The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-04-10
N'DoNALD's FAD AM.
The Undoing of . Rising Citizen of
 the Frontier Town of Daldville.

NsnfCdEo Hecord-HefaId.
 Old Perry Bald wasn't content when he boughs up whole township from discontented settlers in the Territory His ambition was to found town, and he did it simply by fencing in with bsrbcd wire. At that time the Griswold cattle trail went northward clear through Bald's land. But when he stretched out his ten miles of barbed fence the cattle herds were obliged to keep outside and the first house in Ba1dville was built at the southeast corner of Bald's tract. Bald lived in it all right. but most of its two etories was given over to a. saloon, a gambling room and a restaurant.
 The town sprung up af is by magic. It was the first station beyond the line of the Indian reservation. The first place to get a drink of red liquor for drovers coming out to ship their herds. and the last place to get a drink on the return to Texas and the Southwest.
 In six months there were more than 800 people in the town and town company was organized. A general store was butt. and Pete Crotty came down from Elm pcria and started a blacksmith shop. Mrs. Halpin started a bakery in tent, and in two months she had made so much money that she built g. frame store, and tie future of Baldviile was assured. Then it became the winter rendezvous of the
 
 of frequent "shlndigs'' between the wis., iting cowboys and the farmers oe the vicinity.
 Up to the time when Bald opened his sporting house, Dave Mcdonald managed to live comfortably. quietly and unknown with his partner in their dugout on Pole cat Creek. But when the snow began to fly and the idle hours of winter began to hang heavily on his hands he became a daily visitor n the UraUin0 tovyu whan Deacon Hemstead began to "get up church. Dave gave him g and perhaps as matter of recreation attended all the meetings. He was a handsome chap with the eyes and curls that women like, and way of sitting his horse that won the men over to him. Nobody knew where he came from and nobody in those days cared.
 His skin was white like woman. but he could shoot and ride and was regis- tered freeholder. so they made him first constable of Baldville and began to ex- pect great things of him. But Mcdonald got a bad start. All that first winter the horse thieves laid low and he had nothing to do but drink and play faro and go to church. He did them all with a radiant good will, laughing always, till one night a Shawnee trader dropped in at Bald's place to sell some hides. Dave got to frolicking with the Indian, began to shoot at his feet, and when he had | made the Indian jump as high as the | ceiling amid the encouraging laughter of | the crowd. bade the Indian change his | capers
 The other way. now" roared Dave | See how low you can drop. Pm going | to take crack at your top knot"
 The Indian quite terrified. began to squat lower and lower, but at last his | aim unsteadied with laughing, Mcdonald | shot him through the head. When he saw that the Indian was dead he rode | back to his dugout and stayed there for week. Nobody went after him, and he might have lived down that killing for everybody liked him. especially the wo- men, and the victim was only an Indian Perhaps Dave was treasured by his part ner. but at the end of a week he rode into town very pale. very subdued looking and quite silent. If he had only stayed away from the saloon that day there's no telling If he might not have lived to be- come the Mayor of Baldville and gone to Congress at last. But Dave did go to the saloon and by noon was laughing louder and oftener than anybody in the settlc ment.
 He drifted over to Crotty's smithy and slung a sledgc for half an hour. laugh ing and joking with the blacksmith like boy on a holiday. Then he drifted in 10 the bakers and bought some pies. dis tributing them among four or flvc small boys that were peeking in at the win dow. When he got out into the street he | saw a stranger crossing over to the new | general store and stopped to laugh Tho | newcomer was fin his shirtslecvcs. but he | wore a plug hat, "a stovepipe,' the first | that had been seen in Baldy1lle. The | loitcrers along the street had not forgot | ten the killing of the Shawnee. they had | AH.Ta IZls od of merry making, and when they saw | him follow tho stranger into the new store they gathered outside in little | groups and watched through the windows. |
 The stranger with the hat" had teamed down from Wichita with a wagon load of merchandise. the first commercial | traveller that had struck Baldville. He didn't sec that Dave was following him, | but went into the rear of the new store He was bent on selling his prairie cargo, | and Dave, lettering in the forepart of the store, was laughing at the "stovepipe" as he leaned against the bare counter.
 By Jehosophat." laughed Dave aloud. l as he unshipped his gun, by Jerusalem! I've got to take one shot at that hat. 1 Where did you get that hat?''
 As the stranger turned around he fired | point blank, at the hat and the wearer | fell to the floor like n log. Gogfolk ran out from behind the counter and picked | him up and Dave. his smile fading into gray. scared stare. came up. They | lifted the stranger and laid him on the pine boards of the counter, but he never 1 spoke. Mcdonald. sobered now, mur mured:
 "I didn't think could miss that dice | box" |
 But he didn't wait for the crowd that 1 came rushing into the front door. He | escaped through the corral at the rear | and was galloping out of Baldville be- fore the town was sure that the man with | the hat was dead.
 The posse of men that left Baldville | that night had little to say. It struck south across the prairie and there were women who hoped that their husbands would never catch up with the quarry. The men came back in the morning tired. silent morose. The next day a herd Of | Texas cattle came struggling around Bald's barbed fence corner and in one of the wagons of the outfit was the body Of pale face, curly headed man with moose at his neck and a wound over his closed eyes. They laid the body on Balds warped porch and there it stretched in l the sun and shadows until Gogfolk and Pete Crotty and Perry Bald carried 1t to the banks of Polecat Creek and buried it. The herd passed on next morning to Wichita and two weeks later a pale. white haired old lady dressed like the waning memories of old days in the East, came to Baldville and asked where David Mcdonald lay buried.