Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1899-08-21
THREE HOTELS IN ONE NIGHT.
Adventure of a Traveller Who Met a
''Norther" Down in Texas.

Adventure OF a Traveller Who Met a
''NOrther" Down in Texas.
did you ever sleep in three different
trHns and il three different hotels in
one night, paying three times for a
rather incomplete nights rest?"
The old travelling man threw out the
question in an unconcerned way after
having listened in silence for an hour
while the other members of the Corner
club reeled off yard after yard of
stories about the road, it's pleasures, it's
dangers, and it's huGnOrs. The pause
that followed was only broken by some
violent but futile efforts by the slut
terer to launch a sentence.
"Well, have done it, the old travel
ing man continued. "And I may add
that although I have been on the road
for 20 years, have never met a man
who was able to boast of the same ex-
perience. It came about in this way:
I was down in Texas in 1881 and 1882,
and New Years day found me in a
small town called Longview, with my
nose turned in the direction of the
neighboring town of Tyler. To get
from one of these towns to the other
you must travel on two different rail
roads and cover about 40 miles of
ground, although the towns are hardly
more than Is miles apart as the crow
flies. LonGvieW is on the International
& Great Northern, while Tyler is on
the Mineola branch of the Texas Paci-
fc The two railroads cross each
other at a junction called Troop, about
"a miles from Longview, and Is miles
Tyler,
II was having my dinner in the hotel
at Longview about o'clock on the
evening of New Years Gay when a
| first class norther came swooping down
uUon us. II you have never met a
genuine Texas norther, pray that You
may be spared from having the expert
ence The wind will spring up with
out a moments warning, and | have
seen it lower the temperature SO de-
grees in 60 minutes. Every one had
been going around in his shirt sleeves.
After the norther began an ulster was
| needed There was no fire in the
house land no comfort. My train did
not leave until lilo p. IN. The only
thing I could think of was to take a
room and go to bed. [ awoke at
| 10:30 jumped into my clothes, and
caught my train.
MY watch showed few minutes
after midnight when I arrived at Troop
and heard that the west-bOund train
or the Texas Pacific was anyway from
| two to three hours late. A band of i'm
migrants we're waiting for the same
train, and they filled the waiting-room.
Some were cooking a meal on redhot
| stove in the middle of the room.
| Others were sleeping on the benches
and on the floor There was not va
can't seat to be had, and the atnios-
phere was indiscribable. The air out
side was pure enough, but the Their
mometer registered 10 degrees above
zero, which is not very comfortable
| temperature for a man without an
overcoat or gloves. There was only
one way to keep warm cross the
tracks to the little hotel opposite the
station and crawl into a warm bed for
a couple of hours, and this l did.
"I slept until Ais and caught the
belated train at 4:43. There was only
one passenger, who left the train when
we reached Tyler at SIS and that was
I. 1t was pitch dark then, cold as
Alaska and so quiet that your steps
sounded like hammer beats along the
streets No one was stirring in the
hotel at that time, and it took me a
quarter of an hour to wake up an old
negro who was sleeping on the floor in
the office The first thing I did when
I got inside the house was to dig out
the keys to the bar and to gulp down
two big drinks of whiskey. And then
I asked for fire.
No coal, massa,' the old Niger
answered, grinning like a split water
Melon no wood, no nufing. Massa
had better go to bed
"And so I did, to be sure, for the
third time that night. 1t was 5:45
o'clock in the morning then, and I slept
like a dead man till $50. Have you
ever heard the like of it? And yet my
lodging for that night cost me only
$3.50, or so cents at each hotel. New
York Sun.
FOREHEADS AND EYES.