The Forrest City times. [volume] (Forrest City, Ark.) 1871-1919, 1897-11-12
Lem RODER'S STRIKE.
BY WARREN r. M'VEIGH.

l. fifth anniversary of the settlement
Of Boulder.
In those first five years of its life
Boulder had managed to save the sum
If $4,000. Boulder naturally wanted to
be the county seat of the county of
Boulder, Ariz., and she had starved and
stinted herself for those five years in
order to save up enough money to per-
suade the county that she had the best
seating capacity anywhere around. We
were pleased, therefore, to call this $3.-
900 our seating fund.
Jealous persons in our nearest neigh
Dor, little town known as "Hell-on-
the-Border," about 20 miles away, called
this money our corruption fund.
Roder was chairman and treasurer
of the seating committee, and there
fore had charge of the fund.
The chairman and treasurer was
about as fine man as ever came over
the Rockies. If he had been hotel
keeper he would have been called "that
most genial of Bonifaces." AS he was
only a hard-working citizen like the
rest of us, apparently wrapped up body
and soul in the success of Boulder,
with an honest, healthy hand-shake and
a heart as large as the Great American
desert and as warm in his impulses, he
was simply, in the words of Tom
Gable, "a decent fellow"
We had the most implicit faith in
Roder. l do not know why. Certainly
he had never had a chance to prove that
he was over-scrupulous about honesty,
but men who live in the open, wayfarers
in a strange land. warriors of fortune,
friends of nature, grow to be like dogs
and little children, and their instinct
becomes so abnormally developed that
they can pick out good man the mo-
ment they see him. However, l have
often seen a dog take a decided fancy
for Bill Skies; and have often seen
a dog that wouldn't come within a mile
of a decent man; and then I've seen a
child who would be disgusted with a
clean, decent woman, and cry like all
possessed for the arms of its wretched,
dirty, decrepit nurse. So that do not
sNEs anu " SCCs
why Boulder should be blamed for the
implicit trust il reposed in Lem Roder.
From all of which, therefore, it is to be
inferred that Lem wasn't any better
than the rest of us, and had his price
The only mistake that Boulder made
was in placing LENS price too high.
On The day that Lem Rcder left
Boulder the whole town turned out to
see him off, and rode with him some
five miles into the desert in the direc-
ton of the nearest railroad station
Lem was to take the train there for
Phoenix. where he was to prove our
seating capacity with that $4,000 at so
many dollars per proof. l have forgot
ten how many men he had TO convince,
but | remember that each proof was to
be worth several hundreds of dollars.
Lem expected to be gone about two
weeks and to return with Boulder's
prosperity in his inside pocket; for
with the county seat we know we would
get the railroad into our town. We
had not doubt of the success of the
venture, and so we gave Lem rousing
send-off and made hero of him and a
heroine of his wife, Mrs. Lem, little
bit of a woman with eyes that shone
like mica in a dark canyon, and a
sweetness like babbling spring in a
desert.
Mrs. Lem was not strong, and when
Lem kissed her fondly-the big, strong,
handsome hero and the weak, sickly,
beautiful hereine-there were tears in
our eyes, and we meant it when we told
him that we'd look out for her and the
boy.
The boy was Buster, four years old,
a gallant little chap, who would fight
ANYTHING his size around, and cry when
his mother took him in her arms and
Rugged him a little and looked into his
big brown eyes. Buster, you see, hadn't
learned. what words he should use to
tell his mother how much he cared for
her. and so all he could do when the
love in his heart hurt him too much
was to cry.
Mrs. Lem was something Of a saint
to all of US. When she and the boy sat