The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-06-05
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THE ..HOss' TRADERS RIVALS.

'I tell you, wife, the boy is lazy, and he'll never amount to anything. He's big and d7natured, I admit but that's about ali that can be said for him. A horse trader isn't good enough for our Hattie, and she'll never be his wife if I have anything to say about it."
 Thus spoke MT. Evans-Mr B. B. Evans-former1y of Boston, but at the time of which we write a a, citizen in good and regular standing of the will lage of Emmet. in Kansas. As the male parent of a charming daughter, MT. Evans was very much concerned about the attentions paid to the girl by the young men of the neighbOr- hood. Hattie Evans was a favOrite in the community, and there was scarcely a marriageable youth in a radius of ten miles who was not only willing but eager to confer his name and worldly goods upon the fair maiden from effete Boston.
 While MT. Evans was far from wealthy, he had proper family pride, and a natural and cOmmendable desire to see to it that his daughter did not throw herself away upon some worthless scamp who came a-wooing- There were a number of candidates for the position of son-in-1aw, of whom Evans pere did not approve, but the most dangerous was a strap ping giant of a boy who answered to
 
 there was anything in particular 1 against Willard. He was clean, wholesome, peaceful mammoth of a man, who always went about with a broad smile on his face, and who was l everybody's friend. At that time Will 1 lard was a horse dealer and trader, land had a livery stable in Emmett, | besides doing a little cattle raising as | a side issue
 Willard was prosperous as the |
 his own row in life, but his fondness
 for sports and athletics and his easy good nature,- gave the impression that
 he was inclined to be shiftless
 Strangely enough, Mrs. Evans did
 not agree with her husbands esti-
 mate of big Jess The young giant
 made strong appear to her, and she | believed that Hattie might go farther
 and do much worse than to become | the bride of the "hoss" trader. There | was to come a time when MT. Evans
 agreed that his wife's feminine intui-
 ton was superior in this instance to | his masculine reasoning, but at the
 period when Jess was wooing his | daughter he was quite unable to see it 1 that way.
 An incident which soon occurred tended to confirm MT. Evans in his | opinion. Jess was never known as
 quarrelsonne fellow, and there was never a chip on his broad shoulder, 1 but it developed that he was not a safe
 man to monkey" with.
 His sparkling of Hattie Evans
 aroused the displeasure of a number l of the young men of the neighbor-. ] hood, and one night when Jess was
 ambHng along quiet country road,
 thinking of his beloved and with never
 a care in the world, he was attacked
 by two men. One of them slashed l him with knife, and, before the big
 fellow could turn to defend himself, | his assailants made off in the dark
 ness.
 Willard managed to get home but
 he was so weak that he had to be put 1 to bed and for several weeks he was l confined to the house. He was cer-
 tain that he knew the identity of his
 enemies, but, lacking evidence to
 prove his theory in court, he decided
 to attend to the little matter of pun | ishment without consulting the local 1 justice of the peace. When he was 1 well again he found that one of the i men he suspected had decided that
 the climate of Kansas was not health
 ful and had left the country. The 1 other remained, and when Jess met l him there was an accounting which i the fellow will doubtless remember
 as long as he lives. The chap was ] smoking a, pipe when Jess fist land
 ed, and the stem was driven almost l through his cheek. It was a very bat l tered young man who finally dragged l himself away from the scene of the | encounter, if we are to believe the l traditional reports of the struggle.
 On another occasion, according to. 1 the local historians, Jess Willard ac-
 companied Hattie Evans to a dance, l and a bunch of rural rowdles made i some insulting remarks in her pres
 ence. The gangsters quickly had oc- ] casion to believe that a, cyclone of the ! oId-fashioned Kansas variety had sud- | I71 od i all six of the toughs were stretched
 out on their backs before the storm | subsided.
 l Such incidents as these were nat
 urally talked about, and, while not to l Jess discredit, they brought Hattie i Evans into a notoriety which was ex-
 ceedfngly distasteful to her father
 Soon after this last encounter Father | Evans met Jess at the door when he
 came to call and warned him to stay away
 That Willard should have been
 stabbed because of his love for her naturally appealed to the romantic in l stincts of the girl, and by the time i Willard was warned to make himself scarce by her father, Hattie Evans
 was deeply infatuated with the young 1 giant AS is so often the case, their 1 love affair thrived on opposition. l Moreover, Willard had a friend at 1 court in Mrs. Evans
 1 The culrnination of the romance I came at Leavenworth on the thir- 1 teenth of March, 1907, when Willard 1 and his sweetheart having quietly l slipped away from Emmett, were 1 made man and wife. It was hinted
 in the neighborhood that Mrs. Evans
 had connived at this runaway match, ] and, in any event, she speedily for 1 gave the couple and gave them her i blessing.
 1 MT. Evans was not so easily ap- 1 peased When Jess sought to make
 up'' and let by-gones be by-gones, his l father-in-law turned his face hard as l flint against him. For months there
 after lie refused to speak to Jess, or
 have anything to do with him, and when it was necessary to refer to him
 he always called him My wife's son l of nd