Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1911-03-31

N@M g%1B1 down III dlSLTlcL leSeHu,
even though it escaped
the light of school his
tories But there was war, as any
man in Mariposa will testify.
Bill Thompson stood six feet three
in his stocking feet, and wasn't given
to much conversation. He owned
Number Four on Mariposa, had good
ground, and worked it well. Jim Tip
ton owned Number Two on the same
creek, but didn't work it, save for as
sessment, because he had another
good piece of ground across the low
divide, on Goldpan, where he held
forth. They were about the same age,
and neither of them had any bad
habits-that is, so far as any one in
the camp ever knew. Maybe this was
one reason why they weren't we'll
known. A man has to have some bad
habits in order to be what is gener-
ally called popular"
The war was caused by two women,
O. bulldog, and a claim. The claim
was Number Three, on Mariposa,
which stood between their stake
worked by Old Bill Banks. Old Bill
had good piece of ground, water
right and hydraulic plant Being a
man who preferred telling about what
he was going to do in preference to
showing what he had done, he got
Just about that far and quit. He died.
His heirs put Number Three in the
hands of an eastern agent, who has
since changed his home address, and
perhaps his name. Anyhow, it's GER
tainty he never came West, where
several OF the boys wanted to meet
him and give him reception. He
knew the kind of reception it would
be, and wasn't anxious.
One noon when the sun was shin
ing, in the summertime, and dust was
on the trails, the stage from Burdick
came rafting along and dumped out
O woman together with several boxes
AMI bundles, and she wasn't the kind
the camp knew. She didn't look as if
she cared for dancing. She talked
for a minute with the proprietor of
the Palace Hotel, which really wasn't
a palace, and he called Bill Thomp-
son over from where he had been
throwing supplies on the back Of
mountain blackboard he always had
when getting an outfit.
Bill" he said, this is Miss Es-
merelda Brown. She's bought Num-
Der Three, on Mariposa, and is goin'
to be a neighbor of yours. Can't you
give her a lift up the gulch?"
Bill wasn't much of ladies' man,
and at first didn't like the job; but
she put out her hand and gave him
one of those smiles that a woman
never learns until she is at least
thirty years old, and from that min.
ute she owned both Bill and the buck
board
They drove away out through the
shacks and tents and over the river
flat into the canon, and she talked
and Bill said "Sho," or do tell" or
anything else in the way of conversa-
ton that seemed polite and interest
ing; and before they had driven two
miles he learned that she had sunk all
her money III buying Number Three,
had read III the Weekly Woman's Ad-
visor, published at Page Center, Iowa,
of how women made the best miners
in the world, and so had come West
to make her fortune. She was willing
to stay till she made it, even if it
did take couple of months. Bill
thought probably it would take that
bong. anyway. He didn't tell her he
had been mining for twenty years,
and hadn't made it yet.
They drove away past the flats, and
up where the timber grows big, and
fine, stately, and the farther they
drove the more confidential she got
and the more certain Bill was that
she had quite a little to learn about
the West. He tried to picture her in
rubber boots holding the nozzle of a
giant, but somehow it didn't seem to
work. Bill didn't have much faith in
The Weekly Woman's Advisor, at
least, not as much as she had.
Finally, when the sun was setting
ard they swung round a bend to the
cabin on Number Three, standing
there with its door closed and almost
surrounded by big tamaracks, she
seemed little awed by the lonesome
ness of it, and the only comforting
thing he could offer was that his
cabin was Just up the gulch a little
farther" Then she reciprocated by
inviting him to come back down for
dinner, and he, being polite, accepted
Besides, he was hungry.
When she first came up on the big
oank above the cut and watched Bill
swinging the nose of the hydraulic to-
ward the face, or shifting the muck
OFF bedrock at the bottom, it seemed
very fine. The swirling of the water
and the ease with which he handled
IL appealed to her, as she sat down in
ii clump OF wild daisies, but it grad
uaily became borne in upon her that