The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1897-12-22

IsAYs SUDDEN, "I'LL DO IT, BY GosHP
stones throw and glares and blinds and
goes streaking ribbons of fire over the
pines, while you re dazed and deafened by
the thunderl Don't that thunder boom,
APPLYING catch across the crags the last
one sending 1t back and all of it kinder
condensed and held in canyons and each
now roar and each past one mingling to-
gether until there's very fury of sound,
like nothing else ON earth.
Ag'in, one day you see a mount'in peak,
a gray cloud kinder lowering, low; it's soft
and full of crinkles and rolls like cotton
batting all flung in heap. Bymeby there's
a chill in the air, and the gray cloud-now
the sun don't shine on it-gets black as
ink. 1t gets closer and lower and all of
sudden turns into sheet OF dazzling sill
yer. Now under it is big river coming
with a rush and roar faster than an ava
lanche and churning up rocks earth, trees,
animals and men in its awful boiling cur
rent. That's a cloudburst. 1t swells the
water in every stream in the valley, and
the river beyond, where the streams empty,
goes mad and rushes on over home and
farm, carrying havoc and misery all along
it's course.
The silence up mount'in is awful. I've
gone out and yelled jest for the company
of an echo. Then worse than the quiet is
the sound of something walking after
night Sometimes there's a sinking four
footed creature like monstrous yellow
cat, with the sliest gait of any animal
devil That's q mountain lion. Often
there's a heavier tread, and a clumsy crea-
ture goes smiling by--a grizzly. He can't
be tanned nor the little black imp Of his
family connection. Then again there's
the sound but when you look there amt
nothing TO make it. That's the worst Of
all That's ghosts.
My mine Is a tunnel 100 feet into
mount'in side, and often toward night
when I'm working hears tap, tap, tap
soft and low, but clear as preaching.
gifts out then, for them's the mine speerits,
and don't wanter git 'em ag in me. It's
funny, amt itl But you just live up
mount'in alone and see how you feel after
awhile.
Twice a week a burro train came 30
miles from Ouray for my ore, coming up
trail l made up to my mine not three
foot wide and just cut out Of the rock and
ground. Them and the man with 'em
was mighty cheerful to SEQ after days OF ST.
lence. LettersY No; never had a soul to
write to me, but newspapers-a week OF
month old, It didn't matter They was
comfort, and me, setting up in that cabin,
forgot by all human creatures could
through them papers feel the beating heart
OF the great world.
Last September got the blues so bad
that quit work one day and went down
20 the toll road, timing my trip so as to
SEQ the stage pass and TO git from some
passenger something to read. A TELLER
give me book called "Dombey and Son"
"A fasn a ff.II ~
was the gamest crowd ever see. Cuttle's
my choice. know the book by heart, and
Florence and Walter, and that shop and
Soil ellis Is Jest as material as II he'd
knowed en-. Why, l set and read that
over 50 much, seemed like could Jest sec
'em come into life and be real folks In tho
frellQht Like 20 know Dickens, the Teller
that wrote EN-. Dead, Is her WAL, wal,
hell never know what comfort he was
10 me. When git the charnce, I'm going
% lava wreath of uosios where he Il nlant'