Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1900-12-05
CHAPTER VI.

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, on the bluff
above the rapid stream, furnished,
much to its disgust, the necessary
guard. A much bigger plant" was in
contemplation near 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 Shy 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 war. Everything had to be
guarded. The fort lay mile to the
west of and 200 feet higher than the
railway hotel in the heart of the town.
It looked down upon the self-styled
city, and most of it's womenl1ind did
the same on the citizens, who were, it
must be owned, a ia ther mixed lot. The
sudden discovery of gold in the neigh
boring foothills, the fact that it prom
ised 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 centered 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 a double force on duty Sundays,
confessed to and exhibited pardonable
jealousy. Yet there was wisdom in the
warning of an old friend and fellow
frontiersman, who said to Folsom:
''You are throwing yourself and your
money away, John. There's nothing
in those gold stories, there's nothing in
that yawp about the machine shops;
all those yarns were started by y. P.
fellows with corner lots to sell. The
bottom will drop out of that place in
side of a year and leave you stranded
All the same had Folsom bought big
blocks and built his home there. twas
the nearest town of promise to Hal
Folsom's wild but beautiful home in
the hills, and, almost as he loved Nell,
his bonny daughter, did the old trader
love his stalwart son. Born a 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 natural horseman
with love for and knowledge of the
animal that is accorded to few. His
ambition in life was to own 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 a ranch
mans homestead, early he had fallen
in love with an army girl, who married
the strapping frontiersman and was
now the proud mistress of the promis-
ing stock farm nesting in the valley Of
the Laramie, devoted wife and
mother. The weekly stage to the rail
way was the event of their placid days
except when some Of the officers would
come from either of the neighboring
posts and spend a week with her and
Hal. From being delicate, consump-
tive child, Mrs. Hal had developed into
a buxom woman with exuberant
health and spirits. Life to her might
have some little monotony, but few
cares; many placid joys, but only on.
great dread-Indians. John Folsom,
her fond father-in-law, was a wan all
the Indians trusted and most of them
loved. Hal Folsom, her husband, had
many a trusted and devoted friend
among the Sioux, out he had also enc
mics, and Indian enmity like Indian
love, dies hard. AS boy he had some
times triumphed in games and sports
over the champions Of the villages. AS
youth he had more than once found
favor in the dark eyes that looked
coldly on fercer, fonder claimants,
and one girl Of the Ogallallas had
turned from her kith and kin and
spurned more than one red lover to
seek the young trader when he left the
reservation to build his own nest in
the Medicine Bow, and they told a
story as pathetic as that of the favor
lite daughter of old SiItogaliska. chief