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Show Alpheus Taggart Bruce. Mr. William F. Stone of Lemhi Junction, Idaho, brings the news of the death of A. T. Bruce at the Kinney hospital in Salmon City last week Tuesday. Perhaps not many of our readers over heard of the man. But he wns one of a, typo that has helped to make this west. While young ho went to California and remained there two or three years. His going to Idaho was with the survbyoi'3 who first laid out tho line of the Northern Pacific railroad some thirty yeais ago. About 188.B he drifted into Lemhi valley and bought or located a group of mining claims in Spring Mountain district. dis-trict. He was then in the very prime of life, a member of a distinguished family, he had boon university bred, was a finished scholar in all tho realms of science and literature; but he settled down upon those mining claims and hardly evor loft thom. Winter after winter he remained there, snowbound snow-bound in his cabin. He had for his company a few books, his memories and his hopes. He never grew morose, rather he was always gentle and sunny hearted. If anything In his past caused him grief he never showed it to the world. The children loved to gather around him; he could entertain them as he could enchant older people for his memory was prodigious, his fund of knowledge apparently Inexhaustible. What his purposes were when he went there nq one ever knew, but as the years went by he took up the belief that his mining claims would very soon so develop that he would make everything every-thing all right. Next week or next year would surely make good; to him tho golden mountains were always in view; only one more low divide was to be crossed and then Elysian Fields. This became a fixed thought in his mind and so absorbed was he in it that ho made no noto of passing time. Ho was indifferent that who; ho awoke in the morning there waa a frost upon his hair that tho sun could not melt; he never seemed to note that the strength of his full manhood man-hood was declining; that he no longer had the luxuries of old, he never thought of. He was sure his dreams wore surely going to all be realized real-ized and that they were filled with promises or good, no one who ever knew him doubted. Whether he had ever tried in the great world and failed In its competitions no one ever knew; whether some heart-sorrow drove him from among men; whether he had failed to make any successful application of his native and acquired abilities; whether there was a face before him like no other face in all the world to him; whatever what-ever his secret he held it hermetically sealed in his own breast. But whatever it was it never soured him; the face that he turned to the world was a gentle, smiling one, and no word of blt-teruepi, blt-teruepi, was ever heard from his lips. Then when the new idea took hold of him and absorbed his life, a sort of perpetual ecstacy came to him. There could be no doubt about the inestimable value of what he possessed and when he would be able to realize from It, ah then! The secret of what he was to do, was his. It was joyous and deep and so clothed with won dors that it made him indlfforont even to his own wants. A month ago while at work a- slide of raolt overtook him and crushed one leg, breaking It: In three places and bruising him fearfully in other places. His friends carried him out of the hills and sent him to the hospital. All the news from him was favorable until a week ago last Sunday when blood-poisoning supervened and ho died on Tuesday morning. He was 62 years old, a native of Now York state. It is not known whether ho was conscious In his last hours or not, but those who knew and loved him hope that the old dream was baok upon liim; that It caused him to forgot for-got his sufferings; that he belioved ho really wa passing over the low divide, that tho golden mountains moun-tains grow more and more splendid as he noared them; that at least they opened before him and upon his closing eyes, tho ilowors, the fruits, the restful shade of the real Elysian Fields broke on his vision and seemed to wrap him 'round with .) flowers as ho 5aiik into his final sleep. |