Year: 1876




while.


"But they tell me you have had re-
markable experience" I suggested.


mot so very remarkable" he an
swered. 81 guess you can find enough
to fill your paper without publish ng
anything about me-"


And that vas all the romance l got
from his lips. But from the lips OF
others learned that he had not always
been Lonesome Charley Reynolds. I"
No one, however, knew his true name.
He was called Lonesome because Of
an absent, pensive way he had habit
of seclusiveness. He came to Lincoln
from Montana three years before, with
his "partner, where the two had been
hunting and trapping together for sew,
eral years. The story of his life that
his "partner told was this:


Reynolds was the son of wealthy
and aristocratic family in tennessee, but
was educated in the North, and when
the war broke out he found himself in q
painful dilemma. He had imbibed
enough of Northern ideas to make him
strongly hostile to the secession move
ment, while his family, consisting of a
father, mother, and sister, were violent
sympathizers with the South. His faith
er entered the Confederate army as an
officer early in the war. The son could
not 90 with him and fight against his
principles, nor could he stay at home
and brook the taunts and pleadings OF
his mother and sister, nor could he join
the Federal army and fight against his
father. so he left his home and wandered
away to the mines on the Pacific slope.
His home was at the center of hostihties
and all communication was cut of. At
the close of the war he went back to
Tennessee, and what was once his home
was desolation. The neighbors told him
his father had been killed in one of the
early battles, his mother had died, and
his sister had married Southern off,
Ger whose name was not remembered,
an all trace of her had been lost. The
old plantation had been coniscated and
there was not single tie left to bind
him to the past. He spent some months
in search of his sister, without result,
and finally homelessness and a disposi-
ton which shrunk from fellowship with
men, drove him back to his old home In
the mountains to spend the rest of a
weary life. From 1866 to 1872 he was
in the mines in Colorado and Montana,
and hunting and trapping along the
streams of the great Northwest, being
employed occasionally by the govern
ment to do some work for which ordina-
ry men were too cowardly or incompe-
tent.


Ee was short, stocky man, with
little STOPPING of the shoulders, and q
way of carrying his head bent forward
with his face toward the ground. He
had a shrinking blue eye, very hand
some mouth, and q forehead on which
one could trace blue veins, as you can
trace them on the forehead of woman.
He was full-bearded, but neither the
growth of hair nor the marks OF ex-
posure had effaced the lines of beauty
from his face. His manner was unob
strusive and gentle, his voice was as
soft and tender as woman's tones.
He was man that horses and dogs loved
at first acquaintance; whom
men respected, although he was never
fathomed by the wisest of his friends.
He had fought a whole tribe of Indians
single handed, people said, although no
one ever learned of an exploit from his
own lips. He never learned the neces-
sity of swearing, never told a story,
never smoked pipe or cigar before
camp fire, and never drank and liquor.