The daily Alaskan., 1914-02-13
The Man as Was
 Wronged
Copyright, 1913, by Associated Lit
 erary Press,
By M. QUAD

]
 If it had been a pleasant day and if we hadn't all been out of sorts with our luck we should have had a word of welcome for the stranger us he en- tered our camp that wretched after noon. As it was fifty of us saw him leave Chinese trail at Dead Mans El- bow and walk into our camp, and nev- CT a man rose up to salute him.
 The stranger seemed to expect just such reception-that is, he didn't seem bit surprised. He passed down the single street we had named Road to Riches, turned to the left at the lone pine tree, and without once look ing around him he staked of claim and began to erect a shanty.
 Bad man, I'm afeared," growled ! Judge Slasher as he partly closed one eye and gave the stranger the beneut ! of the squint
 Bin bounced out of some camp for steaIin'," added the big chap fr&n l Kentucky.
 Tell you he's got hangdog look l put in the man known as "OhiO Bill
 Every man in the camp was down on the fresh arrival and that without cause Ordinarily We were jolly set and stranger coming among us met with words of cheer but that after noon the devil was to pay. The three 1 mules belonging to our camp had stray cd off and been gobbled up by the h. l diauS. and on the heels of this diScoy- ! cry came the announcement that we ] had only salt enough to last two days. while the sugar was entirely gone.
 Two weeks had passed. and. while some of us had given the stranger i curt Good morning." no one shook hands with him or entered his Shanty to smoke a friendly pipe. Then ! climax came The six of us. occupy inc one shauty, were working in com mon. and our bag of dust was buried in a corner of the fireplace One morning this bag was missing, and vou can imagine that there was a first 1 class row in no time. There was the hole where some one had dug under the stones and carried off the treasure, i and whor were We to suspect?
 Yes. we were mad. and in the eS- ! citement of the first discovery we came 1 near having free fight among our ! selves. II increased OFT anger 10 dis ! cover that we could not reasonably Sus. pect any one, and this fact made every one of us try harder to pick up a clew. At length Judge Slasher sprang to his ! feet with the exclamation: By the bones of Kidd, I know the thief"
 "Who is he"
 That hangdog. sheep stealing stran- ger! Hang me If didn't dream of his coming in here last night to borrow shovel and it was his digging under the stones which started that dream. He has held alOof from us, and that's proof enough that he came here for no | good purpose
 ] lost in a night all we had gained by months of hard work, and we didn't stop to reason. It was decided to lay the charge at the strangers door, and if he could prove his innocence so l much the better for him.
 The news that the White House, as we called our shanty, had been robbed . spread like widfre, and as we started for the Strangers claim our crowd | numbered full hundred. AS the crowd swooDcd down on the man he started Or at d run.
 Halt, halt. halt, or we'll shoot" shouted a score of men.
 Hes the thief-stop him, stop him" roared the judge.
 Five or six shots were fired almost as one, and the fugitive tumbled for ward on the rocks. Three bullets en- tered his back, and as the foremost men bent over him and turned his white. scared fate to the heavens he 1 gasDed out:
 lbN lNNG Aill utlGu lHE. NNA AOA give you"
 Now to search him." said the judge as he came up. and half a dozen hands made quick work of it. Resting on his breast and made fast to his neck by a ribbon was a package wrapped in oil skin. There was a futter of excite meut as the judge rudely snapped the string and held the package in his hand. It was our dust?
 No. We formed a circle around the | judge as he sat on a rock and opened the package, and in less than a min ute there were white faces among us. What were the contents? A photo graph of fair faced middle aged wo- man, and on the card was written:
 "Mary-died June 19, 1857"
 That was the dead mans wife. There was a second photograph-that of a babe about a year old--and the judge read aloud in trembling voice: