River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1916-07-13
IN HICKORY BANK"
PIONEER HAD SAFE PLACE FOR
HIS STORE OF GOLD.
What Might Be Considered Accident
Was the MeaHs of Revealing What
Meant Fortune to Jim Apple
gate and His Mother.

gate, aged twelve, accompanied his IA
| Their to the bank of little Indiana
| town, where Mr.. Apologize drew out
| the $1,000 for which he had sold his
farm, in $50 20-dollar gold pieces.
1T will pay you to keep an eye on
that pile of gold," cautioned the
| banker.
Tomorrow I'll put it in a hickory
BANK said Mr.. Apologize.
The banker smiled as if he caught
the point, but Jim was puzzled.
What is a hickory bank, pap he
asked.
Its pretty safe sort Of bank, son,
when you're travelling" was all his IA
Their would say.
At the hardware store Mr.. Apologize
| bought an quarters
anger with an extra long shaft, and
then they went home. After that night
Jim saw the money no more. Mr.. Ap-
plegate kept his business affairs to
himself, and neither Jim nor his moth
| err knew where it was.
The Apologize family was one of
ten families that travelled in prairie
wagons that year from Indiana to Ore
gOn over the famous Oregon trail. The
2,00O-mile journey was less dangerous
than it had been 10 years before, but
there were still perils, the most serious
of which was that from attacks by hos
| tile Indians.
For that reason there was something
Il 70 J,o 0raI
even of these ten wagons, and each
| night the wagons were drawn up in
circle and the yoke and chains of each
| wagon were used to connect it with
that in front. Within this circular fOrti-
fcation the camp fires were built.
On the eightieth day out they were
attacked by party of young Indians,
who thought to take advantage of the
smallness of the party. The skirmish
was brief, but bloody and tragic enough
for that small band Of emigrants. They
drove off the redskins, but lost two of
their own number. One of the men
who were killed was Mr.. Apologize.
| Mrs. Apologize left her husband, and
Jim, his father, under the fresh-heaped
mound upon the plain, and there also
they left the secret of the hickory
bank" They ransacked the wagon
from top to- bottom; they looked
through all of Mr.. Applegates private
papers and notebooks; but they could
not find the money, nor did the papers
contain any note or memorandum of
it's hiding place.
All that Jim and his mother had was
little over a hundred dollars in
money, five COWS, the OK team they
were driving, the wagon and the house
hold effects that it contained.
| Westward from Fort Hall the road
was rough and mountainous. One day,
as they were descending the rOckiest
and toughest portion, the Apologize
wagon was in the rear. 1t was three
o'clock in the afternoon. Jim's mother
was driving, and he was walking be-
hind, occasionally throwing a stone at
one of the loose cows or calves that
persisted in lettering. There were
abrupt breaks in the surface two and
| three feet high. The rear wheels would
| slide over these miniature precipiceS
| and hit the lower level with a sudden
ness and violence that shook the whole
wagon and ratified the pans and ket-
ties off their hooks.
After one of these ''jump-offs," some
what higher than usual, Jim saw that
the hind wheels Of the wagon were
turning drunkenly. They were lean
ing in at the top and out at the bottom.
His mother drove on, unaware that
anything was wrong, and he ran to
catch up with her. A shining gold
piece in the middle of the road caught
his eve. Atalanta-like, he stopped to
pick it up. Fifteen feet farther on he
found another. They began to appear
thickly, and he gathered them up as he
went. Before he reached the wagon
his mother had driven over another
of the "jump-offs," and the tops of the
wheels leaned in so far that they began
to rub against the sides of the wagon
bed Mrs. Apologize stopped the oxen
and leaned out to see what was the
matter.
Jim came up and stopped down be-
side the rear axle. A yellow pile of
500 gold pieces lay there, and other
pieces were rolling out of an auger
hole that ran like the bore of rifle
through the center of the splintered
hickory column of the broken axle.
That was the hickory bank.-Youth's
Companion.