The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-01-12
The Girl, 4 Horse dnd y Doc
81 FRAnc1s LunDE
By FRANCIS IunDE

FTI#TT F#ETwET|" I|17#TKTT7
sorrel n grsoteseaue patchings; uhInls
takably apiebald," II q purist I'M I'll
use of 4 neutrality-suspicious. Cousi
Percy, q example-wished to call !
so. sssHNs S& II ~ &2 ###S
Before could rush back TO TIL
stewards sentry-box in the yestibule q
the g Y train was chasing aloni
again. #s%l. x + -.
Hey Il | shouted; whats the nam,
Of thai place where we stopped to wa
ter the engine?g ~>~>> F.
"AtropIa.r' Tx q.
"Death-sleep,a I translated with 8
grin. 1T fts, all the way down to the
ground. What are the industries o.
Atropia?' 4.
II don't GET you." 49,. +
Excuse me: I'll try to put it In
simpler form. Why is AtropiaT"
He appeared to have reached the
conclusion that I was an escaped luna.
tic, safe enough. most probably .
harmless one.#8He looked first at the lit.
tie colored slip sticking in my hat-band
and then consulted a notebook drawn
from his pocket.
HIN; ticketed to Angels" he NUT
tered half to himself. And then e me
WAS you expectin' to have friends
meet you Mt Angels?"
This was too much, and, anxious as
I was to find out something more about
Atropia, / felt 1t an imperative duty
fool-like-todo my small part toward
enlivening a rather sad world. So |
said, s%olernnIy:
Il shall be met by a parade of the
Angels fire department. In uniform,
and with the apparatus, headed by a
brass band. But this is irrelevant to
the present Burning question. What /
am thirsting to know is why there
should be a dog with a face half
white and half black standing on the
Atropia station platform. and a pie
BALI pony hitched to the HORSEBACK
on the Atropia public square,"
That finished him. $50
"Say, young Teller, you've got 'em
bad" he commented. "But that'lI be
all right. Just you wait till we get to
Angels, and then you can find out all
these funny things you're SO dead anx-
ious to know" -~
Hold on a minute" I interposed as
he was trying to escape. "Atropia
hasn't always been as dead ms it is
now, has it? What was its name when
it was alive and able to sit up and take
nourishment?"
"Huh?" he queried and then: "Oh,
get you, now; it used to be called
Piacerville." " II
THANK you; that helps. Now how
much farther Is 1t to Angeis?"
Bout twenty. miles,"
"All right. And when will there be
a train coming back to this Atropia
placer"
"Way-freight - tomorruh mornin'-
e~ight-thirty out o. Angels"
"Good. Now If those fire people and
the brass band don't miss me-" I
couldn't resist the temptation to give
| him a final shot, and 1t hit the bulls
eye. AS he edged away I could see by
! - t~AR& ESSAOsA liza IG SILL llOLSHt IlE
| crazy. '.
When I got back to my Pullman
after luncheon / perceived at once that
the train conductor had promptly
| passed the word about the episode In
the dining car. The Pullman conduc-
tor evidently had his weather eye on
me. and the negro rorter SHE'D every
time he passed my section. This was
rich, but Ii l could have known the
tenth part of what was going to pop
out of this Pandora box. that l had
foolishiy dug up In the dining car, the
amusement feature would speedily
have been forgotten In a pretty
strenuous effort to straighten things
out while there was yet time.
descended from the train at my
ticket-named destination of Angels,
and found a typical mining camp of a
single street and a tawdry, dusty
t"H%@ E&HS" = ~