Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1900-04-05
EaSt-Side ThompSon'S Petition.
A STORY OF THE ALKALl PLAINS.
BY MARGUERITE sTABLER.

1t was not pretty story, but it vas
more. 1t was fraught with that prim-
tive ruggedness one gets an impress
sion of along with cutting prairie
winds, bucking broncos, the crack OF
a revolver, the whiz of bullet.
The fellows name was Thompson,
and he could handle bunch of steers
with the best of them, but there was
an air of metropolitanism about him
that assorted ill with his surroundings.
And although he went rougher than any
man of them he had never been able
to live down his nickname of EAST
Side" Thompson. Under the intiu-
ence of rolling prairies, the boundless
sweep of cloud and sky, an intimacy
with the clements and reliance upon
nothing but his own wit and courage,
a man grows to be strong, sagacious,
vital creature, so different from our
circumscribed ideas of a man that, for
want of better term, we call him a
Cow -puncher.
The Three-X outfit of cow punchers
had been on the trail more than q
month, and, &C ,ording to all precedent
and reason, the rains should have set
in weeks before, but they had not.
The grass that had sprung up with the
first early showers had scared and died
before the next rain came to keep it
alive. The shallow, sluggish little
streams of brackish water that crawled
along the bottom of their beds, which
the year before had been swollen be-
yond their banks, finally gave out ut
terly. In every direction the white
alkali plains glistened away to the
meeting line of the sky in an attitude
of isolation. The oldest inhabitant in
all the country could not recall win
ter that equaled this in dryness.
Howbeit, Nevada was then new
state, and the population migratory.
Wilson, the boss of the outfit, had
hoped to get ont of the sagebrush
country and strike the California line
somewhere above Bodie by the end of
the first month ont, but there was no
rain, no water, and the plains lay in
open cracks. Day after day the sun
arose, smiled down upon the parched
little bunch of men and cattle IA long
hours as he sailed across cloudless
sky, serenely unconscious of the male
dictions hurled against him, while the
bare, burning prairie stared back in
unblinking defiance. There were gor-
geous sunsets every evening moments
when the great fiery ball seemed al
most to stand still to give long back
ward glance before dropping out of
sight, and with Midas touch turn all
the world to molten gold. But to the
played out ow-puncher sunset means
nothing but bedtime bedtime after a
hard, parched, hopeless day. There
were clear, chaste moonlight nights Ct
wondrous radiance, too, but the moon
was seen only in the early morning,
when they rose to another day, more
hard, more parched, more hopeless.
The cattle-mere anatomical charts by
this time-went staggering about in
crazy circles, too weak to need watch
ing, the three KS on their TANKS re-
duce1 to half the original size by the
shriveling of the hide, or fell heavily
to the earth to rise again, after many
seasons of sun and shower, as prairie
ing was reduced to a moan almost
human in its misery. for the one voice
common to all created things, animal
OF human, is the voice of suffering.
The Missourian, great, hulking
young fellow, was first of the men to
show signs of weakening. That is the
most terrible moment in all like expert
ences, when the men who have held on
grimly and endured together see one
of their number losing his grip. This
had been an ill-assorted outfit when
they started out with the cattle across
the plains, but standing together,
shoulder to shoulder, defying death
against fearful odds knits man deep
ly into the life OF his fellow. Among
these men there was no spoken SYM
pathy, no overt act of kindness, but
in their very sullenness was that grim
NEST of all sacrifices, each man endur.
ing in stole silence in order that he
might not intrude his own sufferings
upon his already overcrowded neigh
Dor. The clinching of the lips to sup
press groan when one is thirst mad.
dened may require more heroism than
facing cannon with flags flying and
drums beating, inasmuch as ''he that
ruleth his own spirit is greater thar
he that taketh city"
At last one day the Missourian gave
out utterly. He was not of the COW
boy build in the first place, but his
splendid horsemanship and enthusi
asm had induced Wilson, the boss, OF
Yankee Bill" as he was called, t.
take him on. In his deiriuni he lay
and cried for water, day and night
He blubbered and begged for water