Year: 1873

the Missouri was not much settled. The
fame of the Big Blue lands had spread
far and wide, and every week scores OF
farmers from Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri
came in and settled on the rich bottoms,
almost invariably writing back TO their
friends in the States that the land was
one flowing with milk and honey, and
urging them to come and take up farms.
So the settlement prospered amazingly,
and Beatrice, Neb., which had only been
a town con paper" became a thriving
village in reality.


Among the farmers who came to set
tie in this new country was Mr..
Thompson and his family. They had
formerly lived in Iowa, on the Big
Sioux River, six miles from Sioux City;
but, not prospering there, they sought
to better their condition by moving to
Nebraska, and selected the Big Blue as
the place of their future home Mr..
Thompson's family consisted of his wife,
his daughter Mary, sweet girl of six
teen, and an old man who spent the best
part of his life in the service of the fam
lily, and, now that he was old, was retain
ed for the good he had done, and that
he might have a home in his declining
years. At one time Mr.. I. had been
we'll off in the world, but unfortunate
speculatoins in Western lands had ruin
ed him, and, at the time of which l
speak, he had little left besides few
horses, a wagon or two, and dozen head
of cattle.


Near to where Mr.. Thompson had
settled on the Blue lived a wild young
man, who had won for himself the name
of 'the Wild Trapper of the Blue" !"
He lived all alone on the headwaters of
a little creek, and was rarely seen ex-
cept when he came, once in every two
or three months, TO the traders to ex-
change his furs and skins for flour,
tobacco, matches, coffee, and such
other articles as he needed. On these
occasions, after .having made his pur-
chases, he would lounge about the ira
ders for several days, drinking bad
whiskey, and quarreling with every one
he could get to quarrel with him. When
under the influence of whiskey, he would
mount his horse, and with two large ma
Wy revoIvers IN his belt, ride up and
down the village, defying every one to



come out and fight him. For the slight
est offence, either real or imagined, he
would fire at man, and, if he had
grudge against any one, that persons
cattle or horses were sure soon afterward
to be missing. twas more than limited
that he was the principal or accomplice
in many of the thefts, and, if he were
so minded, could tell where most of the
valuable horses stolen from time to time
on the Salt Lake stage road had gone.
young desperado Cor courage and wick
edness that no one cared to meddle wit
him, and wherever he went his society
was tolerated rather than preferred. No
ten men could have been induced to go
to his rancho to search for stolen stock,
and SO the matter was allowed to rest
every one blaming him with all sorts
of crimes, but no one being able to swear
the suspicious were correct.


One evening, just as Mr.. Thompson and
his family we're sitting down in their
humble cabin to supper of corn bread
and venison, a tall young man, mounted
on a wiry pony, rode up. He was
scarcely nineteen years of age, and wore
the inevitable leggings and long frock
of the Western hunters, fringed with
buckskin. His face was brown as a nut,
and, when he raised the broad brim of
his slouch hat, his countenance betrayed
unmistakable signs of dissipation.


Mr.. Thompson politely invited the
stranger to dismount and partake of their
frugal meal, and, springing from his
horse, he made haste to enter; but when
he saw Mary he drew back, blushed,
and would have mounted again, had
not Mr.. Thompson insisted upon his
stopping long enough to eat something.
1t was not long before Mr.. Thompson
discovered from the conversation that
his guest was none other than the IA
nous young desperate of the Blue, and
the discovery was attended with consid-
erable anxiety and alarm. The quick
eye of the hunter detected in an instant
the alarm his presence had created
and, rising from the table before he had
finished his supper, he said, with dig
ni6ed air:


'I anu indeed the Wild Trapper of the
Blue, and, like every one else, You think
me bad; but 1 am not so bad as they
say Oh!' he added, after a moments
pause, eff some one in the world would
only believe me good, / might become
like other men,"


Then, fixing his piercing eyes on Ma
ry, he gazed at her full minute, and,
turning on his heel, he left the cabin
without saying another word. The
family, through the open doorway, saw
him swing his 1.-the body across his pony,
and gallop swiftly away over the prairie
towards his cabin.


From this visit Mr. Thom pson au-
cured bad luck; but, as day after day
and week safter week passed and they
saw no more of him, they began to think
they had done the young man an injus-
tee. True, they had often heard ofhin1
in the village, where he continued his
drinking and fighting; but, although the
nearest way would have led him by Mr.
Thompson's house, both in going anG
coming, he always crossed the prairi,
some miles above, and never came neal
the place.


Mr.. Thompson, who had once been 8
kind husband, an indulgent father, anC
a man of good habits, disappointed b,
repeated failures in business and vexeC
by poverty, had, of late years, taken t.
drink, and now was little better than
common drunkard. His wife and daugh


ter had persuaded him to move from