Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-07-21
The VANGUARD
A TALE OF THE OLD FRONTIER
BY Edgar Beecher Bronson
Author Of a
I'm Closed Territory" ETC.
DOWNRIGHT
A TALE OF THE OLD FRONTIER
BY Edgar Beecher Bronson
<ruAprrp XIV


Then It developed that the house
held various other articles she disap
proved. notably three overboisterou
dance-hall ladies, around whose toe!
she planted. enough lead, to determine
to her satisfaction whether they coult
dance as fast as they could talk.
She got to scattering lead so 1ndls
criminately and imparitally aroune
the house that it was socn emptled o.
all but a few of us c'd-timers, VINO
rather gloried in her gait and speed.
OF course, all the city peace officers
were on hand, but when they made q
move to check her pastimes, it didn't
need much argument from us to con
vince them that they had best leave
her alone.
Finally, her lawyer friend persuaded
her she could depend there would be
another day coming to her in rev
hours and she went off to bed at the
Grand Central.
She was hardly out of the house be-
fore we had her rechristened, al
though OF course we didn't take any
chances sending committee to the
hotel to advise her that thereafter she
would be hailed exclusively as wild
and-Woolly Win.
More to the point of deepest local
interest now that she had so far pulled
the blinds of and declared hersel1, we
succeeded in persuading her lawyer 70
give UP to US the little ne knew OF
Wins pedigree. While brief, his yarn
was paralyzer.
She was no less than niece of one
Of the worst bandits Of the Northwest
whose name also, for her sake, l shall
withhold) who some time before mad
been mortally wounded and brought
into camp by the sheriff's posse.
Before cashing in, he had entrusted
RI the lawyer a thousand dollars IN
bills. his spurs, pistols, and belt, along
With the name and address of his
niece.
himself an honest man, the lawyer
had written her of the legacy-and on
she had come to claim it. That was
all. About her own, or her uncles
antecedents or connections, she had
been mum -,
For something over a month she
held the center of the Deadwood stage.
Il took her that long to go broke For,
while she gambled nightly, her luck
held 50 phenomenally that she had the
banks near buffaloed.
Meantime, most Of her talking she
did with her six-shooter - talked SO
often with 1t that the houses she ire
ouenteds thinned quickly OF the tlmid
the moment she entered.
OF drinking she did little, just
enough. TO keep a keen edge on her
temper, apparently. For women she
had no word. In men she took no IN
terest, except as necessary incidents
of her gambling and scenery smashing.
Finally the inevitable night came
when she couldn't pick winning caro-.
But, quite as we expected, Win never
turned a hair. She played her roll
down to the last dollar, handsomely
consented to take night-cap on the
house. and smiling]y strolled out into
the night
Most OF US sat up till dawn trying
to figure out what would be her next
move, but while all realized that as
a sensation artist she was sizzler,
none shot near the mark.
For few days all we learned was
that she had jumped the camp the
at. length, word came up from Rapid
that proved to the most skeptical how
hard 1t is to break the chains Of he
redity-no less than that she had
Joined Lame Johnny and was holding
UP the Sidney stages!
But that was a game that couldn't
last long. In few weeks the pair
were captured Lame Johnny hanged
on Cottonwood, and Win brought into
Rapid City.
There the sheriff conceived punish
ment for Win, and put it in practise.
that proved stroke Of genius. After
being tossed in a'blanket by gang OF
men working in Industrious relays for
half an hour, 1t turned out that they
had managed to so nearly shake all the
devilment out of her that she consent
ed to quit the country on the next
down coach-to pass on to what fate
we never learned.
OF course, a few weeks served to
heal up all the Black Hills society and
scenery she had damaged, but the
years can't run on long enough to
drive the memory Of Wild-and-Woolly
Win from the minds of any who knew
hAr there