The Minneapolis journal., 1903-04-18

THE. ]
which this precious fragment had been
broken. The sun beat hotlyaupon him as |
1T had onsSother days thru all the hard |
years when certainty. after all, was moth |
ing more than temperamental faith. All
day he climbed and searched methodic-
ally, stopping at noon to eat with an ap-
petite unaffected by his prospect
At sunset he would have stopped for
the day. camping on the spot. He looked
above to estimate the ground he could
cover on the morrow.
Almost in front of him, a few yards UP
the mountainside, he looked squarely at
the mother of his float: huge boWlder
of projecting silicate.l 1t was there.
During the following week he ascer-
tanned the dimensions Of his vein of sill
yer ORE and located two claims. He
named them The Stars and Stripes" and
THE american Boy paying thereby what
he considered tributes. equally deserved,
to his native land and to his only SON
Daniel in whom were centered his fond
est hopes. W
year Of European travel had followed
for the family, a year of spending the
new money lavishly for. strange, long
dreamed luxuries-a year in which the
money was joyously proved to be real.
in the east. That year was less satisfac-
tory. The novelty Of being sufficiently
| fed, clad and sheltered was losing its fine
edge.
Penniless and constrained to a life Of
privatior,t Peter Bines had been strangely
happy. Rich and %of consequence ir. IA
| community where the ways were all of
4 pleasantness and peace, Peter. Bines be-
i came restless, discontented, and, at.,last.
Enthusiastically miserable. s4 I. 4; a !.
'It can't be because J. m RICH s he ar
gued; tits sure thing my money can't
Keep me from doin' jest Wha sIst5 s want an:
tozdo. - ssSs sE ssft1
Then suspicion pricked him; for he
1 had III his years Of solitude; formed the
4 habit Of considering, In a. sleisnrely and
4 lhospitable manner, even the reverse sides
.l.of propositions that are commonly accept
4 ed by men without question: D; - i.:ts 1
1.-THE money. can't prevent m me from dom
! what I Jest want to -certain-but, maybe
4 Idon't it?; II II didn't have It I'd fur: sure
: be back in: the hills and happy, = and sc
1iwould Evalinas that lain't had hardly Wha1
< you could call good day since we made
1.-THE strike. a.si ss.s
4 On this line of reasoning 1t took Petel
I lBines no long time to conclude that 'he
ought now to enjoy as luxury what n
had once been constrained to as neces:
sity.
Even when was poor and had to hi
the trail jest loved them hills, so VIII!
amt it crafty to pike back to. 'em nov
= when I don't have tor ,..:E
x His triumphant finale was: .sass5 55 q ,,ss
4 when you come to. think about 1t,
l. rich man amt really got any more @excus
s fur beir1' mis- able than a poor man. has =
II Back to the big hills that called him ha'
:: he gone; away from the cities where peo
pie lived "too close together and too ia
apart; back to the green, rough cart
y, o;r froa oYoH
man could see-a hundred miles, and tn
! people lived far enough apart to be neigh
borly. = s$Sse ~ ~. : i$
= There content had blessed him again
content not slothful but melting;
:, content that embraced his own be
; loved west, fashioning first In ran
cy and then by deed, its own pfou
future He. had never ceased to pla
, and stimulate its growth He not onl
: became one with it's manifold interests. bu
: proudly dedicated the, young Daniel to 1t
further making. He became an, arden
and bigoted westerner, with scorn TO
7 the east so profound that no easterneri
= scorn for the west hath ever by an
= chance equaled It,
u Prospecting with the simple outfit 9
q old became his relaxation, his sport, ano
z z as he aged. his hobby. It was saidatha
Il he had exalted prospecting to the d1gnt
of an art, and no longer hunted gold as
/
have valuable deposits covered, and Ger
g tain it is that after Creede made his -rlc
# find on Mammoth mountain In 1890, Pete
Z. Bines met him in Denver and gave, hlr
particulars about the vein which as Iye
Il Creede had. divulged to! no. one: Ques
n toned later concerning this, Peter Bine
e evaded answering directly, but suggeste
l. that a man who already had plenty {
1t money might have done wisely to cover u
IL the find and be still about IT.; that Ma
el Creede- himself proved as much by goin
10 crazy over his wealth and blowing out III
ibrains. ~ :.
ell To tamely prosperous fastener WIN
" some years after his return to the ives
= made the conventional remark, And ism
Je it amazing that you were happy throug
IS those hard years Of toll when you were
m | poor?" Peter Bines had replied, to n
a uuestioner's hopeless bewildermenti N
In But it is surprisin' that / kept happy aft
- I got rich-after@ got what I wanted. !:
"a 1:s'I reckon you'll find" he added. I
~ way of explaining, that the proportit
=, Of happy rich to unhappy rich is a m1gh
~ sight smaller than the proportion Of hapI
- poor to the unhappy poor. I'm one OF Il
= former minority, all right,-but,
-, Cripes! it's because know how to
- = rich and still enjoy all the little comfor
h of poverty!' ..