East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-10-11

1t was back in the early days of the
civil war that Joaquin Miller. the now
celebrated poet of the Pacific, was
running a weekly paper in a frontier
town of Lane county, Oregon, says
Mabel C. Redington in Sunset Maga-
zine.
Joaquin was then plain C. H. Miller
a young man. but already a veteran
Indian campaigner carrying scars to
last a lifetime. He had one-and-a-half
printers helping him to run the Of
flee, besides his partner. Tony Nolt-
ner. They were all an easy-going lot,
Everything was left wide open, and If
there had been a safe 1t would have
been ditto. The Miller printing Of
flee had a towel. 1t was the usual
printshop towel of which you have
all heard.
Bud Kinsey was the son of a pio-
neer. He was strongly suspected of
being connected with the recent rob-
berry of the Santiam stage and the
sheriff's posse had been pursuing him,
and thought they were on his trail
from his fathers ranch right into the
town. They were pretty near right.
Bud rode down the main street. He
knew he had friends there who would
help him out on a pinch and say
nothing about having seen him. Soon
he spied the open door of the print
shop, where all hands had quit work,
as early evening was approaching. He
had ridden his horse into frontier sa-
looms, and 1t was no trouble to ride
him into a printshop and close him up
in the back room where Joaquin made
his bed on a bale of bearskins.
There had been a time when Bud
had been enlisted as printers devil,
but the effort to thus tame him had
not lasted long. But now he recog-
nized his old friend the office towel,
with its full supply of ink and SCOT.
This coloring matter he daubed all
over his face and hands, then pulled
on a pair of inky overalls and a bat
tered office hat, and with stick of
fir stovewood for a pillow, he laid
by throwing in few snores, he was
pretty good picture of lazy cultus,
snoozing negro.
Pretty soon the pursuing posse
came along and the chief deputy rode
up to the printshop door. swung him
self out of the saddle, and came in
He thought his prey might be hiding
there. His big six-shooter was ready
for business, for Bud was considered
bad man.
The officer glanced around the
printshop and gave the sleeping negro
kick that caused him to suddenly
roll off his hard bed.
For de Lawd's sake, boss, doar
kill mel" yelled Bud. in well-assumed
negro dialect. He had passed his pos
sum- hunting days on the Missouri
border. and could talk it to perfec-
tion. II am just Marsa Miller's devil
sab, and hain't done stole noffin'. II
yo be Hank Vaughn l hain't never
done noffin to you ALL"
Just then Sheriff Maddox came to
the door and told the deputy to waste
no more time there; that he had re-
| ceived inside information that the
stage robber had gone on, heading for
Coos Bay, on fairly fresh horse
And the posse lit out toward the set
ting sun, riding like mad.
and Bud was waiting, only waiting,
till the shadows had little longer
grown, and then he stole "a fresh
horse, >and when he pulled rein next
morning up in the forks of the San
gro, and Henry States, the settlers
son, who, with his usual generosity,
| gave him a good breakfast, recognized
him as the serving man of-"Old Bill
Delaney, who had brought him from
the south many years before.
Rattlesnake Butte soon faded away
behind Bud, and another twilight
found him well up the trail on the
north fork of the Santiam. 1t was
tough travelling, but the Klamath In
dians and the Hudson Bay trappers
had been through there before. and
why should not he? The blackberry
vines impeded his headway, and the
snowy summit Of Mt. Jefferson peeped
down at him from above the tall
tamaracks and the soughing pines.
the largest on earth but But must
have reached the other side. across
the range, east OF the Cascades. the
open bunchgrass hills along the swift
Des Chutes, for he was afterwards
heard OF as co-laborer of Captain