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Show I A Mountain Mystery I By JOHN K. HARDY S I I It was in the very heart of the wildest section of western Wyoming, Wyom-ing, in the summer of 1905. Our party consisted of Jim Bagley, Frank Young, our guide and myself. Three of us were city fellows, confined f to indoor work eleven and a half months during each twelve, now out for a hunting and fishing expedition in that Mecca of sporting grounds. u Our guide, known to us as Doc, was a short, though splendidly built " fellow, recommended to us by friends who had invaded the section ' many times before. One day after making a long drive through the mountains we came to the shores of a most beautiful lake and were delighted to see a f rustic house, nestled in a clump of pines close to its shore. Visions of home luxuries within the walls grew apace and our fagged spirits l( rose in gladness at sight of this remote club house where we might l enjoy a soft bed and a stove-cooked meal, minus the smoke seasoning (for be it known all three of us were on our maiden camping expedi tion.) Sleeping with the earth for a bed and the sky for a ceiling ; eating eat-ing from tin plates the greasy victuals prepared on a camp-fire frying ian, possessed none of those woncterful delights which we have since I learned to relish with the wholesome appreciation of the primitive man. A gruff, blunt refusal from the guide to go to the house made us the more determined to visit at this charming little mountain retreat, I especially when Young suggested, "Maybe there's a bath." i "But you can't get accommodations or favors there," the man of the hills protested. "We can, at any rate, camp in the door-yard of civilization and smell the odors of a human abode, can't we?" sharply retorted Bagley. "I tell you, gentlemen, we don't want to go there," stubbornly insisted the guide. "Well, we didn't hire you to apron-string us in door-yards. You were not employed as conductor of a city sight seeing tourist expedition expedi-tion ; you arc our pilot of the wilds. The moment we reach a respectable respec-table and civilized habitation, your directive authority ceases and you are to sit quietly and hold the reins," I argued good naturcdly. Our guide laughed in fine humor, and yielding, drove over near the entrance to the grounds of this picturesque habitation. I All three of us jumped from the wagon, and rushing for the rustic I gate, swung it wide and raced up the path to the house. Wc were surprised that our noisy summons at the door was unanswered; for : the house bore unmistakable signs of occupancy, and further we had seen a figure draw hastily from one of the windows as wc approached. An appeal at the remaining doors proved unfruitful of response, and, somewhat chagrined and crestfallen we returned to the gate. "Rather an inhospitable civilized community," twitted our guide, as he turned the horses back into the road. . "Shut up," snapped Bagley, who, like the rest of us, was keenly disappointed at the vanishing dream. As we left the place, a colt belonging to the guide made its way W through the gate which we had carelessly left open, and, seeking a way out of the enclosure, tore frantically back and forth over the premises. We stopped, expecting the confused animal to find the gate, but it failed; and the guide not offering to assist the wanderer to its mother, the three of us were soon within the enclosure endeavoring endeavor-ing to head the bewildered yearling toward the opening. Of a sudden, a large, nicely dressed, grey haired man appeared on the front porch of the house in a perfect passion of rage ; his eyes shone with the "most hateful light I have ever seen exhibited by a human bc-4 bc-4 ing. His anger was so intense that he scarce could control himself. When he had scathed us in the most vehement language, plentifully punctuated with frightful oaths, from which we gathered twixt our astonishment and awe, such phrases as: " -City yaps en- icroaching on the rights of others tramping out of these premises ; a good mind to blow the daylights out of i ' you bungling asses ; not enough to be refused admittance, must trespass upon my property." He whirled and charged into the house, the door banging behind him with a report richly suggestive of his consuming wrath. We were perfectly astounded at this outburst of passion. While we saw he had reason for objection to our acci- dental trespass, wc had none of us ever before witnessed such an un- jj I checked outburst of insane passion. During this exhibition, the I I troublesome colt had made its way to the team, and we were not slow J I in following. There was no joking over the experience when wc 8 1 reached the vehicle ; and when Doc suggested that we drive on a few I miles before camping, the sentiment of his three wards was feelingly I expressed by Bagley when he said: "Why not drive all night? Looks I like moon-light, and I always did enjoy the night air." We were none , ; I of us cowards, but were unanimous in a desire to put distance between II this man and our outfit. ,11 The experience proved a damper to the good spirits of the party f I and nothing was said about it further until camp was made and supper I ended. We were eniovimr a smoke about the flickering fire when I Bagley approached the incident with: "Say, Doc, no danger of that that demon down the lake paying I us a visit tonight to fill his appointment and execute some of those I blood-curdling threats, do you think?" And Young and I, as well as III Bagley, wanted to know. H "Guess not," said Doc: and changing the subject, asked: "Pretty 'I near time to pull in, isn't it? I'll go and hobble the horses." And he ..left us. The guide was gone some time. When he did come back, he en- H tered the camp quietly as if he sought to avoid disturbing us. I was H fully awake, however, and watched Doc, who took a place by the H camp fire, which was now casting a faint glow from the dying embers. 'H Occasionally as a gust of wind whipped the coals into flame, I saw H the reflection from a revolver lying at the side of the guide. Going to H bed seemed farthest from his mind, and I lay awake studying him, H wondering. First I thought of home and the wife, after which I drew a deep breath and sought to rejoice in the invigorating air; and then S the picture of that face, contorted by the emotions of an awful passion, H came before me, and the terrible threats sounded in my ears; after H which I raised my head and gazed at Doc, sitting by the fire alert, H sentinel like in the dark. All at once I remembered his stubborn obsti- H nacy against visiting the home of the strange creature whose memory H seemed to haunt me. What did Doc know about this man? I was out H of bed and at the side of this Indian-like mountaineer to learn for my- H self, if possible. H Adroitly I led up to the incident of the evening, and then asked H Doc to tell me what he knew of the fellow. H He evaded, saying that it wasn't good to tell bad stories in the H mountains at night; it might frighten a city chap. I secured a blanket, wrapped it about my shoulders to protect them from the chilly night air, and insisted on hearing a story. "Well," said Doc at length, "I likeyou, and if you will keep what I say to you from the other fellows till you get out of this country, I will tell you what I know about the man we saw back there. "First," continued Doc, "by way of preliminary and as an apology, I want you to understand I'm true to the tradition of the West and jjM am no scandal monger. Out here in the West it is not considered polite to stick your nose too far into other peoples' affairs, and, again, you musn't go to searching out pedigrees and family trees. Lots of fellows who come west begin life, so far as their neighbors are con-cerned, con-cerned, when they arrive, and unless some tattler is shipped out to stir up the ashes of the past, nobody cares where a man comes from, or what he has been doing; whether he is a descendent of the May-flower, May-flower, a Daughter of the Revolution, a relative of Pocahontas, sev-enty-six degrees removed, or whether he just growed, as did Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin. When they come into the western settlement a just growed one is as good as one carrying a pedigree of blue blooded ancestry as long as the by-laws of the Christian Temperance Union. But registered blue-bloods and just growed products are measured and classified by the same standard, once they settle down that's merits as we understand it, and windy newspaper editorials and influential political connections, to say nothing of a long line of swelled-up forefathers, don't count half as much in the balance as the man himself. (To be continued next week.) |