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Show THE CITIZEN 0 mm ibksot mr O -- lfTTAVE gone to Copper Baison. I reined in my horse to look by Jl-U- Bill Durham curiously at the rudely lettered ' 11 signboard, stuck in the crotch of a pine at timberline. Hm, I mused, must be .some sheepherder, although I wouldnt believe that even one of them would Bull Creek ever come this way. Pass in the Henry Mountains is not exactly a thoroughfare. I imagin-e- l I could count on one hand the number of men who might have ' climbed it. Well, Ill be darned. Buck, would you look at that. Buck chewed his bit and shook a fly off his ear. I think he enjoyed having me talk to him, whether he ever answered or not. Cafe? Who in the devil would run a Under the charcafe up here? coal lettering of the sheepherder, this single word was faintly distin-- ; guishable. I raised my eyes to the horizon, half expecting, I suppose, to see some signs of life some community. But I was alone. One tiny speck in a terrific expanse of mountain and desert. It looks like we wont ride in to that Cafe today, Buck but lets be moving. I wonder where that old sign could have come from, I puzzled as Buckskin picked his way cautiIt ously down the dim trail. wouldnt have been from the Sawmill Basin, and Hanksville is too far away. Lemme see, wasnt there an old stamp mill at Bromide ? Maybe. Hi there, Buck me proud beauty, were swingin off here to Bromide lets take a look at the place. the spur that WHEN I topped off abruptly to Bromide Canyon,' the sunlight was fading. High behind me the bald head of Mt. Ellen bore the gilded edge of sunset. Rocky cliffs were and the dark slopes of spruce and the lighter shades of aspen were sinking into the indefinable .mystery of mountain night. Away out on the Burr Desert east of me, the crest of the range threw a long shadow. Dusk had already fallen in the canyon bottom, and the roaring of the creek was somehow stillsoft-ene- d, ed. Against the far side of the canyon I could see the raw earth from an old mine dump, the outlines of and a tramway down a head-houO' the slope. se Well, Buckskin, we wont put our foot on the rail tonight for three fingers, hard; but well let you romp in the grass in the door-yarHi! Chet! Bring in that d. There must have been quite some diggings there at one time. As I rode down, to the creek, objects hitherto obcured by the second-growtand worn to a colorless gray by the storms of years, stood its out, one by one. A stamp-mil- l, roof caved in, revealing a sheet of copper from the troughs. A crooked street down the gully was marked fronts of ricby the kety frame shacks. The sun was gone, save out upon the Burr and the Brakes of the Colorado beyond, seen through a notch cut in the range by Bromide h, still-standi- ng -- Creek. was THErodestreet down it. dead silent as Ghost City peopled by the shades of a hellraising horde of miners and their women, now gone to other camps. There was my Cafe, leaning drunkenly against a half grown spruce. One window was boarded up. The other carried a single pane of glass, drilled clean in the center by I Mikes a small round hole. read. The rest of his sign was at Timberline. Blacksmith The doors of a shop yauned wide. The forge was at its edge a nest for pack-ra- ts showed a tarnished silver garter-buckl- e. A coyote slipped past a house of tiny windows and many rooms and disappeared in the brush. The Miners Rest Saloon, and other buildings of a similar nature were all but reduced to fallen timber by wild raspberry and the fresh young strength of aspens. goddam mule! Chet brought him down at a gallop, his bark ringing emptily through the gulch. I dismounted, slipped the saddle, and sthe pack, and prepared for night. Darkness settled quickly. Smothered the fire in the Brakes, advanced to within a few feet of my little blaze until some Goddess of Light dusted the air with silver and drove the moon up over the rim of the world. , stuck his muzzle into my and crawled close to me. Above the ceaseless chatter of the creek an owl sobbed brokenly. ' Pack CHET rats set the ancient clapboards creaking down the street. TT is sort of grisly, isnt it, Chet ? Its been a long time since this old camp boomed. Gold, it must have been, and it played out all at once. They just left machinery and everything here. Pulled ouU What a job it must have been to haul that stuff two hundred miles from Greenriver, and to lug it up the An when she gulch on mules. quit, she quitdead. Whooo! Sighed that forlorn owl from liis spruce-tre- e perch. The hair along Who, indeed! Chets back bristled. Can you hear em, Chet? Cornin The stamp-mi- ll roarin an the tram screamin as it hauled the muck from the shaft. Hard-roc- k miners, muckers, skinners, bartenders an Mike with his cafe. off Its shift. tonight, Chet, an the boys are rarin to go. Out of the house of many rooms come girls, Chet, with Indian paint brush in s. their hair an silver pay-da- y ear-ring- Hullo, Mamie ! Hi, Joe! Set Im a em up, old timer! wild man uf th moun-ain- s, an Ima gonna ge some meat ! Shut up, Oscar, an put tliet gun away! Itll be Oscar, Chet, that shot a hole in Mikes window. A dovn-win- d set the aspens to whispering and carried from far off the chafing and sighing of the pine-limb- s. - The shades of Bromide Camp retired, and left the canyon alone, again. Pack-rat- s banged the clapboards. Come on, Chet, get off yore ly. Lets go to bed. bel- |