The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-12-17
CALAMITY. slDE-TRAckED FROM
MONTANA TRAIL.
SURPRISES PIERRE PEOPLE
Strikes South Dakota Capital and
Gives One of Her Character
istic Exhibitions.

In some manner Calamity Jane
seems to have become sidetracked
when she struck st. Paul on her re
turn westward from her disastrous
venture into the unknown wilds of
the east, where she had been lured by
a who had come all the way
from New York to Montana to take
her back there and reform her, pluck
her even as a brand from the burning.
The manner in which poor, old Ca
lamity" was deceived by her alleged
philanthropic friend is we'll known.
Instead of finding the palace which
had been pictured to her unsophicated
mind as awaiting her possession and
the friends who were impatiently look
ing forward to the day when it would
be their proud pleasure to clasp to
their warm hearts the famous scout
who has piloted General Crook
through trackless wildernesses and
across snow capped mountains, she
learned when too late that she had
been made the victim Of deceit. The
benevolent lady, the saver of the lost
and the rescuer of the perishing, prov
ed to be a sharp business woman,
whose sole object in inveigling Jane
away from the scenes and friends of
many years was to get her within easy
reach and use her as a sort Of adden-
dunn to the midway of the Buffalo ex-
position, while at the same time make
her the subject of stories more or less
lurid which were to be published in
journals of like hue. In fact "Calam-
ity' was to be worked" for all there
was in her as an advertisement for the
benefit of the INSCRIPTIONS employers
Of the female writer Of romances. In
James own expressive, if %inelegant
language, she speedily "tumbled to the
game and refused to be used in that
manner or for the purposes intended
by her deceivers. She chit the trail"
and left a strong faint of sulphur and
whiskey in the circumambient to
mark the line of her journey westward
from Buffalo. With occasional stops
at cities, where she exhibited herself
in dime museums and kindred places
of entertainment, she finally managed
to land at st. Paul. There she met an
old acquaintance in the person of a
we'll known resident Of this city and
fell upon his neck and wept land
cursed) and declared that as soon as
she could manage to scrape together
enough of the essential to railroad
travel she would come back to Mon
tana and tell with all the guys and
eeesers" that talked of reformation to
her anymore.
But like many more of 'Calamity's'
plans and intentions, this one also
failed of realization, for all this oc-
Cured several moons ago, and al
though the people of almost every
town along the line of the Northern
Pacific in h state have been watch
ing and waiting for her, Jane has not
shown Up. While they may have been
disappointed, the kind of disappoint-
ment they suffered because of her
failure to keep her engagement can
not be tr%uthfully described as of the
bitter brand. In fact, were they to
speak their minds freely and fully.
1t would be to express a feeling of
gratitude. All the same, they have
been wondering what became of her.
How it happended she alone, perhaps,
can tell, but Calamity" is now down
at Pierre, the capital of South Dakota,
as the following, taken from a copy of
a newspaper published in that city
and kindly sent to The Gazette, will
show:
Calamity Jane who has been
leading a very quiet and u~nobtrusive
life since arriving at the capital city,
evidently does not want the public to
get any idea that she is lettering over
the precipitous verge of toothless de-
crepitude and aged decay merely be-
cause she is not so young as she used
to be. It is reported that one day
this week, in the spirit of the one who
said, Backward, turn backward, oh
time In your fight, make me d girl
again, just for tonight she renewed
the gayety of her youth by slowing
away under her belt a quantity of hop
flied elixer and then proceeded in a
semi-facetious, semi-serious tanner
Ia make things interesting. Yna