The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-02

 in Salt Lake City. The months wages they possessed would last not more than a little while.
 .'What shall we do to be saved-until spring?" asked Bolts of Bannihan, and the later gave 1t up. It looked like the work house or jail for the trio. While the two men sat breeding in the twilight Johnson came in and they put it up to him.
 'When you are with the Mormons do as the Mormons do-get married said Johnson. I'm doubleheading out or the Tabernacle at high noon Saturday next he continued: "Saturday is Sunday, in our church"
 "It beats working" said Bolts. Banni- han pounded his knee with his cap and smiled inaudibly.
 wen board with you" suggested Bolts.
 Not on me-" Johnson answered.
 'I said with you.'
 There'n be no room. l have seven rnothers-in-law and one child"
 .lhe two derelicts sat staring mutely one at the other It was Botts who broke the hush. Let us go thou and do likewise"
 T tremble," said Bannihan.
 
 the tent.
 when the two men were alone together they unused on the morrow which was fish day and the one day intervening be- tween them and Saturday-wedding day, at which time they hoped to feast.
 At length the good day dawned and at the wedding they each met their fate. Bolts got buxom bride from ranch ne.r town, Bannihan straw-haired fairy from the foothills. She had been throned on the float" as "Queen of the May at Provo Junction, and the effect had been to turn her poor little head and start her down the skids for the stage"
 Being helpless and homeless like Ban nihan. she took him, for better or worse and they began to lean on each other. Of course when it came down to cases, bannihan would not sit idle and see his little sunbeam starve They were building the Temple at the time and the men got work. Bannihan was assigned to spotted steer htched to a storm sled and when the sunbeam saw him following the OK she was shocked. It was upprofesisonal and she sent him away to Ogden to find work, becoming an "engneer."
 Bannihan came back in ten days and found the following note pinned to the tent-hap.
 Dear Banny: Don't scod and don't drink. It just kills me to see you, an engineer, my engineer doing drudgery. It will wound yoL sore, I ween, to read this. but when I tell you that l have q Ilrfectly heavenly job I know you'll forgive. I'm going away with the Uncle Toms Cabin company. Bye-bye your
 LITTLE EVA" After that blow Bannihan drifted with the swelling tide of emmgration to the Canadian west-the last west-leaving his comrades more or less happily married m tola bv baf mn mothers-in-law. He ranched in Alberta and prospected in British Columbia. but without endangering his prospect of dying d.oently poor.
 Bannihan's next job was with Orsdal at Edmonston. He was to report to Smith, the Silent. whose real name is Jones. After counting his spoons. care fully for the third time, and cautioning hin to be careful with the company's property, Osdal gave Bannihan his bless ing and letter to the Pathfinder and >aded him for the Upper Athabasca.
 There was a rule on the Grand Trunk Pacific that all matrimonial alliances were to be postponed until the last spike was driven. Of course one ever men, toned it, but there existed this under standing from the general manager down. It was a sort of unwritten law-incom- prehensible and awfu-and it went.
 Naturally Bannihan denied himself, along with the rest It all very well M the scented summer, when day alarmed shortly after midnight and there was eleven hours of afternoon, but in the short December days-through the long. long northern nights, Bannihan, keeping camp between the Coast Range an. the Rockies found the hush of his cabin killing
 One day there came to the camp a good. kindhearted Creek Indian, who said at once that 1t was a shame for the peG-setter to be alone when he had house full of women. He ended by of- 1ering the Irishman the pick of the flock but Bannihan, remembering the Sunbeam with her beautiful wheat-hued hair. "go- ing to heaven every night, shuddered and sock his head He was much obliged maid Of the wild, and the Indian went away.
 News of the nearness of the unmarried man spread, as news will even in the wilderness and on the following Sun da.- the Creek came back, bearing with him a whole harum on horseback. The fact that these Indians had horses in their own right attested their standing In the tribe. They all had dinner with Bannihan, one particularly interesting girl sitting next to the host and steal ing side glances at the fine face of the young Irishman
 When they had packed up and were ready to take the back trail. the Creek pointing at the comedy girl grunted 'This one?'
 Bannihan was surprised-it was so sud- den-but managed to thank the Cree and offer his hand to the girl-not for life but just to say goodbye
 Something in the sad wistful eye of the Indian girl. the warm clasp of her plump hand, the last backward glance at the lone cabn--something or many things-stirred the red blood of Banni- han and made him stand and stare after the trallers. until they reached a bend in the trail and disappeared down the river.
 Long he sat in the almost interminable twilight thinking, thinking, thinking. A brown bird came down and dined upon his rude table while tiny wood-mouse crept up and gathered the crumbs about his hob-nailed boots. Presently in the dusk, deer came out of a clump of jack-pine and passed so near that he could hear her startled breathing at sight of i.im and count the spots on the side of her fawn, and the prongues on the antlered buck who came bounding after his precious family. And then, though 1t was not yet dark. Bannihan, unspeak- ably lonely. sought the quiet of his couch and drifted into dreams of an Eveless Eden in the heart of the wild, where the deer and the bird. the moose and the woodmouse mated and multiplied while the Adam 1orded 1t alone.
 Two days dawned and died, and then, in the twilight of the third day the dusky