Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-06-08
The TRAGEDY OF AFRAID EYES.

THE FRONTIER.

y
as as log is left by the receding cur
rent on sandy bar. There he was,
and no questions were asked, for in
those days it wasn't considered good
form to be inquisitive. Some men
didn't care to have their antecedents
particularly inquired into, and one
who persisted in looking up the record
of people he met sooner or later found
himself looking into something differ
ent-the muzzle of six-shooter.
He had evidently come from some
mining country out onto the plains, for
We noticed that one of his pack horses
carried pick, shovel and goldpan and
other implements of the prospector.
But he wasn't broke like the majority
of those wanderers of the earth, for he
carried little sack of gold coin, and
after sitting around few days, listen
ing to the boys and getting the lay of
the land, he purchased wagon and
trading outfit of the company and be-
came an Indian trader on a small
scale. On the company's books his
name appeared as Obrien Osborne
Perhaps it was his right name, and
perhaps it wasn't. The boys called
him Briny. He was thin, round
shouldered man of medium height,
black haired and black bearded. He
had very peculiar eyes; they were
deep set, behind great bushy eyebrows
md had an appealing, supplicating
expression in their gray depths like
that seen in certain timid animals Mt
bay. The Indians, quick to note any
little popularity of man, named him
Ko-pop-in-e afraid Eyes).
When Briny came into the fort with
load of furs he would at once buy
new outfit of trade goods and then
spend his surplus capital among the
boys. The last dollar expended, he
would hitch up his team and drive
out over the great plains to the Indian
camp, wherever it might be located at
the time, to trade for another load Of
robes and furs.
Briny was always SO quiet and az
parently of so timid n nature that the
boys used to make fun OF him and
speak to him in that half-contemptu-
Gus, -patronizing way in which
rough men will address one whom
they consider their inferior mentally
and physically. But if ever these
men made mistake they made it
when they sized Briny up the way
they did. When they found out
their error, however. they acknowl-
edged their fault and from that time
on treated him like the man he was
up to the hour of his untimely death.
One winter Briny made a successful
trade with the Piegan Indians, who
were hunting and camping along the
Missouri river in the vicinity of Cow
island. The ice being very thick aud
strong, he concluded to drive up the
river with his load OF furs to the fort,
instead of travelling over the cold, bar
rem prairie where neither wood nor
shelter was to be found. In those
times men not inaptly called wood
hawks were strung along the river at
convenient points-generally the foot
of a long rapid-and made livelihood
by selling fuel to the steamers which
piled up and down the stream during
the high water of spring and early
summer. The woodhawks were a
rough set of men and their occupation
hazardous in the extreme, for they
were constantly exposed to the at
tacks of war parties from the surround
ing tribes, especially the Sioux, Assini-
boins, Cheyennes and Crees. Wood
cost $40 cord and more, and where
money is to be made men are always
to be found to make it, regardless of
the risks involved. 1t was very
common occurrence for a steamer to
land at woodward and find the own
ers scalped and dead by the shoulder
ing ruins of their cabin. Travelling
along on the ice, then, Briny reached
the yard of couple of acquaintances
one afternoon and camped with them
for the night. The woodhawks were
glad to see him, for not a living soul
had they met since the preceding
summer. Moreover, Briny had been
at the fort two months before and
could give them many bit of news.
It was late when they retired, after
eating second supper of buffalo ribs
roasted in front of the wide fireplace.
The wooahawks arose at an early
hour the next morning, Briny re-
naming in his bed until breakfast
should be ready. One of the men
went to the river for pail OF water
while the other began to chop some
splinters from dry log some fifty
yards from the cabin with which to
start the morning fire. In the early
light of dawn, or perhaps some time
during the night, a war party of six
or seven Assiniboins had discovered
the lonely little cabin and laid plans
to kill its occupants without any risk
to themselves. Choosing places ir
the dense brush within short range,
they lay concealed and patiently wait
ing for the men to appear. Every
thing happened as they wished, When
one of the men reached the river and
the other the log, they opened fire, and
poor Joe Hines fell dead on the ice.
Briny was aroused by the shooting