Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-08-11
s The Hollow in the =
Red Rocks. Is
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By A. w. Whitehouse. =
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By A. w. Whitehouse.


Copyright, 1899, by The Shortstory Pub
fishing Company. All rights reserved.
CUDDEN and u~nlooked-for things
~ happen in the mountains. For all
that we are civilized, and the bad man
is no longer very bad, evil deeds are
done among the lonely peaks, and
sometimes two men go on a journey,
and very long afterwards one skeleton
is found.
am now able to give some sort of
an explanation of the motives which
brought about the strange disappear
ance of my partner last October,
though many of the facts remain to be
cleared up.
To tell a connected story, | have to
60 back to a time when | was only a
small ranchman, holding the nucleus
of the present splendid property, and
the Black Hills Land G. Cattle COM
pany did not exist. In a matter of
business I had made the acquaintance
OF old Matthew Sparks, the great
dressed beef man at the Chicago stock
yards, and the business acquaintance
had developed into a personal friend
ship, during the course of which MIR.
Sparks had been very kind to me in
deed.
1t was in the spring of 81 that I re-
ceived the letter from Mr.. Sparks
which made so great a change in my
prospects. 1t was very long, and went
rather fully into business details, but
M extract from it is necessary for the
proper understanding of later events.
Il am sorry to say" he wrote, that
Archie (his only SOM has signalized
his entrance into business life by a
very disreputable social scandal.
There was an ENHANCEMENT with a
girl, followed by her suicide. l need
hardly say that had I known of it in
time, Archie should have done his duty
at any cost to the family, but, as it is,
Chicago is too hot to hold him, and it
will be better for him to keep away for
several years. Archie is devoted to
outdoor pursuits, and will very prob
ably take quite kindly to ranching,
though he is no good at all in the Of
fce."
Then followed an offer which made
me sit up. Briefly, l was to acquire on
his behalf enough neighboring prop
erty to support 10000 head of cattle,
and my own interest in the concern
was to be so large as to make me a
fairly wealthy man in the course of a
very few years. The only pill was
Archie l had met that youth, and did
not like him. He was to be appointed
a subordinate officer in the company,
and was to enjoy the income of a large
block of its stock, provided that he
made his regular home at the ranch
and never slept away from it for more
than IA consecutive nights.
Apart from my obligations to Mr..
Sparks, the offer was too good to be
refused. There is a sweet certainty
about cattle when you are embodied in
the kindly arms of the beef trust that
no cowman could resist; and so it was
not very long before Archibald Sparks
came to take up his residence at the
ranch.
1t is we'll to say nothing but good
of the dead, but as there is not yet any
legal proof that Archie has crossed the
great divide l must haste to describe
him while I can do so with a clear con-
science.
He belonged to a not uncommon
type that is repulsive to men, though
by no means unattractive to women,
a type which l can only define as the
unpleasantly physical. His body was
robust and he had gloriied the care of
his %person'into a kind Of religion. He
was an extremely well-built boy, with
one Of those yearning, intense faces,
that you see among a small class of
poets and actors and a large class of
brutes. Of brains, morals and applica-
ton he was destitute.
During the first few months of the
expansion of the property the work
was chiefly Of a clerical nature-se-
curing options, besieging land. offices,
interviewing surveyors and the like.
In this I did not look for any help
from my new partner and none was
volunteered; but when the great herds
OF cattle began to pour in from the
west and south, | certainly expected to
be able to rely on him. And for sew
eral weeks, before the novelty wore
off, he did save mi a great deal Of trou-
bic. By July, however, the hot, dry
season had begun in earnest, and you
could hardly see the stock you were
driving for the dust they raised. This
was too much for Archie. He was not
going to injure his precious eyes for
any mere business consideration.
After that I saw very little of him.
His time was divided between shoot
ing, fishing and other pursuits of a less
reputable nature, and his appearances
at the ranch were just sufficiently fire.
quent to fulfill the conditions which
held his interest in the properly.
1t was towards the end of July that
Clark Fcnton arrived in the town in