The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1903-12-25
Their Last
Trail
By William Buckley

what argument can a cowboy be eX-
pected to enforce if you take away his
arms? The short, sharp bark" of his
pistol, always at hand, quick, faithful
and vicious as a watchdog, is the col
league of his disputation. 1t is the
italics, the exclamation point, the con-
clusion of his syllogistic premises, and
the umpire of his debate. This, at
least, is the case with the very new
est and toughest western settlements.
Rapid City (the ''city" being the
star at which the townspeople aimed,
rather than an index of population)-
Rapid City was an extreme example OF
these picturesque but unwholesome
communities The alarming death
rate, indeed, managed to secure the
town a certain amount of free adyer-
Using. but even this was of sort that
tended to induce less immigration than
emigration.
The realization of this latter I'M
poetic truth compelled the local mar
shall to issue a reluctant edict forbid
ding man, woman. child or broncho
its of the city. He was not blind to
the heroic poetry of stalking life on
a tiny bullet, or the dramatic justice
of an appeal to arms; but he was there
primarily to serve the municipal adj
vantage. So he nailed up his mani
festo-with the revolutionary effect of
Luther's thesis.
Now, the present incumbent of the
marshalsy of Rapid City had won his
exalted position solely because no one
could recall time when he had been
either dilatory for fatal moment, or
inaccurate for an effective BARS
breadth in his manipulation OF that
product of the American desire for
quick results.
So the cow-punchers took out their
revenge in oaths and threats against
the next election, and from the very
day after the edict the place of the
pistol knew it no more.
Men had a half-clad look and a
naked, defenseless feeling without
their customary armament. Many a
hand went back to an unresponsive
belt, and quarrels went tame and
all unsatisfactory. How was man
to prove his ownership Of an over
boiling Jackpot with only empty
hands to verify his claim? How set
the tenderfoot to hopping in Terp-
sichorean terror? How ayenge the
lie direct without artillery? For
fists are urdignified weapons on the
frontier, and for use only in unim-
portant squabbles, and as an Introduce
ton to the higher court procedure of
the revolver.
Rapid City had managed to survive
about a week of this uncomfortable
negative virtue, when Jesse Bolande.
Esq, rode into town at about four of
ranch all week, and as he stood at the
unmirrore6 bar of Keno Jim's Place"
he listened to the new state of affairs
with many an oath of. increduious
amaze At his right side, hammer to
the front, swung his far-famed IA ex-
tra-long revolver. To demand it of
him would be calling on Hector to
yield up his lance and count himself
tanned.
So Bolande stood, lounging in re-
Taxed might across the grimy little bar
and throwing into his unseared throat
glassfuls of liquid fire-that uncon-
gealed lava of a western distillery-vol-
cano. Suddenly those at the window
began to evince genuine excitement, a
thing unusual in the more than So
cially blase cow-punchers, whom a
mortal combat hardly galvanizes.
One of them blurted out, smacking
his lips Valkyrie-wise in anticipation
of magnificent battle: Watch out,
Bolande, the marshals comm"
Bolande shrugged his huge frame in
contemptuous Indifference. Quick upon
this heralding came the marshal's au-
gust self. He paused just inside the
door and bliHked his eyes, in intro
duction to the dusk of the low-browed
room. In the twilight he did not i'm
pose an heroic figure. His colossally
impressive power saluted you only
when the full day brought you a
glimpse Of jaw that was not square
and phlegmatic, but yet gaunt and
nervously firm; of eyes that did not
waste their ferocious steel in a set
fierceness, and yet gave hint of Turk
ing demons. The marshal was hard
ly above meIlum height, and rather be-
low medium weight. His light bones
were wrapped with steel wire rather
than with ponderous muscles, whose
bulk is their own chief hindrance. The
marshal wore pistol at his side, ex-
oflcio. His duty demanded it. and no
man feared its abuse in the dove-like
gentleness of his unoffensive moods.
The marshal and Bolande were old
friends. They had once moiled on a
ragged claim upon the mountains to-
gether; they had stood back to back in
skirIishes with yelling savages in a
bowling wilderness. And now their
youthful mistress, Adventure, had lost
charm for them and they had drawn
into the shell that a man in his for
ties will protect with his life from any
encroachment, though he has no de-
sire to make it the base of excursions
into other mems preserves. But b.
lande and the marshal were still good
friends, bondaged with the golden link
OF mutual Renaissance.