The Princeton union., 1900-10-04

In those gOld stores, there's nOLnlng IN
that yaWp about the machine shops;
|all those yarns were started by q. p.
fellows with corner Lots to sell. The
bottom will drop out of that place in
side OF 9 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 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 a love for and knowledge OF the
animal that is accorded to few. His
ambition in life was to own stock
farm. All the education he had had in
the world he owed to the kindness OF
loving-hearted army women at Lara
mie, women who befriended him when
well-nigh broken-hearted by his
mothers death. Early he had pitched
his tent on the very spot for 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, a 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 week with her and
Hal. From being delicate, consump-
tive child, Mrs. Hal had developed into
| buxom woman with exuberant
health and spirits. Life to her might
have some little monotony, but few
cares; many placid joys, but only one
great dread-Indians. John Folsom,
| her fond father-in-law, was a man all
| the Indians trusted and most of them
loved. Hal Folsom, her husband, had
| many a trusted and devoted friend
among the Sioux, but he had also ene-
| 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 fiercer, 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
ite daughter of old Sintogaliska, chief
of the Brule Sioux, who pined and died
at Laramie when she heard that the
soldier she loved had come back from
the far east with pa1e-faced bride.
There were red men of the Ogallallas
to whom the name of Hal Folsom was a
taunt and an insult to this day, men
whom his father had vainly sought to
appease, and they were Burning Star,
the lover, and two younger braves. the
brothers of the girl they swore that
Hal had lured away
South of the Platte as it rolled past
Frayne and Laramie, those Indians
were bound by treaty not to go. North
of the Platte Hal Folsom was warned
never again to venture. These were
the stories which were well known to
the parents of the girl he wooed and
won, but which probably were not full
ly explained to her. Now, even behind
the curtain of that sheltering river.
with it's hanking forts, even behind the
barrier of the mountains of the Medi-
cine Bow, she often woke at night and
clutched her baby to her breast when
the yelping of the coyotes came rising
on the wind. There was no woman in
Wyoming to whom war with Red
Clouds people bore such dread posi-
bility as to Hal Folsom's wife.
And so when Marshall Dean came
riding in one glad June morning.
bronzed, and tanned and buoyant,
and tossed his reins to the orderly
who trotted at his heels, while the
troops dismounted and watered at the
stream, Mrs. Folsom's heart was glad
dened by his confident and joyous
bearing. Twice, thrice he had seen
Red Cloud and all his braves, and
there was nothing. said he, to worry
about. Ugly, of course they are; got
some imaginary grievance and talk
big about the warpath. Why, what
show would those fellows have with
their old squirrel rifles and gas-pipe
6pringfelds against our new breech-
leaders? They know it as well as we
do. It's,au bluff, Mrs. Folsom. You
mark my Words" said he. and really
the boy believed it. Frequent contact
in the field with the red warriors in
spires one with little respect for their
skill or prowess until that contact
becomes hostile, then it's time to keep
every sense on guard and leave no
point uncovered.
"But what if the Indian bureau
should let them have breech-loaders? ?"
she anxiously asked. ''You know that
is Red Clouds demand"
"Oh," said Dean, with confidence
born of inexperience in the bureau
ways, they wouldn't be such fools. Be-
sides, if they do," he added hopefully,