Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1917-12-14
CHAPTER xxvlI--contInued.

aYo3re out of date" this from the
1eolar In ranches. "You know the story
that was going around about his be-
tng an escaped convict, or something
If that sortP 1t gets its local color
.5is morning. There's a sheriff here
sron back East somewhere-came In
IN the early train; names Macauley,
and he's got the requisition papers.
Pnt Smiths fooled him good and
Again the chorus united in an eager
query.
"Howw
"He died last night-a little past
midnight. They say they're going to
hnry him out at the damon the Job
that he pulled through and stood on
,ts feet. One Of Williams quarrymen
drifted in with the story just a little
while ago. I'm here to bet you even
money that the whole town goes to
the funeral"
"Great gosh" said the man who
was crunching the burnt bacon. "Say,
that's tough, BEyby! I don't care what
he'd run away from back East; he
was a man, right. Harding has been
telling everybody how Smith wouldn't
let the posse open fire on that gang
of hold-ups last Friday night; how he
chased across on the dam stagingS
alone and unarmed to try to serve the
warrants on 'em and make 'em stop
firing. It was glorious, but it wasn't
war;
To this the other mining man added
hard word. "Dead," he gritted;
sand only a few hours earlier the girl
had taken snap judgment on him and
married somebody else! That's the
woman of It'll"
"Oh, hold on, Stryker," the ranch
broker protested. 'Don't you get too
fierce about that. There are two
strings to that bow, and the longest
and sorriest one runs out to Colonel
Baldwin's place on Little creek, I'm
thinking. The RichIander business
was only an incident. Stanton told
me that much"
As the event proved, the seller Of
ranch lands would have lost his bet on
the funeral attendance. For some I'M
known reason the notice of Smiths
death did not appear in the afternoon
papers, and only few people went out
In autos to see the coffin lowered by
Williams workmen into a grave on
the mess behind the construction
camp; a grave among others where
the victims of an early industrial ac-
cldent at the dam had been buried.
Those who went out from town came
hack rather scandalized. There had
teen a most hard-hearted lack of the
common formallties, they said; q
cheap coffin, no minister, no mourners,
not even the poor fellows business
associates in the company he had
fought so hard to save from defeat and
extinction. 1t was shame!
With this report passing from lip to
lip In Brewster, another bit of gossip
to the effect that Starbuck and Still
ings had gone East with the disap-
pointed sheriff, ito clear Smiths men,
ory," as the street-talk had 1t, called
forth no little comment. In the HOphra
House cafe or the evening Of the
funeral day Stryker, the mining spec
ulator, was loud in his criticisms Of
the High Line people.
'Yes!" he rallied; "a couple Of 'em
will go on junketing trip East co
clear his memory, after they've let
their 'wops' at the dam bury him like
yellow dogl And this HIGHLANDER
woman; they say she'd known him
ever since he and she were school
Kids together; she went down and
took the train with her father just
about the time they were planting the
poor DEVIL"
Three weeks of the matchless Au-
gust weather had slipped by without
Incident other than the Indictment by
the grand jury of Crawford Stanton,
Barney MGraw, and a number of 9TH
ers on charge of conspiracy; and
williams, unmolested since the night
OF the grand battle in which Sheriff
hiding had figured as the master of
the hunt, had completed the great
ditch system and was installing the
machinery In the lately finished power
house.
Over the hills from the northern
mountain boundary of the Timanyoni
wandering prospector had come with
vague tale of a new strike in Sunrise
Huleh, a placer district worked out
ana abandoned twenty years earlier in
the height of the Red Butte excite
ment' Questioned closely, the tale
oringer confessed that he had no proof
positive of the strike; but in the hills
Ne had found a well-worn trail. lately
USED, leading to the old camp, and
from one Of the deserted cabiAs In
lne gulch he had seen smoke arising.
AS to the fact of the trail the wan
oerlng tale-bearer was not at fault.
on the most perfect of the late-in-
august mornings a young woman, clad
N serviceable khaki, and keeping her
~ L IN