The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1901-07-05
Observation-Disclosures
OUR TENDERFOOT. }
How He Repaid q Camp Mate
for Simple Kindness.
BY BOURBON WILSON.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IT'S sure thing that if man has
/ any cur in him, the hair of the
brute is going to show up mighty
quick when you get that man out in
camp. That's the way it was with
Hays; he hadn't been with us month
outfit cause to dislike him, even the
''Old Man," who was very slow in such
matters. 1t was back in 1888. We
were down in the eastern part of Chi
huahua, making the preliminary sur
vey of railroad that has never been
built, and Hays had been sent out
from headquarters in Boston to take
had picked up. That he was ten
derfoot was sufficient cause for all
hands to wish him anywhere else but
in our party, for tenderfoots always
give trouble; and that he was from
Boston was n grievance additional,
for tenderfoots of that brand can't be
taught anything-they know too
much.
Individually, our dislike came of
various things; the Old Mans and
mine was because he had been boosted
into his position without having had
to work up, as we had done. And
then he was MORALLY stingy; would
not come in on our little games of
draw, because, he said, he couldn't
afford to risk the money-and he re-
ceived as much pay as l did. Jim,
our cook, had it in for him because
he had ventured one day to mildly
criticise Jim's make of biscuit,
something none of the rest of us had
ever dared do, although they were
not always edible. And he had found
fault with Jose's method of cinching
saddle, which stung Jose to the
quick, as he prided himself upon
knowing all that was to be known
about horse and saddle. And he had
been so incautious as to report Bill
and Tex to the Old Man for some tri-
vial neglect of their work
One morning the Old Man and I no.
ticed the boys with their heads
punched, talking in whispers, and we
figured it out that things were going
to happen to Hays pretty soon-that
the boys were going to make him
fight or leave the outfit. We were
not mistaken; the fun began that
night while we were eating supper.
We were about half through, when
Hays suddenly laid down his knife
and fork, and got up, then walked
hurriedly away, gasping and wheeling
like choking horse. Nobody said Il
word, but the Old Man reached over,
and, pouring the coffee out of Hays
cup, discovered a small cube of plug
tobacco at its bottom. A few morn
horse, he was promptly bucked high
in the air, and when he came down
landed in the midst of a big bunch of
gray-beard cactus. We cheered him,
of course, and, while he was picking
the needles out of his skin, gathered
around him, making remarks that
seemed to us calculated to make even
a coyote fight, but not so much as
scrappy word could we get out of him.
Besides that, Jose caught the horse,
and. leading him up to us, took from
under the saddle spine of the same
gray-beard cactus; Hays saw him do
it, too, and of course knew that Jose
was responsible for the accident. Any
man who would let Mexican rub it
in that way was n. G. we thought.
The boys were just getting their
hands in. And so it went on, hardly a
day passing that did not bring some
accident to Hays; it was enough to
make genuine man lose his nerve,
much more q Boston tenderfoot, and
so he soon lost his color, and would
start and tremble at every unexpected
sound. [ got sorry for him in spite of
myself, he looked SO abjectly miser-
able, and had about decided to speak
to the Old Man and get him to call the
boys down, when the climax was
reached. 1t was one morning while
we were slowly picking our way up
a steep mountain that was scattered
about with loose rocks and boulders
Hays, fiocking to himself, as he had
to do pretty much all the time, had
fallen back about hundred yards
behind the rest of us. Presently Bill
stumbled and fell against boulder as
big as barrel, and instantly it start
ed downward on the jump, rising and
falling in long, easy bounds, like a
jack rabbit going through sage brush,
straight toward Hays. He heard the
yell of warning we sent down, and
looked up and saw the boulder COM
ing; but, instead of fiattening himself
out behind ledge rock, as we expect
ed him to do, he stood with his eyes
and mouth wide open, locoed-like,
staring up at us. By good luck the
boulder started on a long jump just
before it reached him, and went
whistling 20 feet above his head, so
there really was not anything for him
to get badly ratified about; but just
the same, the next thing we knew he
went down in pile in as hearty a
faint as any woman eyer had.
Disgusting? Well, that hardly ex-
presses it. A creature with so little
nerve had no business trying to be a
man. We picked him up, though, and
toted him back to camp, and after a
while brought him back to his senses.
He was too badly knocked out to do
any more work that day, and as
somebody had to stay in camp to look