessed to prejudice
against selling rum, but he owned to
none against drinking it. Thus it hap
pened the Silver Star saloon had a mo.
nopoly in the drink line.
When Dodd went away, he went
alone. When he came back, he brought
q woman with him. He called her
Mrs. Dodd, and she said she was. To
make portrait of her one required but
three oils Her face was red, her hair
was black, and her dress was brown.
Four were the total of her gowns, and
all were brown. The little hat she wore
was red, like her face, and her eyes
were as black as her hair.
Dodd showed the men who were in
quisitive a paper, duly signed by the
Baptist parson of Sacramento. 1t said
she was of the age of Al, and her name
was Ellen Shanks. The men in Downie.
Vile received her with favor and gen.
tility, and as she was the first woman
to arrive at the gulch the most of them
were too overjoyed at her presence to
ask foolish questions.
Dodd and the woman rode up the
gulch Oh their mules at shutdown. In
an hour every man in the camp had
passed upon her favorably. and crowd
gathered at the bar of the Silver Star.
Toby Wimple raised his tin cup neck
high, and he shouted a toast.
"Ther's on angel in camp an yere's
to 'er healthr' he cried as he wiggled
his red whiskers from side to side.
Drink to Their luck Nv Mrs. Dodd NV
Downieville.
They drank with cheer.
Fill 'em up againP" cried hoarse
voice at the other end of the bar, and
Waily Dimmick, red shirted and six
footed, proposed a second toast.
"An yere's fer Their old man." he
roared. Drink 'er down fer Dodd."
And the red rum gurgled in their
throats
There were so men in Downieville,
including the two Cinnamon. They
were hard lot, but they were generous
to a man and sympathetic and patient,
and they toiled on in the gulch, cheer
full in their isolation.
For some days after the arrival of
Mrs. Dodd the men failed signally at
their work. But in a week or two the
novelty of a woman's presence wore
away, and things ran along in the old
groove again, the sound of the long tom
and the rocker coming in every day
with the sunshine, and the rattle of the
tin cups at the Silver Star going out
with the moonlight.
In the early summer following, late
of an evening, Toby Wimple and Waily
Dimmick sat on a pine bench in the
Silver Star, with layout Of jacks and
queens and kings and few other nota-
bles between them. The night was
warm, and their red shirts were open
and their bronzed necks bare.
David Dodd came with long strides
into the barroom in a state of excite
ment, and he called for gin in hurry,
big rush yer in, said Toby VIM
pie, looking up from his cards.
"Goin after the doc" Dodd answer
ed, with an anxious face. 1.-THE missus
is sick, an ther'll be fun fore mornin."
"Jumpin wildcats" commented Wal
ly Dimmick without taking his eyes
from the pine bench. Toby suppressed
a chuckle and bobbed his head up and
down, whereupon Waily took his eyes
from his cards and winked at Toby.
Dodd put away his gun in the place
where he wanted it and Hoped out of the
door like mule with the kick ups. They
heard the rap of his big knuckles on the
door of the cabin opposite.
Billy Ember, M. D., lived over the
way, and above his doorpost was huge
sign, done in lampblack on a square
board, and it said:
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