The Savannah morning news., 1903-06-14
(Continued from Last Sundays News.)
XVII.
BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD AC.
QUAINTANCE AND STARTS A
COLLECTION

COLLECTION.
In the course of this same morning,
Lafond had discovered an old acqualnt-
ance.
He arose early. and spent some time
after breakfast investigating and criti-
cisng the premises. Frosty's admins
tration had. it must be confessed, been
rather slack, and there were many
loose ends. These Black Mike gath
cred into a cat o nine tails with which
20 lash his subordinate. After he had
done more for Frosty's character in
sixty minutes than that young man.
unaided, could have accomplished in as
many months, he left the scene of his
reorganizations behind, and strolled
about in the one narrow street of the
village.
He soon saw all there was to be
seen there. With a vague idea of find
ing his way to the famous Great Snake
mine, he rambled out from the double
row of log cabins, around the bend,
and into the lower gulch He had de-
fined to himself two things very clear
ly-that Billy Knapp was now easily
the most important figure in the COM
munity, and that a continuance of this
Importance depended entirely on his
effecting a combination of his group
of claims with Eastern capital. In the
Black Hills nearly all of the promis-
ing leads are of quartz, requiring in
their development more expensive ma
chinery than any ordinary man is able
TO afford. Until the good angel arrives,
they are so much crumbling red rock
or white crstal but with the erection
of a stamp mill, within wagon dis
lance, they become valuable. Mike had
set himself to the task of depriving
Billy Knapp at once of his property
and of his prestige; but since he could
not hold him up at the point of a
piston, as might have been done had it
been the question of a watch or a
scarfpin, he did not at present see just
how it was to be accomplished. Runh-
mating these matters, he found himself
all at once in a canon much grown
with underbrush, full of birds, and
possessing a general air of the gentler
aspects of nature
Immediately before him stood a dou-
BILE cabin, its two parts connected by
a passage way. The foundations of its
timbers were encircled by broad bands
of red geraniums. Behind the build
ings, chained to posts, he perceived
three wild animals. One was a short
comical and shaggy bear; the second
an equally furry but more eager-look-
ing raccoon; the third, a bobcat with
tasselled ears.
Mike paused and surveyed them with
amusement. AS he stood there the
door of the cabin opened and the own
er stepped out into the sunshine. The
half-breed never forgot a face which a
vital incident had impressed on his
memory; and though this old. white
haired, mild-eyed man had passed in
and out of his life in the space of one
evening fifteen years ago, Lafond rec
ognized without difficulty the stranger
whose words had given him so power
full an impetus toward his new way Of
life. 1t was Durand, the butterfly
hunter.
He was little changed. And again
the coarser man felt, as fifteen years
before. the air of gentle and quaint
courtesy, which a keener observer
would have associated with an old
fashioned society now quite passed
away. 1t should have gone with ruff
fes and silken hose, with powdered
hair and silver shoe buckles.
The naturalist caught sight of the
newcomer and approached.
They are quite gentle" he assured,
explaining the beasts. He rubbed the
heavy fur of the raccoon the wrong
way. "Ah, jacques" he said to the
little animal, relapsing quantity into a
sort of old-tirne speech, thy hair doth
lESELlDAC III SlllIlESS VI IG8luIS lnC
bristles of thine own curry brush"
The raccoon uttered his high, purr-
ing over-note, and seized the mans
fingers with his little black hands, all
most human. The bear waved his
paws appealingly. The bobcat danced
back and forth at the end of its leash
Peace. my children" chided the old
man, bestowing on each pat. o"It is
not yet the hour of noon" He stopped
to unsnap the raccoon's chain; and
then, as though recalling the half
breeds presence, he turned with an
air of apology
You are a stranger here?" he asked.
Yes? And you walk this morning
for your pleasure? Yes? That hap
pens not often in these parts.' He
went on, conversing shyly but easily,
with the obvious desire of pleasing the
half-breed rather than himself La
fond had opportunity to observe the
great solidity of the logs composing
the cabin walls, and to recognize that
the structure must belong to the Earlier
period of the primitive architecture of
the Hills-for there are such periods.
You have lived here long" he sug-
gested, following out this inference.
Yes" laughed the old man, soft
ly, very long. The camp there came
to me-. l was an old timer when the
first house was built"
AFTER little, they entered the abin
together and Lafond found himself in
a sheet-ceiled room, strewn with all
sorts of literary and scientific junk
The Imagination could discover much
food for speculation in the curiosities
literally heaped about the apartment
but most wonderful of all. seizing the
eye. holding it from all else, were the
scores of shallow glass-fronted boxes
hanging everywhere on the wall They
were lined with white paper pasted
over q layer of cork. In them. row
after row. were impaled butterflies OF
many colors. Thousands of the pretty
insects were there outspread. varying
in size from the tiny blue Lycaena Il
the great Troilus or the gorgeous vel.
low and black Turnus. They were
eXquisitely prepared. with just the rgh
life on the wings, just the proper bal
ance of the long antennae, until 4
seemed that they must be on the poin
of fight, and one almost expected tina
in another moment the air would b.
filled with a huttering. many-hueS
splendor.
The men seated themselves in tive
homemade chairs. The raccoon. eyi
IDENTIFY from old winter-time habit
waddled in a dignifel fashion TO tn