The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-01-13
(Sopyright.)

" OU know the Honorable William
 Slocum-not personally, perhaps
 but you know the palatial residence the great mining senator built on Fifth avenue, and you remember his sensation al marriage few years ago to the reign ing beauty of two continents-a woman for whom prince was ready to abdcate his throne-of course you do; well, this is about a girl who might have been the Honorable Mrs. Slocum and declined.
 1 knew the Honorable William in the days when he was plain Bill Slocum Of Slocum Creek; when he was poor and have looked at him except as a curiosity yet he was loved. Loved with a love that would have lasted to the end of time and all eternity if he hadn't shown so plainly he wasn't worth it.
 Slocum Creek when I first saw it was not what 1t is now. A typical mining camp the school house, used on Sundays for church, the largest building and the most ornamented in it.; for it's the wom- en and the children that count In the west, they keep us little nearer God u them. So coming into the Creek the first thing to catch the eye would be the school house; and the next, if she hap pened to be standing in the door, would be the school mistress. trimmest little figure you ever saw, and way about her that was convincingly attractive
 Of course the men were crazy about her. There's touch of the primeval in passion at all times, but it's more than a touch in a mining camp. Tho smell < of the earth gets into mans nostrils, ulingles in his brain with the fragrance of spruce trees twlnng their signing branches about each other; and the thickets are full of calling birds and chat tering squirrels; and overhead, along the cloud line somewhere, comes the distant challenge of the mountain sheep, below ing defiance. Why, 1t gets Into mans very soull He wants to below defiance, too, only he's got his ethics. Perhaps you think being a bit prmeval there were quarrels. fights, passionate contests and reprisals-not a bit of it. She was queen and what she said went. When Mike Murgatroyd got his dismissal It's true he kicked Freddy Fanshawe out to the sidewalk but that was for getting in his road. and Freddy needed kicking any way. We all tagged along for while but she dropped us one by one until only Bill Slocum was left.
 He was kind of gentleman miner with more money than the rest of us. He bought out Sam Blair's claim, reputed to be the richest in the camp, but not the kind for poor man to work. It was all right for Bill though. He i'm ported the latest machinery from the east and a high-class engineer to sink the shaft. and spent no end of money on the business Expectation ran high. And when Dolly Brtton pinned her faith tied the matter for those of us who move qpicker at anything she might do. But 1t was an anxious time. We worried a good deal. Slocum himself declared one night at a little evening we had over at Remingtons.
 "It's make or break, boys. The whole shooting match has gone into the shaft"
 And the whole shooting match stayed there. God Almighty gives some men sense, and others get credentials. I don't believe with all his certificates that engi- neer knew as much about the vein as old Sam Blair did. He clean missed it anyway. We'd have made him find\ it. by heaven only he slipped off one night before we knew what he was about NJ
 Bill started drinking. That's way some men have I never can understand-as If l they wanted to assist Providence in wip- ing them out. There was little chap , came to the schoolhouse on Sunday, few years before. with a face like an angel God had forgotten; think 1t was