The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1897-09-03

most obliterated pathway which
formed a wavering hypothenuse across
the angle made by the junction of the
trail with the county road. A fond
ness for flowers led the young man to
stop to pluck one of the great creamy
blossoms that fingered on the rubus
bush; and then, idly beating with his
heel at the unnoticed rock below while
he waited for his companions to over
take him, he laid bare the secret which
had been hidden from the beginning or
the world. A bit of the stone crumbled
away under his foot; idly glancing
down, his eyes were caught by the
simmer of free gold; and the Mascot
mine, as he chose to call it, was dis
covered.
Harvey Neil was type of adventurer
by no means uncommon in the west.
His father had been large wooden man
ufacturer in Connecticut, who had
failed in business and died of heart
failure-of a broken heart, his widow
always contended-just at the close of
the boys college course. 1t had always
been tacitly accepted in the family that
Harvey, the only sop, should eventual
ly devote himself to the mills, as his
father and his grandfather had done
before him; but now, hampered by lack
of both capital and experience, this
course appeared scarcely practicable.
while his mother, moreover, evinced
Ideep repugnance for the calling to which
she charged his fathers untimely death.
| What with the mischievous tinkering
with the tariff which was forever a
menace to the business, and the labor
troubles to contribute endless turmoil,
she would have her son look to some
other field for the success which she
could not doubt must ultimately be his
whichever way he turned. And the lad,
full of youths longing for adventure,
was only too glad to leave the hackneyed
paths he had known all his life, electing
to go west and grow up with the coun-
try.
1t was something of a shock to him
to find the country rather more grown
up, and the opportunities for profitable
adventure decidedly more meager, than
his dreams had pictured. He had chosen
Colorado as his field of operations, and
in his eagerness to attain riches he
turned naturally to mining, where in a
few brief months the little money he
had brought with him had gone in allur-
ing ventures which returned him moth
ing beyond the experience he so surely
needed, but for which he was anything
but grateful. And now, wholly I'M
equipped by education or training for
any labor open to him here, knowing
no more than Il pampered child of any
principle of economy, Harvey Neil eX-
perienced a few years of very hard times
indeed. The insurance on his fathers
life had placed his mother in COMPARE
tive comfort; but, after the luXuries by
which he had always seen her surround
ed, it seemed to the son so near to the
borderland of poverty that not for the
world would he allow her to con-
tribute another dollar to the undertake
ings in which he had come to feel him
self fairly predestined to failure. He
would not even grieve her by telling OF
the ill-luck which had pursued him; and
more than one letter he wrote dilating
:
great west offered, chances which he led
! her to infer he held in his grasp-when
he had to wait for days merely to com
! pass the purchase of a postage stamp to
send the letter. To her, if somewhat
vague as to his doings. he was always
gay and hopeful. When he went to
work as a harvest hand in the summer
such work as blistered his untried
hands and brought strange aches tC
. every bone in his body, he only told heI
that he had been invited to stay on a
= ranch for awhile, and amused her with
:. his droll accounts of the primitive ways
! of living affected by the natives to nc
manners born; and never was she al
=. lowed to know that he left the ranch
= like a common tramp at last, having
4 been cheated out of every dollar of the
: wages due him. He sent her a merry
!. description of strengthening, which he
: tried later, as it would seem simply fol
: the fun of it; while few months after
f that, when he had found a job shoveling
r coal in one of the Denver smelters, re
q duced to such living as must have
: wrung the mothers heart could she
e have known, the gentle lady was moved
q to innocent remonstrance for the wan
: dering life he was leading. She feared
S he was having too good time, sh'
@ wrote, sugar-coating the pill of protes
d with many q tender phrase; she Liked
: to know that he was enjoying himself
n but, since his future depended so wholly
l. upon himself, his life could not well b.
e all a holiday. Was it not true, sh
II gently asked, that he should put hi
d shoulder to the wheel and go to work il
l. earnest? His shoulder to the wheel
g Well that the good lady could neve
e know what tears blotted the admoni
< tions it had cost her such pains t,
n pen.
l. But he who laborS as did Harvey Nei
i. at this time, unstintedly giving the hes
y that is in him TO honest effort, though
l. seemingly but to poor ends, seldom fail
in achieving gain far beyond the insig
it nifcant wage that slips through hi
le nurse: and while he writing in th