Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1909-12-09
SYNOPSIS.

Murray Sinclair and his gang of wreck
ers were called out to clear the railroad
tracks at Smoky Creek. McCloud,
young road superintendent, caught Sin
clair and his men in the act of looting
the wrecked train. Sinclair pleaded in
nocence, declaring it only amounted to
discharged the whole outfit and ordered
the wreckage burned McCloud became
acquainted with Dicksie Dunning, girl
OF the west, who. came to look at the
wreck. She gave him a message for Sin
clair. Whispering Gordon Smith told
president Bucks of the railroad, of Nc
Clouds brave fight against a gang of
crazed miners and that was the reason
Tor the superintendent appointment to
his high office. McCloud arranged to
board at the boarding house of Mrs Sin
clair, the eX-fOremanS deserted wife.
Dicksie Dunning was the daughter of the
late Richard Dunning, who had died of a
broken heart shortly after his wife's
demise, which occurred after one year of
married life. Sinclair visited Marion Sim
clair's shop and a fight between him and
McCloud was narrowly averted Smoky
McCloud prepared to face the situation
President Bucks notified Smith that he
had work ahead McCloud worked for
days and finally got the division running
sic criticisng his methods, TO Marion
Sinclair. A stock train was wrecked by
an open switch Later passenger train
was held up and the express car robbed.
were killed McCloud was notified that
Whispering Smith was to hunt the des-
peradoeS. Bill Dancing, a road lineman,
proposed that. Sinclair and his gang be
sent to hunt the bandits. A stranger, APP
parently with authority, told him to go
S Was "wRap sns "s Smith, iG rs Smith sp-
preached Sinclair. He tried to buy him
off, but failed. He warned McCloud that
his life fe WAS in danger MfGond was ear
ence. Dunning refused the railroad a
right-of-way, he had already signed for
Dicksie interfered to prevent shooting
trail to warn him his life was in danger.
On his way home shot passed through
his hat. Whispering Smith reported that
Du Sang, one of Sinclair's gang had been
assigned to kill McCloud He and Smith
saw Du Sang. Whispering Smith taunt-
ed Du Sang and told him to get out of
to succumb to the bluff. McClouds big
construction job was taken from him be-
cause of an injunction issued to Lance
Dunning bv the United States court.
CHAPTER xvI.-Continued.
embody, historically, all of the de-
ceits known to mountain streams. Be
low the Box Canyon it plows through
a great bed of yielding silt, it's own
deposit between the two imposing
lines of bluffs that resist it's wander
ings from side to side of the wide val
ley. This fertile soil makes up the
rich lands that are the envy of less
fortunate regions in the Great Basin;
but the Crawling Stone is not river
to give quiet title to one acre of its
own making The toll of it's centuries
spreads beautifully green under the
June skies, and the unsuspecting set
tier, lulled into security by many
years of the rivers repose, settles on
its level bench land and lays out his
long lines of possession; but the Sioux
will tell you in their own talk that this
man is but a tenant at will; that In
another time and at another place the
stranger will inherit his fields; and
that the Crawling Stone always comes
back for it's own.
The winter had been an unusual one
even in land of winters. The sea-
sons fall of snow had not been above
an average, but it had fallen in the
spring and had been followed by ex-
cessively low temperatures throughout
the mountains. June came again, but
a strange June. The first rise of the
Crawling Stone had not moved out
the winter frost, and the stream lay
bound from bank to bank, and for hun
dreds of miles, under three feet of ice
When June opened, backward and
cold, there had been no spring. Heavy
frosts lasting until the middle of the
month gave sudden way to summer
heat, and the Indians on the upper.
valley reservation began moving back
into the hills. Then came the rise
Creek after creek in the higher noun
tains, ice-bound for six months, burst
without warning into flood. Soft winds
mountain walls of their snow. Rains
set in on the desert, and far in the
high northwest the Crawling Stone
lifting its four-foot cap of ice like a
bed of feathers began rolling it end
over end down the valley. In the Box
40 feet of water struck the canyon
walls and ice-floes were hurled like
torpedoes against the granite spurs;
the Crawling Stone was starting after
Its own.
When the river rose, the earlier talk
of Cummings men had been that the
Crawling Stone would put an end te
the railroad pretensions by washing
the $50 miles of track back to the
Peace river, where it had started. This
much in the beginning was easy tt
predict; but the railroad men hao
turned out in force to fight for theil
holdings, and while the ranchers were
laughing, the river was flowing over
the bench lands in the upper valley