The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-24
An Episode of Angel Gulch.
BY FLORENCE EDITH AUSTIN.

BY FLORENCE EDITH AUSTIN.
 Copyright, 1902, by Daily Story Pub. co
 Yes, stranger, this towns about as ca m
 and peaceaby disposed as deserted dig
 gings. l reckon that in gineral moral and
 piety we'll assay htgern any camp along
 this range
 Any shooting? This ain't no Shaker
 settlement, stranger. Occasionally when
 the boys have been epicuring the liquors
 triffe too freely a accident will happen
 with d gun. But we never string a feller
 up on the heat of the mint. We always
 give him fair trial in open court-out
 under yon cottonwood for convenience and appint a jury to make sure if he was just fooling or looking for trouble. Il know you tenderfeet come out here expecting to see a corpse dangling from every tree like rabbits on a snare-pole; but since I was elected sheriff I've kept this mans town monotonously free from | invidjous complaint and scenes of law 1essness-and the boys are usually with | me. allow 1t was that afr of Long Petes made us keerful
 Lets see-Il have to go back over the | trail "a matter of some seven years to | when Long Pete and Dave Zebln, his side-pardner drifted here from up the hills. Both the boys went to work at once to grubstake themselves for another prospecting tower: but in the meantime. being spirited young bucks, they fell to | pdyiHB court, m company, To VlXenlSn rib O Satan, who along then was making 1 things dizzy in the Gulch.
 She wasn't handsome, to my mind. be. ing just a downright vampire through
 and through; but Min slavin had eyes like a stroke of paralysis for some of the boys and was pretty enough to send more'n
 one g1loot cavorting to the devil.
 T was always mighty difflcultied and troubled when I'd see Long Petes Hnd Dawes red shirt. side by side, vending toward her dads cabin, two looks up the canyon, from bend to bend-but it was laugh and spirit for both on 'em, and nip and tuck for the winning. But the pace she set was the kind that soon wears man to a razzle and of a morn- ing. without word to nobody, the twain hitched up Dave's span O mules and lit out for the plains on buffalo hunt. Tt was full two months before that out | fit was seen in Angel Gulch again. and | then it was Long Pete who refined up oiie
 evening before the Red Hot Saloon.
 He explained straightforward like that | he and Dave had slaughtered sufficient
 buffalo so <his share of the hides had
 sold at Reno for moren enough to pay | Dave for his outfit-Dave having decided
 to jine luck with q party of miners who
 were setting out for some new gold flnd- | ings in Lower Californy.
 Some weeks before Long Pete returned l a body had been diskivered just off the | trail but the elements and coyotes had | disfgured 1t beyond recognizing-and
 when Long Pete turned up minus Dave | but with his pardner's outfit and some | gold dust in his feathers, there was con-
 siderable chinning about foul play. The l vigilante committee was for putting a
 buttonhole in his jacket. but there being | no certainty that the body was Dave's, | I pervailed on 'em to desist.
 | But when, in lessn no time, Squire l Hobart tied the Gougin knot over Pete | and Min Slavin. folks talked even more l pointedly than ever-they allowing that
 she was the incentive for the crime, but l depercating all such excitement seen
 to it that their talk didn't organize into | action.
 Things went mozying along this way | a goodish spell until. one pack-train day. | Sidney Dalrymple came into the round up. He promulgated that he was trav- cling for his health-but, Lord bless you, | out here we never inquire too closely into
 a mans ancient history. His name alone
 'ud tell you. wouldn't it?-a little calikeI
 popinjay. rigged out in paper collars and | Henry Clay worsteds and necktle that 1 ardent 1t 'ud razzle-daZZle steer.
 "It busted the rifle onto us to see the | way that sneaklng coyote went rubber- | necking round Long Petes wife, and that | vampire wasn't slow this time to reeip- | create for she was getting monstrous on- | patient with Long Pete, who opposed and | hated all quality ideas. I'll allow Pete | wasn't much of washing man, especially l opening Min's eyes. So. by contraries, she | got to thinking this Socks. as we'd christ I ened the slim m-limbed dude. was the four aces, because he called his dinners lunches | and manecoored his nails.
 Mind. I don't claim much for Long 1 Pete hisself-no more'n color or two oi | gold in a painful of common clay; but | them scand'lous goings-on inclined the l sympathies of the town toward him-mur- 1 derer or no murderer
 ''The stakes ran higher'n ever at the l Red Hot saloon, and odds wavered from day to day on whether Socks would jumr his claim without Long Pete a freckline | him with buckshot or not.
 But all bets were declared off when
 one night Min hunted me up in the faro
 parlor to give affidavy that Long Pete