Show COUCH IN A good many 0 the people ot this foothills ot california are a queer race when the hsih times made by the placers passed away the best portion ot the people either gravitated to this 0 the or went to the valleys and cities to fand occupations and make homes the crowd that was left acro those who on little patches oc land with a little wild stock running out on the hills made a doubtful ine their gardens furnishing them vegetables et obtaining their act mostly from gamo that they killed on the halli and they took upon themselves many 0 the traits of the mountaineers in eastern kentucky they are dead shots with the aluc they can ride mustangs they can dance on puncheon floors aliey cat borne bacon and some wild game and fruit they are not particular about their clothing they are a hospitable set of arabs probably from the fact that what they have did not cost much and they can get more and EO their lives just merely drift away lion tom couch has been living among them for a year last past superintending super intending the work of the great company that bought up the mariposa Marl posa mines last tall he went to see a man who had a sawmill saw mill and two or three bundled thousand feet of lumber and wanted to negotiate for some lumber the man was very careful to tell hilra the various prices until finally tom said how much will you take for all you have here As soon as the man got his breath he answered whereupon couch eat down and wrote bilm a check for the bhole eum last summer and autumn couch put UP a great wooden building an immense iron building put a great deal ot machinery in place and la working to complete an electric plant which will turn the whole business and supply it at the same time with light the natives gather around and discuss with unfeigned astonishment what is going on they declare that the company lias not made a cent since it came there and yet that it has BO tar gone on building and improving on a scale never dreamed of in that country and that it simply must be possessed of an inexhaustible bank account because it has paid everything on presentation it la making a transformation of all that part of the country and the people look upon couch as a kind of pasha ot talaveras calaveras Cala veras or a khedive ot mariposa Marl posa couch bears the honors with becoming dignity every little while paralyzing them with some new display 0 unmeasured power or illimitable wealth the chances are that it he were not a married man he might make an alliance with the inest family in the foothills and there Is an advantage there because the gills eo barefoot and they know nothing ot the deceptions which pertain to higher society that 19 when a man marries one ot them lie knows what he gets we congratulate mr couch at the hajne time we suggest to mrs couch the advisability ot going down occasionally to look over alio works herself |