THE TORCH OF REASON, SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1897 GOLDEN THRONE [ a ROMANCE BY SAMUEL P. PUTNAM.] “You must only drop oil' with old age. Ami Independent, well, I don’t exactly know what that does mean. It means anything and everything, just what folks want you to he. It’s a nice word that can cover a multitude of things. Call yourself independent, and people will think you have every virtue. It’s a very accommodating word. You can stand on any plat form and make all sorts of prom ises; ami, if you don’t fulfil them, whv, it’s because you are independ ent. You see I have a broad plat form to run on; and there are lots of discontented folks ready to take tip with anything, and that makes a chance for me. I’ve a railroad pass, and I shall run down and fix t hings.” “A railroad pass, and you are Independent? I don’t understand that,” “That’s the idea: 1 am anti- monopoly, and I shall pledge my self to resist the inroads of these grasping corporations. Rut, when it comes to riding and voting, why, that’s a different thing. I don’t want to walk, and I can’t pay my fare. And then, you know, what’s a vote? 1 can offset it any time by a speech. There’s nothing like dividing yourself up and going all around and belonging to every side of a question. That’s statesmanship, and I’m going in on it.” “Well, go it. Some people are fools, and I guess you might as w’ell shear ’em as anybody. For me, I’d rather dig for a bare pittance than succeed through the whims and caprices of the ignorant multi tude.” “I wish I could dig,” said Sol, “but I can’t, and I’m ashamed to beg; and so, like the unjust steward, I must make friends of the mam mon of unrighteousness, and go in on my cheek. I w’as born to it and bred to it, and I must make the best of it.” “We are on a whirligig of life,” said Paddie, “ami we must whirl.” “ We’ll whirl off to the mountains tomorrow, said Charlie. “.Jumble as we may, I believe in the survival of the fittest.” The next morning, they started on their homeward journey, Charlie and Will and Tim and Jennie and Moccasin Rill. Charlie was not feeling in the best of spirits. He left his heart behind him, and so he dragged a lengthening chain. However, his strong will bore him along. He was not foolish enough to let his passion predominate over his reason. “ Let me get to work, and I shall be all right,” said he to Will. I do not forget Madeline, yet other loves will boom and blossom in the heart.” “They should,” said Will. “The dead reign in memory, while w’e duced me to myself; and I under American. He had been all over must mingle with the living and stand Moccasin Rill better than I the country. He would leave his feed our hearts from new fountains. ever did, and he me. I know you wife sometimes for months, and no We do not forget the old when we better, too, arid all the race of men. body would know where he was. I can’t be civilized. I hate to be. He had lived among the Indians, press forward to the new.” “I do not know as I can love I like these wild woods. They are and, in fact, had been adopted by again,” said Charlie. “ Love is my home. Here will I live, and one of the tribes. He had met such a deep and terrible thing that here will I die, free to my last with all sorts of adventures, and 1 almost dread it; for it takes hold breath as the winds of heaven. I could tell of many hair-breadth of every fibre of the being, and its am afraid of nothing—of beasts or escapes. He was a right good joy is constantly trembling on the Indians or storm or lightning. I story-teller, and around many a verge of pain. I connot forget this have all I want. This is my palace, camp-fire had exploited the thrill woman’s face; and it does seem, at in the bosom of earth. I have no ing romance of his life. When on times, as if 1 must give up every pains or aches. I have never in the borders of civiilization, he kept other plan in life, and go ami seek jured a mortal man. I have done a saloon that was his only way of her, though I never find her. Isn’t what I could to help them; and making a living. He was a keen it strange that one glance can so now I have heard Ingersoll, and judge of liquor of all sorts. He affect a man? Why is it that some his thoughts are with me, compan could tell the flavor to a nicety. faces do so enchant and haunt us? ’ ions of the mountains and the He believed in the genuine stuff, and would have no adulterations. “ 1 suppose we can never explain trees and the rivers. Good-by.” Charlie and Will never forgot the So he always kept the most popular the rose on a woman’s cheek or the flash of her dark eye. Rut the picture of the noble hermit as he saloon, and made money which he comfort of it is, out of sight, out of stood leaning on his long rifle, so spent like water. He loved his mind; and we soon forget these fan ' sturdy in his independence, so in wife and feared her, and always cies, or, if we do not, it is because domitable in his unique personality, obeyed her. a living expression of the wildness we are doomed to meet again.’’ Tim whiled away the evening and grandeur of the mountains. “That’s romantic, and very good, I with some stories, . ’ and then fell That evening, the company, asleep. Jennie was still wakeful, as sentiment; but how far will it go for a fact? I don’t forget some dwindled to four, arrived at Pil and kept the fire blazing. Char nice apples that I saw yesterdy; grim’s Rest. lie watched her in a half dreamy Jennie was quite a study to but I don’t expect to eat them.’’ sort of way, as the flames danced “Folks are different from apples,” Charlie, and he watched her as she upon her massive and weather said Well. “ I know I’m romantic, deftly built the fire and prepared beaten features. Will tumbled into but not enough to hurt. I trust the meal. She was indeed a won his blanket by the side of Tim. only in what I see, when it comes derful woman, a born Stoic; and “I ’d like to swap with you, Jen to the real tussle. For all that, we all the ills of life did not seem to nie,” said Charlie. “I never saw can roam in fairy-land, when disturb her equanimity. Whatever anybody that enjoyed life, under there’s nothing else to do. We are happen« d, she was ready for it— all circumstances, so well as you. all contraditions, and that is what the measles, smallpox, the storm, I think you must have a lien upon gives zeal to life. 1 wonder at my the ff«»od, the “ Injun,” or the devil fate.” self sometimes. If I did not, what himself. Her experience was va “ I don’t understand that.” said ried. From girlhood she had lived a dunce I should be!” Jennie. “I don’t kuow about fate. Moccasin Rill gave them a hearty on the plains or among the mines. That’s beyond me. I know that I good-by, as, in the bright, early She had “teamed it,’’ and “tramped live, and don’t see the use of know dawn, they prepared to leave his it,” rode wild horses and shot buf ing any more.” hospitable dug-out where they had faloes, and even scalped an Indian. “You don’t care, then, to know No man had endured more than spent the previous night. “I ’ve had a good tramp,’ said he, she, or could boast of greater where you came from?” “No. It wouldn’t make me any “and I’m full. I know myself now’, prowess. She had borne several because I’ve heard another man children, and had been stripped of happier or any wiser for w’hat I’ve tell me what I knew already, but them all; but I doubt if she ever gut to do to-day.” didn’t know’ that I knew’ it'as I do wept. She was a mother to every “And you don’t care whither now. It is the best of truth to have body. No one could ask her for you go?” “No. The present is all I can one speak your innermost thought. help in vain. Yet she was not Semehow, it becomes more real then. demonstrative. She was a woman handle. Every moment keeps me I’ve always been kind of solitary of few’ words. She tended the sick busy. I haven’t time to trouble among these hills. They have been with grave quiet, stood by them to myself about eternity, as the my best companions. I ’ve got the death, if need be, no matter ministers call it. I don’t know suited to them and they to me. how malignant the disease. She what it is, and I guess they don’t.” We’ve never had any trouble. Men had stood by the bedside of hun “You’ve suffered a good deal?” more or less bother, at least they dreds of suffering miners and team “Yes, I have.” “And you have seen a good deal do me; and I keep them a little off. sters, and many of them had she That’s my way. I like it better, pulled through an almost hopeless of suffering?” “Yes.” and it’s liberty. If I mingle with case. Yet she had no religion. She “ Well, w’hat do you think of it?” men, I have to give up too much. never prayed or sang. The only “ I don’t think anything about it. Yet, through Ingersoll, I feel that men that she really hated were the man is more than anything; for lie ministers; but she always fed them When it’s over with, I forget it.” has given me a feeling and a joy well and gave them her best whis “Have you forgotten your child that I never had before, more re key, and they always drank it “for ren ?” “ No; but I have forgotten that spect for myself and for everybody. their stomach’s sake.” She didn’t He has touched mv solitude with have any Rible or any cross. She they are dead.” “Do you wish they were alive?” what you call genius, or inspira w’ould swear like a trooper some “ I wish nothing. What’s the tion. He has spoken to me with times, and cuff’ the ears of the the voice of the monntain and the recalcitrant. She wouldn’t stand use?” thunder of the cataract. He has any nonsense. She was a sublime • “Then, * * you believe that what- given a new meaning to the night heroine, worthy to stand by the ever is is right?” and the stars that look down upon side of any of the great ones of his “ No I don’t. I don’t believe anything about it. How can I. me. I see more and I am more, tory or romance. Tim Raker, in his wav, was a when I don’t know anything about because Rob, as you call him, and specimen of roving it?” as I like to call him, has intro curious