Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1900-11-26
WARRIOR
= = GAP
BY Brig.- Sen. King.
Copyright 1897, by F. Tennyson NeeIy.
Continued

S~fs wv pa Dull INccIy.
Continued
Within a fortnight she lled made the
new homestead blossom like the rose,
Within a month everything was in per.
feet order for the reception of Elinor
and her school friend-a busy, anxious
month, in which Folsom was fitting to
and fro to Reno and Frayne, as we have
seen; to Halls ranch in the Medicine
Bow, to Rawhide and Laramie, and the
reservations in northwestern Nebras-
ka; and it SO happened that he was
away the night Maj. Burleigh, on his
way to the depot, dropped in to inquire
If he could see Mr.. Folsom a moment on
important business. The servant said
he was not in town-had gone, she
thought, to Omaha. She would inquire
of Mrs. Fletcher, and meantime would
the major step inside? Step inside, and
stand ~wonderingly at the threshold of
the pretty parlor, he did; and then
there was a rustic of silken skirts on
the floor above. and as he turned to
listen his %haggard, careworn face took
on a look something like HAT which
overspread it the night he got the let
ter at Reno-something that told of be-
wilderment and perplexity, as a quiet,
modulated voice told the servant to tell
the gentleman Mr.. Folsom might not
return for several days. Burleigh had
no excuse to linger, none to ask 10 hear
that voice again; yet as he slowly de-
scended the steps it's accents were still
strangely ringing in his ears. Where
on earth had he heard that voice be-
fore?
CHAPTER vi.
The quartermaster's depot at Gate
City was little more than a big corral,
with a double ROY of low wooden sheds
for the storing of clothing, camp and
garrison %equipage. There was a black
smith and wagon repair shop, and a
brick office building. Some cottage
quarters for the officer in charge and
his clerks, corral master, ETC., stood
close at hand, while most of the en-
ployes lived in town outside the gates.
A single-track spur connected the de-
pot with the. main line of the Union
Pacific, only 500 yards away, and the
command at Fort Emory, OH the bluff
above the rapid stream, furnished,
much to it's disgust, the necessary
guard. A much bigger plant was in
contemplation near a larger post and
town ON the east side of the great di-
vide, and neither Fort Emory nor it's
charge-the quartermaster's depot
was considered worth keeping in re-
pair, except such as could be accom-
plished "by the labor of troops" which
was why, when he wasn't fighting In.
dams, the frontier soldier of that day
was mainly occupied in doing the odd
jobs of a day laborer, without the rec.
ompense of one, or his privilege of quit.
ting if he didn't like the job. That he
should know little of drill and less of
parade was, therefore, not to be won
dered at.
But what he didn't know about guard
duty was hardly worth knowing. He
had prisoners and property of every
conceivable kind - Indians, horse
thieves, thugs and deserters, maya
zines and medicines, mules and NUM-
tons of a Everything had to be
guarded. The fort lay a mile to the
west of and 200 feet higher than the
railway hotel in the heart of the town.
1t looked down upon the ~self-styled
city. and most of it's womenkind did
the same on the citizens, who were, it
must be owned, a rather miXedlot. The
sudden discovery Of gold in the neigh
boring foothills, the fact that it prom
Used to be the site of the division car
shops and roundhouse, that the trails
to the Upper Platte, the Sweetwater,
the park country to the south and the
rich game regions of the Medicine Bow
all conferred there, and that stages left
no less than twice a week for some of
those points, and the whole land was
alive with explorers for a hundred
miles around-all had tended to give
Gate City a remarkable boom. Chey-
enne and Laramie, thriving frontier
towns, with coroners' offices in full
blast from one weeks end to the-other,
and q double force on duty Sundays,
confessed to and exhibited pardonable
jealousy. Yet there was wisdom in the
warming of an old friend and fellow
frontiersman, who said to Folsom:
"You are throwing yourself and your
saoncy away, John. There's nothing
IN those gold stories, there's nothingi in
that yawp about the machine shops;
all those yarns were started by U. L.
fellows with corner lots to sell. The
bottom will drop out of that place in
side of n year and leave you stranded"
All the same had Folsom bought big
blocks and built his home there. 1t was
the nearest town of promise to Hal
Folsom's wild but beautiful home in
the hills, and, almost rs he loved Nell,
his bonny daughter, did the old trader
love his stalwart son. Born Il wild
westerner, reared among the Sioux
with only Indians or army boys for
playmates, and precious little choice
In point of savagery between them,
Hal had grown up a natural horseman
with a love for and knowledge OF the
animal that is accorded to few. His
ambition in life was to W a stock
farm. All the education he had had in
the world he owed to the kindness OF
loving-hearted army women at Lara
mic, women who befriended him when
well-nigh broken-hearted by his
mothers death. Early he had pitched
his tent on the very spot for u ranch
mans homestead, early he had fallen