Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-26

chair and a reminiscent frame of mind
at the same time. 1--WE been out try
ing to. have a good time, but can't no
ways possible. You tenderfeet don't
know what a good time is" what do
you call a good time?" "Oh, such as
we used to have down in Deer Lodge
and in Bear Gulch or Beartown as
some called it. We used to get a good
time out of every thing, but most out of
funerals from Beartown. Why we JUS,
used to pray for someone to die down In
them diggin's. You see they had to
bring the corpse fifty miles. and some
of the way on horseback and the whole
town used to come up and a lot of the
fellows from Pioneer would jine 'em.
For long time we had to get along
without preacher. but finally a young
Presbyterian Teller come out from the
east and we did it up in style. He was
real nice sort of chap. Used to want
the gamblers and FOUNDERS and rough
miners to come and hear him preach
mOre'un the nice people, nos that there
VISA enough of the good ones to make I.
congregation.
"SOOn after we got our parsOn, one of
the boys in BeartOwn, Ed. Downie, got
into a dispute with a gambler, Jack
Rainey and Jack drawed first.
knowed Ed well and they made me take
charge of the thing. We always held
them funerals in the court house as
there want no church. First thing did
was to hike up for the minister. l told
him what was up and he said he'd come
right down. Well we fished around and
managed to get half yard of crepe;
we was goin' to have parson and we
determined to go the whole hog and
mako ,thp na1.hpe thai,.
arms. We didn't have no shears to cut
with and tine parson he come down to
the court house just in time to preven,
several more corpses bein' ready for
him. You see l was cuttin' first and
somehow l managed to clip the Teller:
fingers who was hodin the crepe. He
got mad and then he cut and another
Teller held and then l tired to hold il
We was all holdin' our bloody tinegi
when the parson come in.
"'What you tryin to do? he sakeo
And when we told him he took that air
crepe and laid it down on bench and
folded it and cut them eight bands of
crepe just as easy. Then he ASKED
where the gang was. We told him
they had all gone to the saloon to Ticker
up and they'd be back in mint. Soon
as they come he asked me what to do,
about Ed. l didn't know nothin about
Ed except he was-a mighty squar' man
and l told him so and he said that was
good epitaphy itself. And that was all
he said, but l just said: Come ahead,
parson. just say a few prayers for the
dead and he did, mighty good ones
too. I told him to make it short and
he did. Then he asked us if we could
sing and we told him that was our
strong suit. And he asked what hymns
we knew and we said we knew 'en ali.
but we didn't think of any so I just
says: oh, d the hymns I forget
he was parson. But he wasn't mad
and he lifted up one of 'em and we
sailed in. My, we just enjoyed that
funeral. Kind of swell. IT didn't seem
right not to give Ed some singin and we
had plenty of it.
''Then old Tim Morrisey he went up
to nail on the coffin kiver and he yelled
out: ''lf any of We bys want to see Ed
come up and we did. They all felt
mighty bad to see him lynn there an
haVin' no part in the fun. They didn't
mean ncthin' in the swearin'. They was