Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-05-18

SA0 vi q " AAAe AStOkS SOuAIly DcLOI0 Nu0
Indians had wholly left it. The first
house in the valley was the Stone
ranch, built by Richard Cunning, and
It still stands overlooking the town of
Dunning at the junction Of the French
man creek and the Crawling Stone.
The Frenchman Is fed by unfaiIing
springs. and when by summer sun and
wind every smaller stream in the mid.
die basin has been licked dry, the
Frenchman runs cold and swift be-
tween its russell hills. Richard Dun
ming, being on the border of the In
dian country, built for his ranch
house rambling stone fortress. He
had chosen, 1t afterward proved, the
choice spot in the valley, and he
stocked it with cattle when yearlings
could be picked up in Medicine Bend
at ten dollars head. He got together
great body Of valley land when 1t
could be had for the asking, and be-
came the rich man of the Long Range.
The Cummings were Kentuckians.
Richard was bridge engineer and
builder. and under Brodie built some
Of the first bridges on the mountain
division. notably the great wooden
bridge at Smoky creek. Richard
brought out his nephew, Lance Dun
ming. He taught Lance bridge-build-
ing, and Murray Sinclair who began
as cowboy on the Stone ranch,
learned bodybuilding from Richard
Dunning. The Cummings both came
khnuoh of
young men and unmarried, and as far
as western women were concerned,
might always have remained so. But
a Kentucky cousin, Betty, one of the
Fairfield Cummings, related to Richard
within the sixth or eighth degree,
came to the mountains for her health.
| Betty's mother had brought Richard
up as boy. and Betty, when he left
Fairfield. was baby. But Dick-as
they knew him at home-and the
mother wrote back and forth, and he
persuaded her to send Betty out for a
trip, promising he would send her
back in a year we'll woman.
Betty came with only her colored
maid, old Puss Dunning, who had
taken her from the nurses arms when
she was born and taken care of her
ever since. The two-the tall Ken
lucky girl and the bent mammy-ar-
rived at the Stone ranch one day in
June, and Richard, done then with
bridges and looking after his ranch
interests, had already fallen violently
In love with Betty. She was delicate,
but, II those in Medicine Bend who re.
membered her said true. a lovely
creature. Remaining in the mountains
was the last thing Betty had ever
thought Of, but no one, man or woman,
could withstand Dick Dunning. She
fell quite in love with him the first
time she set eyes on him in Medicine
Bend. for he was very handsome in
the saddle. and Betty was fairly wild
about horses. So Dick Dunning
wooed fond mistress and married
her and buried her, and all within
hardly more than year.
But in that year they were very
happy, never two happier, and when
she slept away her suffering she left
him, as legacy, tiny baby girl Puss
brought the mite of creature in its
swaddling clothes to the sick mother
very. very sick then-and poor Bet
ty turned her dark eyes on it, kissed
It, looked at her husband and wills.
pered "Dicksie." and died. Dicksie
had been Betty's pet name for her
mountain lover, SO the father said the
childs name should be Dicksie and
nothing else; and his heart broke and
soon he died. Nothing else. storm or
food, death or disaster had ever
moved Dick Dunning: then q sim
gle blow killed him. He rode
once in while over the ranch, a
great tract by that time Of 10000
acres, all in one body. all under fence.
up and down both sides of the big
river, in part irrigated, swarming with
cattle-none Of it stirred Dick! and
with little Dicksie in his arms he
slept away his suffering.
So Dicksie was left, as her mother
had been, to Puss, while Lance looked
after the ranch, swore at the price Of
cattle. and played cards at Medicine
Bend. At ten, Dicksie, as thoroughly
spoiled as a pet baby could be by q
fool nanny, a fond cousin, and q
galaxy of devoted cowboys, was sent,
in spite of crying and flinging, to q
far-away convent-her father had
planned everything-where in many
tears she learned that there were 9TH
er things in the world besides cattle
and mountains and sunshine and tall
broad-hatted horsemen to swing from
their stirrups and pick her hat from
the ground-just to see little Dicksie
laugh-when they swooped past the
house to the corrals. When she came
back from Kentucky, her grandmother
dead and her schooldays finished, all
the land she could see in the valley
was hers. and all the living creatures
in the fields. 1t seemed perfectly
natural, because since childhood even
the distant mountains and their SHOWS
had been Dicksie's.
(To be Continually
Fees Fixed by Ancient Law.
A German antiquarian has found