The Winslow mail. (Winslow, Ariz.) 1893-1926, 1925-03-27
HOW link BARNES
CORRUPTED PIOCHE
From Mohave County Miner

Mounted on a rangy, tall ana
knobby old white mule, link
Barnes ambIed into the thriving
camp of Phoebe.
Although it was bleak autumnal
day links multitude of sartorial
deficiencies were covered by long
linen buster, buttoned from the
neck down.
While poor for the nonce in ma
terial wealth, link carried beneath
the floppy old hat that framed his
round candid infantile eyes, a
clever brain whose mechanism was
admirably adapted to the separation
of the unwary from their money.
For, albeit doomed to waste his
shrewdness on the desert air, link
was a genius-possesso OF an in
verted, topsy-turvy sort of genius
which, rightly directed, might have
made him a famous man. Indeed, he
was famous enough locally. His
homely epigrams attained to a
wider currency in the Sagebrush
state than the witticisms and wise
sayings of the all other bright
minds drawn hither by the univer-
sal magnet-gold.
1t was he who, in a day when
the federal bench in Nevada was
made up of jurists not only venal,
but indispensable in their Venallty,
defined an honest judge as "a
Judge who will stay bought" and
who, referring to an INSCRIPTIONS
and case-hardened millionaire, said
that 'sthe tears of w1dders and
orphans is water on his wheel"
A Quick Change
He won his first fame soon after
his arrival in Nevada. He was one
of a party of prospectors that en-
countered a band of Indians IN
war paint. All the prospectors,
except link, who rode a mule,
were on mustangs and made a fleet
getaway. But links lazy, stub
born mount baked and as his COM
rades rode off they could hear MS
voice lifted imploringly:
wait a minute! Wait a minute,
bovs. There's only a handful OF
Injuns, jest little handful. We
can lick 'em easy if you'll only
make a stand"
But the boys were in a hurry and
it looked like a warm finish for
link Barnes when an arrow struck
the mule in the rear, causing MIN
to forget the habits of a lifetime.
In a few minutes he had overtaken
the fleetest mustang and his mas
ter could be heard vociferating as
they breezed by:
Come on, you sons of guns, come
on! If there's one Injun back there,
they's a million!"
Long after link Barnes had be-
come but memory in the Sage
brush state that anecdote was re-
lated to illustrate how circum-
stances may alter the point OF
view.
During most of the decade after
It's discovery the ComStOck, where
link came to anchor, was the scene
of incessant mining litigation, and
what he didn't learn about the
tricks of the game wasn't worth
learning. But the day came when
all Comstock titles had been set
tied, one way or another, and link,
in search of new fields, had invad-
ed Phoebe.
His first care was to look the
town over. AS he might have ex-
pected, an article he had recently
read in the New York Herald prov
ed to be slightly exaggerated in
some respects. The Herald CORES
pondent had said that the Phoebe
graveyard was tenanted by zoo
murdered men; that the merchants
did business by day and robbed
coaches by night; that the great
majority of women were no better
than they should be, and that there
were a number of retired stage
robbers in Phoebe who never rob
bed the coaches because they were
on the express company's payroll
This last observation, by the way
seemed to annoy Jack Harris, who
had been a highly successful stage
robber in western Nevada but who
in Phoebe, lived life of mysterious
ease. Jack expressed fervent
hope that the Herald man would
revisit Phoebe. He said no more
but listeners felt that it would be
unhealthy for the correspondent il
he did
link, rambling along the main
street and striking up an acquain-
lance with a local gossip, had the
leading citizens pointed out to him
men like Morgan Courtenay anC
other ardent souls. There were
quite number of those gentlemen
eager, irritable, pugnacious.
81 remember great open-ail
political meeting one warm night
in September or October" says one
chronicler Three thousand min
ers were pacing impatiently up ant
down before the speakers stand
waiting for the spellbinders to be.
gin.
Zone of the visiting speakers
seated on the sidewalk at the foo
of the stand remarked to w. w
Bishop, a prominent lawyer, I won
der if there won't be trouble to.
night
Not much replied Bishop
There are sixty-five men in thai