Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-11-10

which was seldom-ie signed it Law
renee Shannon Gaines. Ordinarily he
was known as Larry Long Larry
'Lariat Larry Toward the close of his
bachelor existence he was called in OPP
he was much in love and had no sense
left. Names. fond or derisive. which
stick to a man through thin and thick,
are products of the Pecos country. as
much So as 'Spanish-dagger' cactus
and rocks. and sand and brown grass
and long-horned steers ana bucking
ponies and yorktown apple-tree' sad
dies, upon which fine samplesof handi-
craft a heavy horse may fan backward
and never start a crack.
Lawrence Shannon Gaines of North
Carolina mountaineer stock. was a cow
boy working for Old man Bean. Old man
Bean leased 125, 600 acres of wild land
on both sides of the ePcos river. ran
90, G0thead of cattle on it and had a
daughter. the fame of whose beauty ran
southwark from Ell Paso to Brownsville.
and westward from a Antonio to the
far confines of Nuevo Leon. She was
plump, dark-eyed, fair-haired. rosy
checked. tender-hearted. we'll aware OF
her ~ value as a woman and heiress.
and thoroughly independent. Old man
Bean ran everything on the ranch and.
being an only child, she ran old man
Bean.
Because Larry was sober. industrious.
knew his business and kept his mouth
shut, the cattle baron made him second
foreman and brought him 10 live at the
ranch house. He dined at the family
table and gave orders as if he owned
things. The other men envied him, yet
his promotion was his undoing. 1t
brought him into the companionship CT
attic Bean. When he first saw her the
knees of his long legs shook under him.
h, turned pale, stammered and afterward
cursed himself heartily for being a -
fool. In a months time he fonud his
tongue and began to court her eagerly
and subsequently. 1t seemed to him that
it would be joy to lie down and permit
her 40 pounds to walk backward and for
ward on him all day. That was his mis-
take. She was not a girl to be won by
il timid, self-effacing wooer. He groom
ed her ~favorite horse and rode long err
rands for her and became in general her
dog to fetch and carry. His narrow blue
yes flashed sometimes when she ordered
him about with more than usual %brusque-
ness, but the stake he had set himself to
win was 50 great that he kept his tenn
per under and only moved the more will
ingly for his short mental rebellion.
When his affair was q year ola and as
Tar as ever from a settlement satisfactory
to him, Bruce Wallace McPogue move
into the country. AS his formidable
pOrtended, ne was a gentleman of Scotch
ancestry on both sides o. his house. He
had much persistence and a canny un-
derstanding of the value of money. He
knew Miss Bean to be heiress to some-
thing like a million dollars, and he de-
sired her mishtily. He was a pedagogue
and took the little haff-Mexican schCol
at the postotice of Las Animas, ten
miles east OF the Bean ranch. He lost no
lime in aging siege to the girl. Having
a ready tongu and being Mt bad look
ing in a bony, sandy way, he made great
running. Larry" rode all the confirmed
bu5kers he could find, but they We're only
temporary reliefs. He hated MoPogue
as he hated screwfies, but that did not do
any good. Once he waylaid him and Of
fered to whip him., but the affair coming
to Miss Bean resulted in so intense and
prolonged a chill that the miserable
young fellow had serious thoughts of GU
eide. Thereafter he treated the hr2tN
Scot with a rough but excessive polite
ness. He was willing to do anything OF
keen friends with Matte.
III the girl ever pitied him she did MOI
show it. She seemed to delight in tortur'
ing him. When he was near SHE talked
only of the accomplishments of Me
Pogue. She averred that he was as2hC!.
a, RAND a gentleman, far different from
the men by whom she was surrounded
the kind of man, in fact. who was vast
cd on the rought frontier and was fittet
to adorn circles much farther east. Thi
smote the soul of the cowboy, but h.
kept right on showing her that he love-
her and telling her SO whenever he go
a chance. She laughed at the avowal
and indicated that his pursuit bored her
Among the few advertisements of tn
young people in the Pecos country ar
"tish-f-ies." They are plcnics at MtAic,
every one is furnished with a rod an
line, and the dinner depends upon tn
catch. They are popular because the
give unlimited opportunities for tete-a
tetes. Upon this occasion one of tn
couples was composed of the invincib.
MePogue and Miss Bean. Larry fishe
alone and caught nothing. His failu,
was only in ~consonance with his othe
failures, he thought, and he whipped tn
water savagely. Over him, three hun
bred and twenty-five feet above the still
deep pool of the river, stretched the no,
ed "Pecos bridge OF the Southern Pac
fc railway. So high was it that it's mas
s;ve ties seemed parallel pencil line
drawn against the blu sky and its sur
ports We're pipe-stems. As he looked III
ward and thought of the swift and kim
iy death a leap from it would bring.
train crept across it and a lump Cf co;
aislodged from the tender, came straigl
down. 1t seemed to him that it was fly
minutes in falling. 1t struck the watt
at such speed that scarcely a sound 70
lowed the impact.
In the afternoon, McPogue, being for
moment displaced, he stood with the 81
where the east end of the great stru
ture touches the embankrnent. For mil
the wide country was exposed to vic
He had told her again in the same chez
less, meek words that he loved her. S