The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-01-12

CHAPTER III.
Waifs and StraYS,

= n Waits and Strays.
n When / crawled out of my berth al
the porter's call the neNt morning, my
Pullman was standing In the Denver
yard. While | was shaving in the
Mushroom / asked the coIored boy If
my smoking-room chum of the night
before was up yet.
"Yas, sab; he done been up an gone,
for the longest"
OF course, this was mere idle Ques-
fioning on my part. Tracing the
brown-hearded mining engineer who
had used me as a convenient dumping
ground for his story was the least of
my intention ut the moment. For that
matter, since we hadn't exchanged
cards, and I wasn't even sure that I'd
heard his name straight, | couldn't
have traced him If ] Tad wanted to.
Recalling the story in the garish
light of another day, 1t seemed q bit
less credible than it had while l was
listening to it, and l began to wonder
II the teller Of 1t might not be a men,
Der of the deathless guild of smoke
room romancers. | buried the story
among the things to be smiled at and
forgotten, when I took a taxi for the
hotel. After an excellent breakfast |
made a few inquiries about the meri-
dian ; the Josh. that the maps showed
as passing jdst west of the city. The
maps were right. The 1O5th meridian,
which Is the one from which mountain
time Is reckOned. ran a little west of
the city proper, and, by consequence,
west of the two other principal rites
OF the state, Colorado Springs and
Pueblo.
/ found that the 1O5th meridian.
tracing it north from Denver, stops
against the 10th parallel of lati-
futlc just south Of a little town called
Erie. Traced south, it tracks the D.
& IF. G. railroad for about twenty
miles and then takes to the mountain.
barely shutting out Manitou, and pass
Ing, OF course, well to the west
ward OF Pueblo. This simplified mat
ters-a little.
: Yet this business Of wandering aim
Iessly from post to pillar, combing the
face of nature for bIue-eyed maidens
and piebald horses and harlequin-faced
dogs was already beginning to strike
me as about the most fantastic thing a
body could conceive of doing. To at
tempt it without a plan of some kind
seemed worse than useless SO, for per
haps the first time In a pretty rattle
Drained life, / sat down to do some
ground-and-Iofty head work, with
Cousin Percy's letter for a sort of
nexus.
The third paragraph contained the
meat of the matter: "Your portion of
Grandfather Jasper's property was
worth. at its latest valuation. some
thing like $4,000" What single piece
Of property outside of ! large city
could be worth any such sum as that?
] could think OF nothing but a mine of
some Kind, unless 1t might be a cattle
ranch. or a growth of standing timber:
and in the ares laid out for me, mines
would outyete cattle Oh timber about a
hundred to one, | thought.
Then there was that other phrase:
IL lies In a perfectly safe repository.
.. . Repository" implied q recep-
tacie or container of some sort ; a brick
wall, Or d barbed-wiresf fence, or any In
closing thing you like to imagine. Could
q mine be said to be a repository?
As YOU see, kept coming back to
the mine Idea, In spite. of all eoufd
do: and at last. without a word ef
warning, and right out Of d clear ssv.
ms Won may say, smack! a thing hit
me squarely between the shoulder.
blades-BroWn-beard and his eccentric
old gentleman!
After I got cooled off a bit 7 had to
admit that there was something less
than one chance In d thousand that ri
the price Of q couple of cigars given to-
Il fellow traveller Id distress, i had pur
chased amy rsal clue to my " ps1zzle
let couldn't get away from the
netiof1 that / was on the verge Of 4 dis.
eoyery. Oddly enough. the miraculous
2p,art Of 1.-THE one chance In i milton
Illat I should run across the pr,e Der.
sen M i hundred million who could felI
lle that particular sfory-didnf I'M
press me III the time. / was TOO bnslly
eIeassd n trying 10 ft the puzzle
pieces together ID think of awning
- II M moment
szile ~ rum Them up, they fitted III