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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 28, 1907)
0 1 A" A Midsummer "SJ lATAX," said Jeff Peters, "is a hard boss to work for. When other people are having their vacation is when he keeps you the bus iest. As old Dr. Watts, or St. Paul, or some other diagnostician says: 'He always finds somebody for idle hands to do.' "I remember one Summer when me and my partner, Andy Tucker, tried to take a layoff from our professional and buslnes duties; but it seems that our work followed us wherever we went. "Now, with a preacher it's different. He can throw off his responsibilities jtnd enjoy himself. On the 31st of May he wraps mosquito netting and tin foil around his pulpit, grabs his niblick, breviary and fishing pole and hikes for Lake Como or Atlantic City, according to the size of the' loudness with wbjch he has been calledjpy his congregation. And, sir, for three months he don't have to think about business except to hunt around in Deuteronomy and Prov erbs and Timothy to find texts to cover and exculpate such little midsummer penances as dropping a couple of looey door on rouge or teaching a Presby terian to swim. ' t "But I was going to tell you about mine and. Andy's Summer vacation that wasn't one. "We was tired of finance and all the branches of unsanctified ingenuity. Even Andy, whose brain rarely ever stopped working, began to make noises like a tennis cabinet. " 'Heigh ho!' says Andy, 'I'm tired. I've got that steam up tho yacht Cor sair and ho for the Riviera feeling. I want to loaf and indict my soul, as Walt Whlttier says. I want to play pinochle with Merry del Val or give a knouting to the tenants on my Tarry town estates or do a monologue at a Chautauqua picnic in kilts or some thing summery and outside the line of routine sandbagging.' " 'Patience,' says I. 'You'll have to climb higher in the profession before you can taste the laurels that crown the footprints of the great captains of Industry. Now, what I'd like, Andy,' tays I, "would be a Summer sojourn in a mountain village far from scenes of larceny, bloodshed and overcapitaliza tion. I'm tired, too, and a month or so of sinlessness ought to leave us in good shape to begin again, to take away the white man's burdens in the Fall.' "Andy fell in with the rest cure idea at once, so we struck the general pass enger agents of all the railroads for Summer resort literature, and took a week to study out where we should go. I reckon the first passenger agent in the world was that man Genesis. But there wasn't much competition in his day, and when he said: 'The Lord made the earth In six days, and all very good,' he hadn't any Idea to what extent the press agents of the Summer hotels would plagiarize from him later on. "When we finished the booklets we perceived, easy, that the United States from Passadumkeag. Maine, to El Paso and from Skagway to Key West was a paradise of glorious mountain peaks, crystal lakes, new laid eggs, golf, girls, garages, cooling breezes, straw rides, open plumbing and tennis; and all within two hours' ride. "So me and Andy dumps the books out the ack window and packs our trunk and takes the 6 o'clock tortoise Flyer for Crow Knob, a kind of dernier resort In the mountains on the line of Tennessee and North Carolina. "We was directed to a kind of pri vate hotel called. Woodchuck Inn, and thither me and Andy bent and almost broke our footsteps over the rocks and stumps. The Inn set back from the road in a big grove of trees, snd it looked fine with its broad porches and a lot of women in white dresses rock ing iti the shade. The rest of Crow Knob was a postofflce and some scen ery set at an angle of 45 degrees and a welkin. "Well, sir, when we got to the gate who do you suppose comes down the walk to greet us? Old Smoke-'em-out "CAN YE bO IT GENTS?.' HE ASKS."-- Masquerade 8mithers, who used to be the best open air painless dentist and electric liver pad faker in the Southwest. "Old Smoke-'em-out is dressed clerico rural, and has the mingled air of a landlord , and a claim Jumper. Which aspect he corroborates by telling us that he is the host and perpetrator of Woodchuck Inn. I introduces Andy, and we talk about a few volatile top ics, such as will go around at meetings of boards of directors and old associ ates like us three were. Old Smoke-'em-out leads us into a kind of Summer house in the yard near the gate and took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with his mighty right. " 'Gents,' says he, 'I'm glad to see you. Maybe you can help me out of a scrape. I'm getting a bit old for street work, so I leased the dogdays emporium so the good things would come to me. Two weeks before the season opened I gets a letter signed Lieutenant Peary, and one from the Duke of Marlborough, each wanting to engage board for part of the Summer. " 'Well, sir, you gents know what a big thing for an obscure hustlery it would be to have for guests two gentle men whose names are famous from long association with Icebergs and the Coburgs. So I prints a lot of handbills announcing that Woodchuck Inn would shelter these distinguished boarders during the Summer, except in places where it leaked, and I sends 'em out to towns around as far as Knoxville and Charlotte and Fish Cam and Bowl ing Green. " 'And now look up there on the porch, gents,' says Smoke-'em-out, 'at them disconsolate specimens of the fair sex waiting for the arrival of the Duke and the Lieutenant. The house is Sudden Fortunes Made by Lucky Prospectors While it is true that many of the rich est gold and silver mines in the world have been discovered by men who were out searching for the precious metals, it is equally true that others have been favored by fortune rather than by fore thought. The rise and fall of "Coal Oil Johnny," of a. generation ago, well Il lustrates the money erase that swept through the land of the oil fields till a great corporation took control of the pe troleum finds and eliminated tbe element "of ohance from the discoveries and the output Bret Harte, In his dramatic poem, "Dow's Flat," tells of a man who had been In very bard luck who started to dig for water, the "derringer hid in his breast." to be used if he failed; but instead of finding what he was after he struck pay dirt and a fortune. In 1S67 Donald Ross, a young Scotch sailor, deserted his ship in San Fran cisco, and with two companions, green as himself, started for the new placers In the Sierras at the head of Kern River. Falling in their first efforts, the three men crossed through the Lehatchepah pass and entered the volcano-rutted Mo Jave desert. Like many before them, they reasoned that a region so worthless- and lifeless must have in it the promise of gold. Again they failed, and after some trials made, their way Into Arizona and on to the head waters of the Little Colo rado. Here they had fair success, but the appearance of Cochin and his dreaded Apaches forced all the white men in that region to abandon their claims and fly to Zunl or the far-away army posts for protoction. Rose and his friends suc ceeded In reaching Fort Whipple, fr&m which point Colonel Gregg, then In com mand of the Eighth Cavalry, sent them back to Hardyvllle. on the Great Colo rado. At Hardyvllle the men bartered their dust for supplies, and, learning that Owen 's Lake, to the west of the Sierras, was a new and promising field, they de termined to try their luck there. With a mule to carry their supplies, but with out compass, map or trail to guide them, they started across the 200 miles of des ert to the north and west. . In their futile search for water the adventurers were deluded by the mirages of that region, and so wandered into the blistering arroyas along the southern rim of Death Valley. Two days after Ross and his friends entered these waterless depths the mule died, and his burden was THE SUNDAY 5 ' ; i- " ,';r, - packed from rafters to cellar with hero worshipers. " 'There's four normal schoolteachers and two abnormal; there's three high school graduates between 17 and 42; there's two literary old maids and one that can write; there's & couple of so ciety women and a lady from Haw Riv er.' Two elocutionists are bunking in the corn crib, and I've put cots in the hay- loft for the 500k and the society editress of the Chattanooga Opera Glass. Tou see how names draw, gents.' " 'Well,' says I, 'how is it that you seem to be biting your thumbs at good luck? You didn't use to be that way.' " T ain't through,' says Smoke-'em-out. 'Yesterday was the day for the advent of the auspicious personages. I goes down to the depot to welcome 'em. Two apparently animate sub stances gets off the train, both carrying bags full of croquet mallets and these magic lanterns with push buttons. " 'I compare these Integers "with the original signatures to the letters and, well, gents, I reckon the mistake was due to my poor eyesight. ' Instead of being the Lieutenant, the daisy chain and wild verbena explorer was none other than Levi T. Peevy, a soda water clerk from Ashvllle. And the Duke -of Marlborough turned out to be Theo. Drake of ' Murfreesboro, a bookkeep er in a grocery. What did I do? I kicked 'em both back on the train and watched 'em depart for the lowlands, the low. " 'Now, you see the fix I'm in, gents,' goes . on Smoke-'em-out Smlthers. I told the ladles that the notorious visit-, ors had been detained, on the road by some unavoidable circumstances that made a noise like an ice Jam and an heiress, but' they would arrive a day or two later. When they find out that they've been deceived,' says Smoke-'em-out, 'every yard of cross barred muslin and natural waved switch In the house will pack up and 'leave. It's abandoned. The next day one of the luen died ; the other, thirst-crazed, fled further into the desert and was never heard of again. Any position more des perate than that In which ' Ross now found himself it would be hard to ima gine, but he had not reason enough left to realize it. As crazed as the men who had left him, the poor fellow wandered aimlessly on till all consciousness was gone. When Ross came to he found him self In the camp of a band of Pah Utes, to the south of Owen's Lake. After many days and when the - young Scotchman was able to walk an Indian guided him to the Sierra Divide, and, pointing down to the emerald expanse of the great San Joaquin Valley and the flashing waters of Tulare Lake, he said: "White man's land." About an hour after leaving the In dian, Ross found himself in the bed of a rock-banked stream that had- Its source In the snow pe,aks to the north. He was hurrying down through the Icy waters, when suddenly he came to a stop and pressed his hands to his eyes, with the dred that the wild gold dreams of the desert were again mastering his reason. Half the sand at his feet appeared to be gold. With proof of his find. In his pockets. Ross made his way to San Francisco, where he soon interested capitalists In his discovery. Within two months he had sold out his interests for J25O.O00. It is said that he got back to Glasgow some weeks before the . return of the tramp steamer from which he had de serted. Even stranger and more startling than the foregoing was the experience of Cap tain George Wells In New Mexico. The Captain had been a prospector In the "Pike's-Peak-or-bust" days. During the Civil War he served on the Union side with his old friend Kit Carson. After the war the Captain made a number of strikes, but disliking routine work, he always "sold out for a song." and re turned to the old. lonely ways. In the Spring of 1872 the Captain found himself in Albuquerque, and down ' on his luck. A man named Murphy, who kept the principal fonda or hotel In the place, offered to grubstake Wells on con dition that he should prospect, in the Sandia Mountains. These mountains rise brown and verdureless to the east of the Rio Grande. Murphy had heard the tra OKEUUMAN, PORTLAra, a hard deal,' says old Smoke-'em-out. " 'Friend,' says Andy, touching the old man on the esophagus, 'why this Jeremiad when the polar regions and the portals of Blenheim are conspiring to hand you prosperity on a hall marked silver salver. We have ar rived.' "A light breaks out on Smoke-'em-out's face. " "Can ye do it, gents?" he asks.-'Could ye do It? Could ye play the polar man and the little Duke for the nice ladles? Will ye do it?' "I see that Andy is superimposed with his old hankering for the oral and polyglot system of buncoing. That man had a vocabulary of about 10,000 words and synonyms, which arrayed themselves into contraband sophistries and parables when they came out. " 'Listen,' says Andy to old Smoke-'em-out. Can we do It? You behold before you, Mr. Smlthers, two of the finest equipped men on earth for In veigling the proletariat, whether by word of mouth, sleight of hand or swiftness of foot. Dukes come and go, explorers go and get lost, but me and Jeff Peters,' says Andy, "go after the comeons forever. If you say so, we're the two Illustrious guests you were ex pecting. And you'll find,' says Andy, "that we'll give you the true local color, of the title roles from .the aurora bore alls to the ducal portcullis.' "Old moke-'em-out Is delighted. He takes me and Andy up to the inn by an arm apiece, telling us on the way that the finest fruits of the can and luxu ries of the fast freights should be ours without price as long as we would stay. "On the porch Smoke-'em-out says: 'Ladies, I have the honor to Introduce His Gracefulness the Duke of Marl borough and the famous inventor of the North Pole, Lieutenant Peary.' "The skirts all flutter and the rocking-chairs squeak as me and Andy bows and then goes on In with old dition that in the early days of the Span lards they had enslaved the Indians and made them 'work the gold mines In the Sandia Mountains. At length the Indians rose In revolt, slew their oppressors, and destroyed every vestige of the mines. In which over 200,000 -of their fellows had perished. To Wells, Who had a good practical knowledge of geology, the undertaking did not appeal, and then he was lnr credulous where Spanish or Indian tra ditlons were concerned. But having made the agreement with Murphy, he deter mined to keep it. With a Tlfle at his back and a Colt In hi belt Wells carried arms from force of habit, for there was neither game nor danger from attack la the region Into which he was going and his grub and- prospecting outfit packed on a little gray burro, he faced the brown serrated peaks to the east. The desolation of that wilderness of arid peaks and torrid arroyas would have appalled any man not familiar with Nature in her most uninviting moods; but Wells had patience and- a purpose. After six weeks of futile, heart-breaking search the supplies gave out. and then the sturdy prospector decided to make his way back to Albuquerque and ac knowledge himself beaten. In the captain's outfit there were 10 pounds of blasting powder and a power ful magnifying glass. The only use of the latter so far had been to light a pipe or start a fire. Before loading the burro for the return Wells clmbed -the wall of the rocky gulch, in which be had camped the night before. In order to take a last look at the field of his failure. He had Just reached the lookout, and was shad ing his eyes from the glaring sun, when an explosion that seemed to shake the rock on which he stood roared up from the little canyon. He flew down to where he had left his outfit, but he found It gone, and the little gray burro was blown Into shreds. At once the captain understood the cause of the disaster. He had so placed bis magnifying glass on the outside of the pack that the sun's rays became fo cused on the powder, and the explosion followed. Feeling that the requirements of the situation could not be met by the most vigorous of the picturesque profan ity of which he was a past master. Wells sat dwn with his head between JULY 28, 1907. I I I' 'l I f Smoke-'em-out to register. And then we washed up and turned our cuffs, and the landlord took us to the rooms he'd been saving for us and got out a demijohn of North Carolina real moun tain dew. "I expected trouble when Andy be gan to drink. He has the artistic me tempsychosis which is half drunk when sober and looks down on airships when stimulated. "After lingering with the demijohn me and Andy goes out on the porch, where the ladles are, to begin to earn our keep. We sit In two special chairs his hands to think; but thinking was Im possible, for the brain that had been so cool on the battlefield was all awhlrl. At length the old soldier rose slowly to his feet and drew his revolver- closer within reach. Desperately he looked up at the steel-blue sky, and the shimmering heat waves distorting the upper lines of the canyon. Then his eyes fell to the wreck about him, much of it fragments of rook which the explosion bad detached from the wall. He kicked over a shin ing something and muttered, "D d pi rate eyes!" pyrites! There were other shining somethings. He picked itf one and held It at ail angles to the sun. Then his breast heaved, the brave light flashed back to tbe gray eyes, and he called out: - "Gold and four noughts to the ton!" And so by blind chance, Captain Wells had come upon one of the lost mines which about the middle of the sixteenth century had enriched the viceroys of New Spain, as the present New Mexico was then called. In every land where gold Is found. Inci dents like those just given might be mul tiplied. Australia has had her share, one of the most amusing being the following: An Irishman named Whalen, who had been In the British army, went to Vic toria In the middle 'TOs. and, with the sav ings of his wife, bought, not far from Ballarat. a few acres of ground, valu able because of a water pool and a slug gish spring. With mud and gravel taken from the bottom of the pool Whalen made sun-dried bricks and built U cabin for his family. Not far away there were pros perous gold mines, and the Irishman, whose, army life had "unfitted him for ordinary work, started a bar for the con venience of men who did ordinary work. Near by there was a little colony of Chinese, who conducted laundries and raised vegetables for the miners. Con trary to their habit, these Chinese soon became regular patrons of Whalen's bar, and the fact that their visits were always made at night . did not excite suBptclom At length Mrs. Whalen discovered that someone had carried off the myI pig pen and its surrounding wall, but the work had been done so gradually that it was nearly all gone before she noticed it. Soon after this the chimney and the cor ners of the cabin walls began to vanish, and a watch was set to find the thieves who could find any value in dry clay.- At length the wife discovered that while one band of Chinamen was keeping- Whalen busy at the bar, another band was load ing scrapings from the chimney and walls into soiled clothes bags. When Mrs. Whalen made her report INSTEAD OF .THE LIEUT: AND 1KB and then the schoolma'ams and Lltera terrors hunched their rockers close around us. r "One lady says to me: "How did that last venture of yours turn out, sir?' "Now, I'd clean forgot to have an understanding with Andy which I was te be, the Duke or the Lieutenant. And I couldn't tell from her question whether she was referring to Arctic or matrimonial expeditions. So I gave, an answer that would cover both cases. " 'Well, ma'am,' says I, 'it was a freeze out right smart of a freeze out, ma'am.' Whalen passed a local Chinese exclusion act, and enforced It with a big stick. He had learned to respect the intelligence of the Celestials; but why should they steal dry mud from his cabin when the hills were full of It? "Mebbe there's gold In it," suggested Mrs. Whalen. Her husband acted on the hint. He "stole a panful of mud from the back of the chimney," and washed it out. He had solved the mystery. The bottom of the pan was covered with seeds and scales of gold. Whalen ordered tents for his family from Ballarat at once, and began to pan out what afterward became famous In the song and story of the land as "The Golden Bhanty." The house washed away, the bottoms of the pool and spring were attacked, with the result that the owner soon became a rich man. In May, 1S69. two years after the first discovery of diamonds in South Africa, a poor herder, who was tending his cattle near Sandfonteln, on the Orange River, picked up a bright pebble, which he car ried home "for the baby to play with." Up to this time his highest ambition had not extended beyond doubling the few score cows nd sheep he had Inherited from his father. A month after this Shalk . Nlekerk, a storekeeper, chanced In at the cabin of Swatborg that was the herder's name and seeing the child playing with a bright stone, he became Interested. Nle kerk's offer for the stone of 600 sheep and 10 head of cattle and a horse was at once accepted. Niekcrk sold the stone to Tielenfeld Brothers for $180,000. It again changed hands to an English firm, who paid twice the second price for it. When out this same stone weighed 834 karats. It is now known among the world's most famous diamonds as "The Star of South Africa." Kansas City Journal. It Does Xot Pay. It does not pay to give way to the emo tions in Summer. If ever you need to exercise eelf-control it is during dog days, for sharp words, angry tears and flushed cheeks are not conducive to feminine beauty. And if you keep cool mentally, you will look cool and dainty physically. A young woman who was making a trip on the Great Lakes by boat found herself most unfortunately placed In her stateroom with a woman who demanded more of her share of the accommoda tions. Day after day, that young woman fussed and quarrelled with her travelling 3 , CUKE "And then the floodgates of Andy's perorations was opened and I knew which one of the renowned ostensible guests I was supposed to be. I wasn't either. Andy was both. And still fur thermore it seemed that he was trying to be the mouthpiece of the entire Brit ish nobility and of Arctic exploration from Sir John Franklin down. It was the union of corn whisky and the con scientious fictional form that Mr. W. D. Howletts admires so much. " 'Ladies,' says Andy, smiling seml circularly, T am truly glad to visit America, I do not consider the magna charta," says he, 'or gas balloons or enowshoes In any way a detriment to the beauty and charm of your Ameri can 'women, skyscrapers or the archi tecture of your Icebergs. The next time,' says Andy, 'that I go after the North Pole all the Vanderbllts In I Greenland won't be able to turn me put In the cold I mean make It hot for me. " Tell us about one of your trips, Lieutenant,' says one of the normals. " 'Sure, says Andy, getting tho de cision over a hiccup.. 'It was In the Spring of last year that I sailed the Castle of Blenheim up to latitude ST Fahrenheit and beat the record. La dles', says Andy, 'It was a sad sight to see a Duke allied by a civil and lit urgical chattel mortgage to one of the first families lost in a region of semi annual dafys.' And then he goes on, 'at four bells we sighted Westminster Ab bey, but there was not a drop to eat. At noon we threw: out five sandbags, and the ship rose 15 knots higher. At midnight,' continues Andy, 'the res taurants closed. Sitting on a cake of Ice we ate seven dogs. All around us was snow and ice. Six times a night the boatswain rose up and tore a leaf off the calendar so we could keep time with the barometer. At 12.' says An-' dy, with a lot of anguish in his face,' "three huge polar bears sprang down' the hatchway, into the cabin. And then ' " 'What then. Lieutenant?' says av schoolma'am, excitedly. "Andy gives a loud sob. " 'The Duchess shook me,' he cries out, and slides out of the chair ami weeps on the porch. - "Well, of course, tfiat fixed the scheme. The women boarders all left the next morning. The landlord: wouldn't speak to us for two days, but' when he found we had money to pay our way he loosened up. "So me and Andy had a quiet, restful Summer after all. coming away from! Crow Knob with $1100, that we enticed! out of old Smoke-'em-out playing seveiv up." (Copyright ino7 by S. S. McClure Co. In thai United States ana Great Britain.) companion, and bored everybody on decle with her complaints. Seldom, Indeed, did the angry light die In her eye, the iush. of Indignation fade In her cheek. What she should have done was to have ap proached the purser and asked quietly, to have an exchange of staterooms madej Failing in this, and realizing that heri traveling companion was Implacable. she should have accepted the situation quiet ly and philosophically, spending everV possible moment away from her state room, and thanking . her stars that she, was not made as other and more selfish! women. But instead, she, and 'not thai real offender, was condemned, simply be cause she lost every vestige of self-conJ trol. I.avlnla's Y earning-. New York Sun. Discontented has Lavlnia been from Draff lie went to town. i Seems the things she seen an' heard com pletely turned her upside down. 8ays 1 ought to give hr musical advantages! abroad: Got her mother, too. a-pesterln' to sell the! ranch, an' board. Spoilt all right our little daughter is. rvW seen that kind before; Always wantln what she basn't got, an thenMwants somethin' more. f Heaven wouldn't satisfy her. When she sets there. I take It. , It there isn't somethin' doln' ahe will atug them ap a bit. She won't want no angel chorus to the sound of harps, not she, But a full orchestra heatin' Brahms an tootln' Tschalkowsky. ! Every country'U have Its- Innln'a: Chlnese solos from Loo Cheer. , Frenchv ballets by Saint sands and German jigs by Meyer Beer. And of Warner's Nibeiungenlled "of, three) belungen breed There will be a great sufficiency, first clsss and pedigreed. Tes; I'll let her go to Europe, to rub shoul ders with that throng Of the world's renowned musicians. Hope she'll stay there good an' long. A Suspect. Washington D. C.) Star. 6o many writers disagree O'er what wild creatures do. It's mighty hard, 'twlxt you and me, To say just who Is who. Tou cannot credit what is said. Nor your own observations. TIM with attention you have read The latent publications. t When T behold the busy bee Which once I so admired, A grim suspicion puasles me I'ntll my train grows tired. Sir Bee. do you work hard all day. No moment's pleasure taking! Are you as busy as they say? Or are you nature faking?