The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-02-11
SQUAW CHARLEY.
THE TRAeI-coMeoY OF AN AsoRIa
INAL ouTcAST.
He Had Committed the Red Mans I'm
pardonable sin and Was Doomed q
Female Attire and ostrscism Only
Friend Was Mongrel Cur.

ley enacted his tragi-comedy to the enc
and passed on 10 the happy hunting
grounds, but many who were once deni
zens Of that strange city whose ways ht
trod will still recall him 10 mind when In
reminiscent mood. IL was a unique city
set on HILL and its fame was not hid
under bushel, but went abroad in the
earth, for the shares of its great silver lode
were eagerly bought and sold in all the
stock marts of the world. 1t had two level
streets whereon its business was transact
ed, and the rest of it hung on by its eye.
lids where and how it could, TO the por.
phyry outcrops of the mountain that rose
behind it, glowing all the long summer
with myriads of bright yellow sunflowers
AT some time in his past Charley had
committed the red man S objectionable sin
he had proved himself a craven in some
crucial moment and all his life henceforth
must wear the uniform of his shame,
which, according to immemorial usage, is
female apparel. No Piute woman ever
wore orinoline, but within the recent
memory of man it had been the distinctive
badge of white femininity; so, to make his
punishment doubly atrocious, the victim
was ENGAGED in discarded hoop, garnered
from some ash heap. When Charley was
fortunate enough to possess skirt and
shawl TO hide his skeleton, he might pass
comparatively unnoticed up and down the
streets. But his resources did not always
permit such luxury and then his long
limbs, clad in somebody's castoff neither
garments-it might be pair of ragged,
blue overalls or, with more startling effect
pair of red flannel drawers-loomed gro
tesquely through the rusty and distorted
bars of his perambulating prison.
We palefaces always wondered what &C.
cult power compelled the stalwart, hand
some fellow to yield obedience to the tribal
decree, or, IL such power existed, what
prevented him from betaking himself be-
yond its reach. But the unwritten law of
the nomad is obeyed as will never be the
printed and concentrated and enshelved
code Of any civilized race Charley re
manned and endured to the end with stoical
patience. His ostracism was complete
Dwelling in the midst of his kind, he was
cut of from among them. He might stand |
wistfully watching on the outskirts of
laughing, gambling group but he was
never invited to take hand. He might |
gaze longingly at n merry picnic party on |
timber pile feasting on watermelon, but |
no juicy morsel was ever rendered him. |
His own sex repudiated him utterly. Did |
he approach knot of the sex whom his /
garb travestied, they flouted him and |
moved away, laughing. The children of |
both sexes and two races jeered at him
with the needless barbarity of youth.
One fortunate day he acquired q stray /
dog, vicious, mongrel cur, and thence
forth the two outcasts were inseparable
Together they were an hungered. Togeth-
er they endured the gibes and sometimes
the missiles of their deriders, and together |
they cuddled at night for mutual warmth. |
Together they not infrequenty came to
our back door, and the animal retired |
deprecatingly to corner, while his incon-
gruously CARRIED master sawed wood OF
split kindlings. But when the task was
done he came forth promptly TO share the
compromising ration and unfailingly got
his share, whether the dole were meager
or abundant. Often then the man threw
himself down upon the sand, with his
back propped against a sun heated bowlder
at the corner of our fence and lay there for
hours, his gaze fixed upon the far horizon,
while facing him sat the dog, alert at his
slightest movement, its amber orbs-like
many ours, it had beautiful eyes-fixed
steadfastly upon him. 1t was strange
landscape that Charley's stole gaze ranged
over. Far below him the canyon wound
L
1t debouched into the desert, whence the
camel trains came up from Fort Churchill,
laden with salt and borax for the reduc-
ton works, and where of afternoons the ]
waltzed gayly in the sun in
couples and trios, travelling about in sway
ing hourglass columns that reached from
earth to sky.
In all tho immense prospect there were
but two things-the brilliant concave
vault and the bare brown earth Scared, |
upheaved and contorted by the throes of |
world birth. But in richness of coloring, |
ever varying and ever beautiful effects of |
passing cloud shadows and vast, solemn |
grandeur that scene has no equal in any |
land. Whether or not any of its profound,
deathlike peace entered the Piute S soul il |
Is certain that no white Gre n re ever lived |
long in the face of it with growing to
feel fatalistic resignation stealing over |
bis spirit.
AS time wore on Charley and his dog |
became such familiar figures to the Com
stockers that they ceased to glance a Sec
ond time at their pathetic grotesqueness,
and the children gave over tormenting
Them.
His punishment was to him what ex-
communication must have been to its VIC
i
ibhorrent to the savage as solitude, and |
Charley grew abject, dropping, premature
y old, while his dog grew daily more Ill
tempered and disreputable. But fate's
most crushing blow was yet to fall. One
lay an irate tollgate keeper shot his dog,
'aught in the very act of marauding |
among the white mans chickens. Over
he body of his slain companion Charley
yept the only tears he was ever known to |
he'd, and bore it of In his arms, a bowed,
iesolate figure slowly fading from ken
against ashen plain and ultramarine sky.
Tho pariah was seen no more In the |
iaunts of men, and 10 was long after when |
found bis skeleton, still cased
N the corroded steels 81 the old hoopskirt.
None could know how bs met his end OF |
through how many hours or days Of thirst
md anguish the outcast had vrestled alone |
With the grim cOnquerOr Of all. As the |
'east dietb, 40 dies tho Indian, and Char
ey had perchaDcs not Jared much worse
lt the end than others Of his racc.-San |
francisco Argonaut
------
There Wa n aururfs<.