The morning news., 1897-11-30

* 1 1ENDELSON 70, SOle Agents..
New York, on bottle.
him to put his name on it. He took up
pen, examined the nib carefully, and then in
small, neat handwriting he put down this
inscription Bartholomew Masterson,
Leadville, COL
II hauled the register around and looked
at the name. Bat MaSterSon resumed his
plug hat and cutaway coat, and waited for
me to assign him room. 1 gave him the
best in the house. After he had gone up
stairs some of the boys walked over to
the desk to have a look at the register.
The first man who got his eye on the new
arrivals name gave jump and then trun-
ed to the crowd.
Say said he, you fellows can all pass
by me in Injun file and let me kick you
good and hard, and when 1t is all over
you can all kick me at once. Who do you
suppose this man is that we've been Civ
ing the laugh to and chucking snowballs
at, and trying to make monkey of in
general?
a" ASK us an easy one said the gang
in chorus. Who is he?'
Only Bat Masterso1' said the man a
the desk. And we've been taking him for
a tenderfoot. He's simply made farmers
out of US, that's all.
HE didn't have to continue. The mere
then the marshal and boss of Leadville-
was enough to make the gang feel cheap.
They all knew that in a stand-up gun
fight Masterson was the worst man in
America, and that he had something like
twenty-five notches on his right-hand gun
to indicate the bullies and desperadoes he
had killed while serving as general Or
der preserver of bad camps, and towns.
The crowd went up to Masterson's room,
dragged him out by main force, and there
was nothing in the town too good for him
for twenty-four hours. They would hard
ly consent to let him attend to the pri-
vate business that had brought him to
Reno, and you can gamble that no snow
balls We're chucked at his plug hat when
the gang escorted him in a body down to
the station a couple of days later He
told me confdentialy, though, and on the
level that if his hat had been knocked
off his head by SNOWFALL on the night
he struck the town, he wouldn't have been
able to hold himself in from shooting,
because said he, I was born cranky on
that point
'I saw what might have been a double
killing prevented in a queer sort of way
at La Junta, Col, about six years ago.
The two fellows who would have shot
each other but for this accidental inter
vention had no warrant to kill each other,
either They We're both good fellows, and
first rate friends at that-Tom Lemon, the
station master at La Junta, and Clem
Thompson, locomotive engineer-but
they had the whisky in them at the time
the thing happened, and they would have
blazed away at each other sure as pop
if the kid hadn't turned up just at the
right minute. Lemon and Thompson had
been on a spree together for week. They
sat down to a two-handed game of prairie
pedro one afternoon when they were both
ugly drunk They quarrelled necessarily
over the hands, the luck, the whisky, the
weather, and the whole thing in general,
so that the rest of US who happened to be
around got to throwing paper wads at
them just for fun. They didn't pay any
attention to us, however, but went ahead
snarling at each other, until we all could
see that trouble and a whole lot of it was
in sight II the two men were not sepa-
rated. None of US felt like undertaking
the job of prying them apart, however,
and so they went on with their games
which was for dollar or so a corner.
While the two men were calling each
other names over the cards and working
themselves up to the red-hot stage, Nan
Coondge's little 4-year-old, blue-eyed girl
toddled into the saloon, dragging along by
her left hand a rag baby made of an old
shawl with a string tied around the end
for a head Nan Coolidge was a woman
down the street of no particular reputa-
ton We all made good deal of her lit
tie girl and petted her up, and then turn
ed her loose to walk around the place
as She saw fit. She walked up behind
Lemons chair and stood there, unobserv-
ed by both players, watching the game
with big eyes and not feared a little bit
by the hot talk the two men were singing
at each other.
''Clem Thompson, the engineer, was do
ing all the winning at the game Finally,
Lemon could hold himself in no longer. He
brought his fist down on the table with a
bang.
THOMPSON, blast you'l he shouted,
you're dishing out short cards on me- and
I'm going to get hunk with you for it
''The words were no sooner out of his
mouth than Thompson reached behind for
his gun, and then a look of blank aston
ishment came over his face. At the same
instant Lemon leaped to his feet and
reached around to his right hind pocket
for his gun. He got the gun, and some
thing else along with it. The something
else was the tiny, soft hand of the little
blue-eyed girl, and Lemons grab was so
Quick that he jerked the little girl off her
feet The station master, with funny look
of surprise on his face, looked down az the
little girl who was scrambling to her feet
with Glen Thompson's heavy army pistol
that she had slipped out of his pocket
while he was absorbed in the game and
the uuarreling over Il, still tightly clutehed
in her left hand. Thompson came around
to look at The little girl. When he saw his
gun in the child's hands he broke into a
roar So did Lemon.
" she'd "a had mine 10, in a second.
Glenn said he putting away his pistol, and
there was no more thought Of shot in eth
er of them They were both too busy in
making much of the little one.
"Then there was that dog fight in Tim
Relknap's saloon in creede that kept Sonk