The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1899-02-15

miles for fifty years Of heartache
instead. That was all.
Back to his station Tyson went,
catching fish for food aud using his
one shilling as ferry fee to cross a
river. He was enabled to begin
herding ION third" by his brother,
who had 412. So the Murrum-
bridge range began. The cattle
throve. That was the whole story
for five years so far as concerned
Tyson's finances. But there was
another side of his life.
In the pursuit Of dream of hap
piness he crossed the burned range
again and again, until every dry
burned mile of plain was familiar to
him, not to see Or speak of his love,
but to be near her, to know that she
was we'll.
She did not marry. If the truth
were known, pair of appealing
eyes looked at her when others
spoke of love, a shadowy, great
form raised itself in mute appeal Of
manliness and strength, as she had
seen it but once, gaunt from the
fight with dry death, between her
and those who would have wooed
her.
There were many of them-for in
the backwoods pretty girls are
scarce-but never man like Tyson.
Then came the gold fever. Ty-
son did not dig. Hefed the diggers
with meat, and there was money in
that. He did not, like other stock
men, sell short in the belief that the
market was only temporary. He
had faith that the diggings would
last, and so was able to sell more
largely every year, and to buy big
cattle ranges near the gold fields.
He sunk wells to get never-failing
water. He throve uselessly, piled
up money that he could not enjoy,
and learned, as the years rolled by,
to look on wealth as a mockery
From youth oftwenty- one Tyson
had grown to a man of forty before
the blow fell.
The girl he loved was probably
thirty five or thirty-si If wait
ing it was, she had waited long;
had sent away many suffers, had
seen her sister wed and her father
dead, until at last, left alone in the
world, she came to see more. and
more dimly the appealing eyes and
hesitant form of the gigantic bush
man who had touched her heart.
One day when Tyson made his
customary trip across the range,
which for twenty years he had
travelled until he had already worn
a path in the wilderness, he learned
upon inquiry that the woman Of his
heart was married. He never went
near her again. For twenty years
he had not seen her. For thirty
years to come he would not even
see again the scene of his one en-
counter with Cupid. He would
stay away and forget.
| It was about this time that Tyson
began to be known as an eccentric
Though a millionaire, he lived and
dressed like one of his cattle punch
ers.
He had no use for money. ''The
little game, he used to say, "that
is the fun. Fighting the desert
has been my work. I have been
fighting the desert all my life, and l
have won! I have put water where
was no water, and beef where was
no beef. I have put fences where
there were no fences and roads
where there wereno roads. Nothing
can undo what 1 have done, and
millions will be happier for it after
I am long dead and forgotten.
His life was lived in the open air.
He never entered a church or
a theater or apublic house, he never
tasted beer, wine or spirits, he
never swore and never washed with
soap-he used sand instead-nor
wore a white shirt or glove.
Though he never entereda church
he built one, and when asked to
give 500 for lightning rods Tyson
replied: "That will not l have
given a church to Almighty God,
and if He can't take care of it he
doesn t deserve to have it.
| Tyson was seventy-O ne when he