The record-union., 1899-04-19
.THELAWYER AND THE RINGER

IHc LkWIE0 ANU I'LL litHULIi
"When I made Creede bad $4, said
a well-known young lawyer OF WASH
ington to a correspondent OF the New
York Sun Il had gene hrst 10 DEN
1ver to take a place as fourteenth as
sistant attorney for lite insurance
outfit The wages / got dlont more
than cover my board and keep, ana SO
l concluded that l might as Wen take
q chance and see if there was anything
doing in the hot camp Tor young Tel
lows hunting for headWork 10 90.
Creede was then at it's highwater mark.
AS 7 saw. only had 81 left out of a
weeks raw. whsn | landed in Creede,
'but 7 intended to go right out and hus-
tie for mining business, locating my Of
flee and shingle under. my hat until |
got enough hsadway to rent a snack
room. l tock my grip up to Mrs. Can
mons big square boarding house and
held a personally conducted conVe1sa-
ton with the old woman Her terms
were ten a week in advance and it
looked for awhile as if she intended TO
stick to them in my case. Well, l was
talking fer a place to eat and sleep and
I'm afraid | employed few doubtful
con measures. My Irish name helped
me some, 1 guess, and probably l threw
a bit of my fathers brogue into my
speech. Told her, besides, that | had
served mass for four or Eve years when
/ was a kid-which was a fact. l got
her. all right.
: This is Choosday, an Yell have
dust t sprinkle on yez mate by Satur-
day noight wild such gift o tn CAB,
she said finally, and the kindly ola
,woman-she had the esteem and affec-
tion of every man in the camp-shoWed
me to a room. Along toward 8 O'Clock
in the afternoon l took a stroll down
: town, logged out in rather a. cityfied
makeup, which was mistake, Tor |
heard some Of the boys giving me the
quiet hoot as / passed by the corners.
/ wasn't green enough to want TO argue
it cut with them, though. ! passed by
a good many places whence, through the
open front doors, the sound OF rafting
chips reached my ears, and l droppSd
into one of these places. 1t was George
. Goodale's faro layout, as | afterWard
learned / had never seen a game OF
faro in my life, and SO | walked up to
one of the tables to watch the game. l
couldn't make head or tail of it.
stood behind the chair of a big man in
blue flannel. shirt He bad fiery red
whiskers and a pair of beady, bad eyes.
He was about a quarter shot and pretty
ugly, for the dealer was getting all OF
his chips. | was told afterWard that
he had lost over 5000 in two days
trying to break Goodale's bank. He
turned his head around and glanced up
at me number of times, but l dldn t
know then that some faro players don't
like to have lookerson stand behind
their chairs, and SO / didn't move.
Finally he put his last chip on a card
and couple of turns later the dealer
swept it in. Then the man in the blue
shirt half turned his chair around and
looked up at me out of his bloodshot
eyes.
Look a-here you dude, he said, ad-
dressing me without rising from his
chair, you can pass me back that blue
+ chip
Il was dumbfounded.
Blue chip said 1, in a kind of
funk, I've got to own. What are you
talking about?'
The blue chip that you swiped
from my stack a couple of minutes
age he said. Hand it over, Orwell,
the stream of abuse that he began to
fire at me then was something fierce.
Ii made me pretty mad, too. l had a
quick mental picture of my folks down
at the railroad station back East wait
ing for the arrival of my body in box.
but the talk that thiY>big loafer threw
at me got me boiling, all the same.
knew, too, that if l wanted any min
ing business in that camp it wouldn't
do for me to stand for the abuse. with
seventy-five or a hundred miners stand
ing around taking it in. ] didn't have
any gun on me, and I wouldn't have
known how to use it, anyhow, and |
confidently expected to be shot all to
pieces; but the way 1 opened up on
that huge blackguard was a caution to
snakes. 1 surprised myself. 1 gave
him the devil on a chromatic scale for
fully two minutes. He was so much
astonished that he just gazed at me
with open mouth. Then he rushed at
me-
Now, square, stand-up fighting was a
game in which l excelled at that time
had been the best boxer in my class at
Ann Arbor and | had never been beat
en- in a friendly set-to. My Ann Arbar
days were only a couple of years be-
hind me- and / had taken good care OF
myself right along, punching the bag
for half an hour or so every day, NO
matter where I was. So that / was
right on edge and as fit as fiddle when
this ugly giant made for me. He had
about four inches and fifty pounds tbs
best of me, but l could see by the way
he came at me that he was a. mere
rough and -tumbler, and that I had a
chance with him. In fact, / was rather
elated, for l had confidently expected