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Show H COLONEL BILL ROOT. H Most pitiable, most unexpectea was Colonei H I5ITI Root's death; so hearty, so genial, so cheery, H was he, so stalwart was his unbent frame. There H was not much wit, but a humor about him that H only death could quench. He was quaint and H shrewd and often taciturn and always gave the H impression that he was only turning the jolly side H of his life to the world, that there were depths to H him that none but such as he loved and trusted H implicitly could sound, he had the careless hab- H it of the frontier, its virtues and its vices, but H was nevor off his guard. When apparently In- H different to all about him he saw every motion M of everyone nearMiim and had an Indian assassin M been skulking outside he would have seen him. M He had mingled much with all classes of men; M he was at home in the brown stone front of the M white millionaire, he was at home under the H green trees with the brown son of the desert ana M could talk in the dialects of both. He had an m ever flowing fund of anecdotes; ho loved to re- H call them; especially those the points of which M were against himself. There was almost always M a kindly smile on his face, always cheerful words H on his lips; he was shrewd and knew how to B make money, but we do not believe that under H any circumstances he could have kept it. When H he had money it went to two classes, the one H that he loved, the other that he did not want to H bo bothered with. All birds and animals were H his friends and he knew more about them and H their ways than anyone else. H He was a powerful man physically, a growth H of the frontier which was his nursing mother and H his best love to the last. No one ever dreamed H that he was drawing near his end; to those who H knew him, the thought was "he Is good for H twenty-five years yet." Still he is gone. He went H down as does the great tree that has met innum erable storms and then, some morning when the winds are laid and nature has wrapped the world in a profound calm, falls and- startles all the woods. God rest his soul. |
