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About Lincoln County leader. (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1896)
I i n I U II II I s. Ill i-n $ BILL'S RACE FOH ovor a week It hail been ill r':i tfliUijJ Ktv.it things. For n week noliody oa the "Lazy II." ranch hail caught mere than a moincii tary glimpse of the sun. Chill winds whistled anil roared over the MeaU nml desolate prairies ou the range and llt ful whirls of rain made It all the more disagreeable to the weary boys who were at work night and day to keep the uueasy herd from rushing away to the desert of the south. Although It was early for wintry mauil'estations, yet that a serious storm was imminent was realized by all the men employed on the ranch. Great bunches of cattle milled at various points on the range, but'little effort was made to break the mills, for fear they would be followed by the more serious danger of a general stam pede. Riders constantly watched the fretful auimals when they became weary from hunger as they rushed around iu that ceaseless grind. Noth ing but a wall of horns was to be seen, as the steers presented an unbroken front to all comers. With the mutter lug of the thunder came lowing and tossiugs of the horns with added en ergy In the tramp, tramp of the fright ened animals. It was hard anil weary work to keep the bird from starving as well us rush ing wildly towards the gulf. All over the Panhandle country the same con ditions existed, and that gloomy week in November was probably the most exciting tour of duty the ranchmen ever put ill in a region where hard work abounds nml the rewards are small. Ten thousands pairs of horns were enough to keep a small iiriny of "Lazy II." cowboys fairly busy when every thing was pleasant. Now there was need for double their number. They were scattered in groups under sub bosses, so that every man was doing two men's work ami that, too, without an opportunity for rest, excepting such as could be snatched when the milling bum-In s were quiet for a few minutes. "If tills thing keeps up much longer," said "Curley" Ilroi k, as the week was almost gone, "I nlhiw I'll jump the game. I'm almost all cashed III now and kalnt stand ll much longer. .In si look ut them bulls, a-iiilllln' nud n-inill-in' there, liver see anything so menu? Why. they ain't done nolhln' fer a whole week but tramp about nml go off their feed. I allow there ain't no use of trying to break 'em. whatever." "They'll break pretty soon, or 1 lose my guess." said the boss, Hill Martin. "I figure lliat Iheiii elouils'll bust some where liei-eiiliiuils. ami then look out. Wish! I li:ii some more ponies, or least ways some 1 1 1 .-1 1 were fresh. We got to ride colisiilerhle hunt to keep up ef they stampede, which I allow they will." As he spoke a long tongue of brilliant light left the clouds and, winding a de vIimih and uncertain way across the Mack skhf), plunged Into the earth at no great distance from where the ranch men stood. Instantly it was followed by a roar and rumble of thunder as If a park of artillery had suddenly gone Into action. The sound was deafening, the thunder in that country often being fiulMcleutly severe to shake the nerves of the strongest man. l-'ollowlng this came a ronr as of some mighty catar act, its the wind took sudden volume nud that huge bank of clouds bore rap. Idly down Umiii the milling heasis. Just ns suddenly the animals halted in their march and turned frightened eyes in the direction of the advancing storm. Then they moved uneasily, tossed their horns nml dug up the turf as the tlrs t spallerlng raindrops fell all about and upon thcui. "Here, you fellers,' yelled Martin. "Cet busy there iiu' head off them blamed steers. lon't ye see they are goln' to stampede? Hurry. nnd'p'iut 'in at that gulch over ther. Hide, you devils, as you never rid before." Suiting the action to the word the boss put his pony Into a violent gallop and raced off toward the bunch, shout ing out bis orders as he rode, lie win mounted on a strong broncho, and It was well for him that the pimy was comparatively fresh, for lie soon found himself lu a position of serious danger, and there he stuck for a long time, lie "t-fct " - FOR HIS LIFE was caught In that stampede and hur ried oh" toward the gulf tit a terriiie speed, liis pony straining every nerve to keep ahead and the steers racing furiously behind In their efforts to get away from the storm. As Bill dashed off to turn the flank of the bunch, Just as the animals com menced to change their revolving mo tion for a straiglit-away run, "Curley lifted up his voice and quirt and made a furious onslaught on the nearest steer, lie swung his deadly quirt and thwacked that bull witli great vigor, communicating a sudden impetus to the animal's movements. This had the fftt)ct- fif Kt.-ii'Mng m.-inv ntlim-i in tlw same direction, and a couple of hun dred bore rapidly down on Martin, cut ting him off and putting him in the di rect palliwny of the stampede. "Whatever are ye doin', ye blamed fool," roared Bill as he saw what had happened. "Come around on the other side, ve r.-ivole no' luviil litem lmllu oll'cu me. iHirn yer skin, think I'm ! s part of tins himi-li.'' "Curley" saw the mischief nnd at- tempted to divert the enemy, hut it was too late. The other man had followed his lead nnd the sleers Instead of head ing for Ihe gulch were racing lu a wild scrimmage straight away to the south, hunting solitude. Bill went with them, lie had to. It was his duty, anyway, a thought that afforded him little conso- la t ion, for It was a race for life, with the chances nbout fifty to one on the bulls, with the same odds against him. Still, being a man of family, he gave niK (kmi.v nee rem una riiceu um ne never did before or since, ns be has frequently said himself. It was all "Curley's" do ing, as that astute cowboy charged with undue Impetuosity at an angle calculated to produce the result he had brought about. As the cattle raced constant additions were made, until It seined that the en tire herd was chasing Bill, lie reflect ed ns he ran that he had this advan tage, that when the ride was over, if he 1 ...II I. 11 .1 herd without much trouble. Just how long It would take to terminate the drift was the problem, ns the herd was mostly made up of young sters. full of life nnd fleet of foot. Bill was busy particularly in his straining effort to avoid being Inclosed In the rushing herd, lie had a little the start of them; could he maintain It until a chance offered to quarter the drive nnd escape to one side? lie dug his rowels Into his mm & pony', flanks and swore vengeance ou Well, it was ns he expected He final "Curley" ns soon ns the fun wan over lv found th i...r.i - . V Ou rushed BUI. and on rushed the cat- fl, , To e lv do D tie. Behind them, with yells nud shouts ! ng Imt ' . H 8'm murrlng them to great efforts. ni&iaSdSSS; the boys. They were nil pretty evenly matched, so that there was little change in their relative positions for a long time. How long Hill does not know. It seemed a week to him, but nobody in his plight could measure time Willi any degree of accuracy. The rain fell in torrents and the plains, now darkened by the fading day and the heavy green black clouds, was fitfully lighted by the constant Hashes of light ning, which mockingly illuminated the pathway in front of Iiill. likewise the steers. At every Hash anil every roar of thunder the bulls took on more steam, nud nfler a short time Bill saw with apprehension that they were gain ing on him. Would they trample him In the mud? It began to look as If they might, for his pony's wind was about gone and his panting was becoming short, sobbing gasps. On they plunged, rider and pursued, making record-breaking time iu a coun try where hard riding and plenty of it is the daily portion of all. Over shelv ing, broken land, down into small a.Toyos and out again up the steep grades plunged and seethed that mass of struggling cattle. Some of the boys behind noticed here and there the fallen figure of an exhausted steer as he fell from sheer weariness. They yelled en couragement to Bill, for this was a good sign, and indicated that the herd was rapidly reaching the point when it would be compelled to,stop. On they ran, however, without wavering, pur sued by the storm and chasing the fly ing figure c.f the boss. Would he es cape death? Nobody could tell. As the beaten pony struggled up a steep incline after a mad dash down into a gulch, Bill felt the hot breath of tlio advance guard of the cattle, furious as a furnace at ills back. He cast a de spairing glance backward, urged his pony with foot and voice, and was tossed headlong to the ground. He fell from the stirrup, rolled about for an in stant, a,nd then lay still as he saw that "ON HUSHED BILL, AN'l) ON ItU.-IIE!) THE CATTLE." where he went down, Bruised nnd shaken by the tumble,-' half conscious from the shock, he lay there and with the curious inconsistency of him in Im minent peril, commenced a desultory counting of the black forms whicii plunged over him. Where his pony lie inn uoi kuow. nun u lu t, peculating concerning him. On ran' the steers and still Bill lay there, his . dazed mind going through all kinds or arithmetical problems l lnally the last of the herd passed and the boss, one of the most experi enced ranchmen of the wild West, rose to his elbow and sent a careful glance to the rear.- He saw his men racing iinioiiM.v niier tne cattle and suddenly j ducked again as the bovs plunged over j his position. Then It dawned on him where he was. He laid fallen Into n natural ditch too deep to wade over and , just the right width to leap easily This lact nan saved his life, for the first steer leaped the ditch and all of the others blindly followed suit. Bill was safe and he crawled out nf Ma i,i .,f grateful for his escape, but with a mind . full of wrath against "Ciit-w " i, cause of his downfall. I'be ditch had also saved the pony, The little broncho fell when he threw I ms r.uer. ami nelng tleailbe.it lav where he fell. As he had as much sense as his ; master, he kent nnlm 1 . vu mil bronehn niii..ti.. u.,..m,.b at a small pool, his flanks still rising with undue rapidity, for he was very weak. Bill arose niid Intro duccJ himself by taking the bridle and Riving the unoffending brute a savage klek. He then remounted and followed nfter the herd slowly, knowing that by this time, the storm having broken, the steers were willing to quit, nnd that with plenty of hard work they would all be enlWt.wl ..-...I.... . .- also found those cowboys, lying about on the wet grass, too tired and too sav age to care what became of him. lie advanced on the party and swung down from the saddle and stood scowling at the men as he hobbled his pony and prepared to arrange for the night. "I allow yer about the best bunch of skunks I ever see," was his greeting. "Whatever do ye mean in stniupedin' that herd? (let up au' get busy, all of ye. Scatter and see that them bulls don't drift to where we all kain't llnd 'em. Hear me?" "Which we do, Bill," drawled "Cur ley" from where lie lay all sprawled out in the ground. "An' we all ain't golu' to do nothlu' of the sort. I allow them bulls is all right where they be, mid they ain't no. use lu stirriu' of 'em, uoue wha tever." "Who's boss of this gang, mo or you, ye wuthlcss cayote? Ye done nil the michief witli yer dnrned quirt. (Jet up out of this or I'll sink my boot Into ye." "Which ye won't do uothln' of the kind. Bill." was the growling answer, us "Curley" half rose and returned the scowl of the boss with interest. "I al low they ain't goln' to lie no bootin' yere. I also allow I'm goln' to stay right yere. Ef they's goln' to be any bootin' 1 hereby declares myself Into the game, and so I tells yon plain." "Kin ye shoot?" roared Bill, uullinber. ing as lie spoke. "A lectio." said "Curley," rising to his feet with a jerk nud pulling his gun as the other men scattered. The two men gazed wratlifully at each other for a moment and then the pistols blazed out, shot following shot until all were empty. When the action was over "Curley" was lying still on the ground with a hole in his lungs and Bill was nursing n badly wounded shoulder. Well, it was a bad business, but then nono of the others felt any call to In terfere, nnd tin? combatants were hast ened back to the ranehhouse nud med ical aid summoned. Fortunately neither was fatally hurt, but "Curley" did hospital duty for the rest of the season and Bill took chnrge of the stn bles. He was scarcely "lltten,t' ns ho said, for duty with the herd. An KfTective Itetort. Few things are more useful to a pub lic speaker than readiness In turning an Interruption to hU own advantage, l'vea the preacher can profit by it, as Is shown In a story told of the late Kev. Ir. John B. Mcl-'crran iu the Western Christian Advocate. In closing a speech at a missionary nnniversary at Jacksonport, Arkansas, ISoii, he stated that once he was shrlnk ingly timid when called upon to tnke a collection, but that he had learned to take the shirk by the throat and sny, "ray me that thou owest!" Just then a man sung out, "Yes, I heard It snld that they would put 'on your tombstone, 'And the beggar died.' " "Mr This created a laugh; but the doctor stood silent. A tear stole down his ebeek, and in a subdued tone he broke the pause: "Do you know what I told them' 1 said, 'If you'll add the rest of the verse "and was carried by the angels to Abral hnin's bosom," I wouldn't enre.' " The effect was electric; money rained into the treasury, nnd shouts made the roof tremble. A new life buoy. Inveuted by an offl cer of the Austro-Hungnrlan navy, con sists of a hollow metal ball filled Wtll compressed air nnd a pair of semi globular wings of rubber-covered cloth On turning a screw the nlr inflates the wings, which then exert In water a lift ing force of thirty-eight pounds. . No man la so worthless that n candi date will not treat him with great re speet. No woman Is competent to handle me uu question: sue S inn tbetlc sympa- Cltiei Knried by SBn,l storm.. Sveu llodln. the Norwegian trnveU has discovered on the north side of Ktien Luii Mountains, iniii In the fd of the great desert of cjolil. the min, of. towns which he thinks were ImrlcJ by sandstorms nbout l.ouo years aco The largest town was nearly twomlla and a half long, and a canal connepted it and tlio surrounding country wiuj the Kerija Itiver. The houses had waPti of plaited reeds covered with mud and then coated with white plu ter. and on these plaster walls Wre well-executed paintings of men, a. mills nnd flowem i)ii.!. and plum trees had evidently flourished there before the Invasion of the sand. Wimps llefoml Cows, A correspondent of the Irish Natural ist describes a curious scene which he witnessed while watching his coivg in the Held. He noticed many wasps bla zing around the cows, and upon stop ping to observe what they were about he found that they were catching anil killing flies. A white cow In particular attracted the wasps apparently because they could so easily see the flies that alighted upon it. They invariably bit off the wings, sometimes the loss, and occasionally the heads of the flies, and carried the bodies away, probably to feed their larvae. Three or four hun dred flies were thus caught In about twenty minutes from the backs of two cows. Pclcnce and Grcit Titirs. Professor Brewer, of Yale Univer sity, in a recent address called atten tion, to the Interesting fact that at the beginning of this century not a single city In Christendom hnd so many mi million inhabitants. In lSiio Tarlsbad n-lS.OOO, nnd in 1S01 London bail 804, 000. Great cities could not exist then as the advance of science has enabled them to exist to-day. Science has help ed tlio cities not only by conquering pestilence, nnd teaching the laws of health, but by enabling them to draw their supplies from the remotest quar ters of the earth, Instead of being de pendent for food, ns was the case it the opening of the century, upon the region of country immediately sur rounding them. MensnrlnR Its Own Velocity. By means of an electrical device ex perimenters, acting for the United States Board of Ordnance, have recent ly succeeded In obtaining photographic records of the motion of a projectile while yet Inside the bore of a cannon. The projectile carries a rod of wood attached to Its front end, nuil copper rings, encircling this rod ut fixed In tervals, successively form electric con tacts ns the rod Is driven from the gun. Each of these contacts produces an automatic record on a photographic plate. The Scientific American, In de scribing the nppnratus nnd experi ments, says that the shortest distance traveled by the projectile between two successive records was 3.7 centlnicten, which Is a little less than an inch and a half, nnd thnt some of the time inter vals between the records were only one two-thousandth of a second. Peein-j a Kose Grow, An Ingenious Frenchman 1ms W gested a way In which a rose, or other flower, could be caused to appear grow ing and unfolding In the presence of i roomful of spectators. He proposes to employ the kiuematoscope, n niasic lantern so arranged ns to produce mov ing figures on a screen by means of series of photographs of living objects, each successive photograph bad been taken only a small fraction of second later than its immediate pre cessor. But for the proposed new "P plication of this instrument the photo graphs need not be made so near to gether, since they are to represent changes which require several montM for their development. Beglnnlnj with the first appearance of the bod several thousand photographs of growing rose are to be taken, Just net" enough together so that the change W form In the flower is nlnmst ImperoePt bie, until It hns attained its eoinp bloom, and then has faded nud falKj to pieces. ' .These photograph", be" passed as transparencies, in rapid cession, . through the klnematoswj there would appear upon the screen u figure of a rose visibly budding, gn Ing. opening, sprendlng Us Pe,al8' finally shriveling and dying, the process occupying but a few mln''7 Many other applications of this pri pie to the representation of grow" objects are suggested. The sooner a monument Is put up" ter a man dies, the nicer the tiW said on It. . . .. i look Almost an marrieu iwi-- time as If they were living on quail diet