Year: 1873

the Union PacIilc, made Julesburg, be


cause they ended there for day or two


and when they swept on again toward the
city that sits by the Gate of Gold. looking
out on the Pacific, they took Julesbure


with them, and left on that spot only it:
name and the echoes of its revelry.


In the musing brain of him who sat OF
the keg, though the more subdued lights
and softer shades of another picture were
taking form and shape, as, if that savages
of all solitudes, an utter strangership anC
fiendliness. in the midst of fellow -crea-
lures, he had just brushed away the thick
dust OF years from the canvass of his
memory. He remembered the old family
mansion on the high bluff whence, be
tween the avenues of black walnuts that
stretched away from the veranda down
the lawn, his boyhood's eyes had so many
times gazed down upon the tawny Mis-
souri, away where it weds its purer bride
from the Minnesota lakes. He thought d
| the cluster of negro quarters and the
picaninnies he had played with, and the
colts he had called his, as child owns
| things; and the father and mother gone
and the lit.le yellow-haired sister, with
eyes that hat borrowed their tnts from the
| ohf VI tHc Juilc udN III tlltl StW lGE DOlH
and the old home as it was, with its in
Vulnerable little things so easy to remem-
Der and so impossible to describe. Then
the panorama moved and another picture
came. 1t was black in the background
with the eddying smoke that rolled up
from the burning home, and lurid in the
foreground with the red devilment of the
war and its ravage. Then were the fierce
four years of strife, the tragedy of the
end, and the return to q homestead that
was not a home, and a family that vel
| coined him only iii mute syllables upon
their tombstones; all save the sister. OF
her there was no token. Then the fruit
less search for her but no tidings save
those rather than which her death would
have been a solace. Then the desperation
the resolve to desert forever The scenes OF
yore, the pilgrimage to the yellow Mecca
of the Bozeman, the mining camps and
the adventures, the news at last through
an old acquaintance, casually met, of the
little sister, the story of her wrongs and


i" Take suthin', mster?" reused the
mountaineer from his reyere. 1t was the
dealer who spoke. His trick at the box
was off. and he had stopped at the bar to
liquor, before he went ont to that other
revelry that filed what Of his existence
the duties of the green-cIoth and check
rack left unclaimed. He saw in the man
sitting on the keg in the corner, with his
head resting on his hand and his long.
black hair falling loosely about his should
ers, nothing but a miner or trapper, flat
broke in his encounter with the animal
whose keeper he was, and needing some
thing to revive his spirits. The least
charity he could bestow upon the luckless
one was a treat.


Il reckon | might throw in q little
suthin'," said he rising and walking up 10
the bar.


'Poweriul bad night out, mister,N said
the dealer.


''Powertul." said the mountaineer


The dealer drank his liquor Then he
went out to a squalid little restaurant, next
door, to get his lunch ami cup of coffee.
The mOuntaineer had not touched his
liquor, but had the glass in his hand He
squared himself around, rested his elbows
on the rough bar and looked at the floor,
upon which he spilled the whiskey that was
in the glass, drop by drop ''Wonder if
| would drink with Joe Mortord P" he
muttered. "Reckon mott mout in hell,
if | was powerful dry. but not in these
parts" There was in his face that name
less expression of leopard-likr lcrocitv.
that you can see under the skin and away
down in the eyes, as through Il transpa-
rency, when the borderer has made up his
mind to put his fingers on q revolver
trigger-but you never saw it on the face
of anybody else.


He went out of the door, and the moist
blackness of the night shut him in. Back
across the street 10 the dance-house he
went straight and strobe in. 1t, like its
coparner in devilment opposite, was a
long, low, half-tent and halt -shantv sort
of structure, and was divided by canvass
screens into three compartments. In the
front room was q bar. In The next was a
babel. At one end was high bench, and
on this sat three or four fiddlers and
claronet player. Around the wall were
a number of benches. and these were
crowded with men, to describe whose
faces and styles would be impossible If
you have seen them, you know how they
looked. If not, you could not learn how
they looked. On the floor were probably
a dozen couples dancing.


Into this den where demons might have
danced to the squeaking discords of the
Devils Dream and been at home, the
mountaineer walked and leaned up against
the wall. There was no place for him to
sit down. The show drew too we'll for him
who came late to find q reserved seat
Presently Morford, the faro dealer, came
in, having refreshed himself with a re-
past. He walked directly over to where
a young walking boss of q gang of rail-
road hands stood with his partner, wait
ing for the music to strike up again. He
said something to the girl.


For Gods sake, Joe, let me alone
little while, won't you? she said petu-
lently. Then there was a quarrel in un
dertones, and the dealer drew back to
strike her. The railroader caught his arm
and the dealer instantly wheeled upon
him; a ten-inch bowie cleaned with that
cold, cruel grimace OF the naked steel.
There was a rush, a tutter, and muffled
clicks, like the ticking of q clock in am
other room, and


"Wait minute, Mister Morford,n said
voice, quiet III its husky cultural. You
may have heard the tone before now.
reader, it sounds like damp clods drop
ping on coffin. Morfords other hand
sought MS plslOl Dull, ana ne ana the
mountaineer were face to face. The crowd
fell back round them. 1t always happens
that way on the frontier. Men never
crowd around two borderers when voice
says from the atmosphere that one of them
has got to die


"Mster Morford, said the mountaineer,
as he slowly raised his slouch hat off his
forehead, looking him square in the eye,
81 have been looking for you; are you
fixed ?"


That was all the talk There were
three shots like drum taps. And two men
lay on the floor. Two little red streaks
stole out upon the boards, and the crowd
rushed up. Ii was over? No. The girl
stood with daze in her eyes and looked
at the mountaineer. Then she knelt by
him, put her face down. kissed him, and
said, "Henry, speak to me, great God,
my brother" Then the crowd drew back
and was hushed again. The girl stil
knelt beside the mountaneer, and looked
at him with still, staring eyes, that pain
made dry. She reaches for his hand and
gently loosened the dying fingers from the
lint