Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1928-05-10
CHAPTER l
Doctor Carpy's Story.


The mining camp Of Sleepy Cat was
rapidly filling up. Traders were build
ng-the coming of the railroad was
close at hand, the real estate offices
were bustling, and the unquenchable
optimism inspired by the only pure
air In the world was everywhere In
evidence.
With the rapidity common to such
places the town had lost it's earliest
leisurely air, impaired by the vagrant
adventurer and the philOsOphic trader
men that penetrated the West with
out any very definite idea, or a great
amount of care, as to just where or
how they should eventually bring up.
"Just when did this happen?"
asked Wentworth, leaning forward in
his chair, and dragging the chair for
ward with him-like a man quite
ready to listen.
"The Fourth of July" repeated
Carpy, surprised at the interruption.
"You sure heard about it?'
Forty kinds of stories!" exclaimed
Wentworth, somewhat irritaby.
Every mule driver between here
and Medicine Bend has a different
one. You say you saw it?"
saw itY' The doctor In his turn
echoed the words with touch of
scornful gusto. "Saw it?" he repeat
ed, with an emphatic twang of van
ity. MAN l was in it."
Doctor Carpy was sitting with Ben
jamin Wentworth in the morning sun
shine on the narrow porch of the
doctors new hotel in Sleepy Cat.
There was suicide that night"
he continued reminiscently, "a girl
down in the River quarter. They went
for me. 1 couldn't do anything. She
was lying on the bed on her back
with her arms stretched out over her
head. She'd caught two of the old
fashioned wood spindles at the head
of the bedstead with her hands and
lay there with her eyes shut, moan
ing. While 1 was trying to find out
what she'd taken, she went into
tetanic CONFUSION. / tried what anti
dotes I had, but 1t wasn't a bit of
use; l saw right away 1 had been
called too late.
"Of course, everybody sneaked
out. 1 didn't like 1T, myself; and I'm
pretty thick-skinned. About all I
could do was to wipe off her forehead
and wipe the froth off her lips; and
every time a spasm was coming on,
hns he,
quivering and cry out: God have
mercy on my soul!
"'Godv 1 says to myself sitting
there listening to her, and like as If
was talking to myself, You sure
picked a hard death!'
"She heard me. She looked up,
with the water dripping through the
paint on her face. I picked a hard
life! Oh, Doc she says, moaning
like, could you get me q priest?
al, GIRL 1 says, there amt a
priest this side GunlOck reservation.
But no matter I says, don't you
worry too much. They amt a-goin'
to be too hard on you up there Mary
Magdalen's there-talk to her; you'll
be q blamed sight better off there
than you ever been in this country
"Well, I wished you'd seen that
girls eyes when she began to 60.
They'd got pretty hard in Sleepy Cat:
they turned all soft-kind of pleading
kind of like a youngsters looking\
to take hard licking. After while
I managed to get her hands loose
from the spindles-and there I set
like dunn fool, holding 'em myself
seemed like when she was going, she
wanted to keep hold of something.
But I'll swear you'd never known her
when got her Strengthened out and
laid her hands across her breast, and
smoothed the spread up over her face
you wouldn't, I'll declare. Every
body'd skunk clean out of sight, so /
stayed-that's all a doctors good for,
anyway.
"Well, I walked down the blamed
stairs doing some thinking. You re-
member that joint of Bunty Bartoe's?
It's down close to the lower river
bridge. The saloon is pretty big. Next
to 1t is his barber shop, with big
arch opening into the barroom
stopped in the saloon to tell Bartoe
his wife was dead-hoping that some
fine day I'd have a chance to hang
him and hang that partner Of his, At
kins. Then took a drink-he's got
the meanest stuff tween Council Bluffs
and Salt Lake-but 1 was fair des-
perate.
"Being Fourth of July night, the
place was pretty well filed up. About
the first bunch 1 noticed was Frank
Sanger's gang Of horse-thieves from
Calabasas-they were maxim most o.
the noise. l knew they were in town
that day and Bartoe's place was their
hang out. Frank Sanger and Buck
Boyd were the brains of the outfit
they bossed the stealing, and George
Usage and a couple Of cowboys from
the Panhandle got rid Of the horses.