The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-09-20
ONETENDERFOOT'SE EXPERIENCE
Race Week at indian Agency Showed Him That
East and West Are Alike.

The tenderfoot sat on the rough board
platform and, kicking his heels, looked
contemplatively out toward the bare,
brown hills a mile or so away. After
awhile, he took letter from his pocket
and read, punctuating occasionally with
interjections of his own
you've only got one
life to live; what do you want to bury
yourself out there for? Why not come
back and live it?'
The dry winds of Northwestern Ne
braska gathered up sand and dust and
other debris and distributed it impair
tally. The tenderfoot being to leeward
of the little wooden station, in sort
of eddy, got his full share; the sand
gritted uncomfortably in his teeth and
the dried grasses found lodgment in his
hair. But he only smiled a dry little
smile as he put the letter back into his
pocket.
The smile evoked by this part of the
letter changed into a broad grin as two
men in Government blue, the stripes
on their arms indicating the rank of
Sergeant, came swinging down from
the town, the one riding a diminutive,
f1eabft pony. the other an abnormally
long-legged Government mule 1t was
a sight that they themselves would
have been the first to find uproariously
f,,nnv axcent that numerous visits to
certain corner where were dispensed
LIQUID refreshments prohibited to the
red man, but gloriously free to his
white brother, had reduced them to
state of unnatural gravity and official
a;e,nitv. The mule ran with the grace
of a galloping camel and the pony
hooked like a rabbit by its side, taking
two strides to his one.
A troop of noisy girls of from 10 to l6
wears of age, riding astride their non
descript ponies, some barebacked, some
in the deep mems saddles of the plans
all shouting and laughing, scampered
ftar them across the railroad track
and disappeared in cloud of dust out
toward a rough board structure that
iutted up out of the prairie about a
ouarter of a mile to the west.
Then the tenderfoot followed, still
smiling. 1t amused him to think OF Poe-
ter writing to him in that way. He
started to whistle little tune, but the
wind stopped that with a hatful OF dust
that it had found OPPORTUNITY. The sio-
venlv agent looked after him SUSPECT
ouslv. But the latter did not notice him
at all. He was figuring to himself now
many times it would happen that Fate,
after worrying an inoffensive mortal to
the verge of nervous prostration, using
for that delightful purpose a branch
railroad through the sandhills, would
elect to strand him for six hours In the
town of all others he would have Sc
lected for that event
indian bows dashed by on rough un-
crrried ponies, vying with the Whlte
Urls in the amount and variety of noise
t1,av made. their ponies hoofs striking
amy IN the dust or heating a lively
tattoo according as they were on the
bieb or low ground. Statuesque old
various, silent, dignified, blanketed to
the ewes. left their tents sitting lonely
~ IN clusters on the brown prairie, and
stalked with the gliding, in-toe motion
of the Indian toward the point at which
the various streams of humanity were
apparently uninterested
looking neither to the right nor the left.
The tenderfoot wondered how many of