The Wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, November 13, 1909, Image 2
E 52 IMITATION OF REAL THING Battery Now in Position on "Old Iron Shooting the Editor By RICHARD SAUNDERS GRAVES (Copyright, by Short Stories Co., Ltd.) Long before the train had arrived at Gold Gulch I knew there was go ing to be trouble in the office of the Courier and that the editor was to be shot The man who was going to do the shooting was on the train. His hair hung down on his shoulders and be wore boots and spurs and two big revolvers. There was a grim determ ination on his face. This Nemesis in boots confided to the man In the seat with him that the name of the man he was going up to Gold Gulch to kill was Swanson and that his own name was Puller. "Hiram Fuller, from Mizzury," he aid by way of introduction. I de cided, as I sat In the seat behind him and was forced to hear his conversa tion, that in the matter of names the editor had the best of It, but of course I knew nothing of his ability to shoot. I also learned from bis confidences, as did nearly everybody else in the coach, that it had been many years since be left bis native state, and I Judged that he had readily become acclimated In the West. During the long afternoon ride I en gaged in conversation with Fuller, the Infuriated, as I had mentally named him. I learned that he was a ranch man at Sand Creek and that Swanson had been employed by him. Swanson had made love to his daughter, and that was the cause of all the trouble Fuller had driven him away at the point of a revolver six months before, and now his daughter Susie had dis appeared. She . had been gone a month, ostensibly on a visit to some friends twenty miles away, and her father had just learned that she had not been there. His anger was awful "Swanson's stole her, that's what he's done," Fuller almost shouted. His wrath increased as he talked, for he believed that Swanson could not make a living for the girl. The ranchman admitted that he knew next to noth Ing of the young man, except that he had come out West to teach school, and upon falling to find a school had taken up the occupation of a cowboy for more than a year. He also knew that Swanson had come from the lumber region of Wisconsin, but had said very little about his home or kindred. In the course of time it came out that a neighboring ranchman had been wooing the girl before the ar rival of Swanson, and it was easy to guess that the father had greatly favored the alliance; but his will was set aside after his daughter had seen the young man from the north, and now he proposed to shoot Swanson, who had drifted to the mining town after leaving the ranch, for enticing the girl from home. He bad just learned of Swanson's whereabouts from a letter written by him which Susie Fuller had left behind. The train finally crept into Gold Gulch and the passengers alighted. Gold Gulch was busy with its own af fairs and the arrival of the train once a day did not disturb it in the least, The train sometimes brought a hun dred or more gold seekers, but the Gulch bad no interest in them until they had been there long enough to become a part of it. I alighted from the train ahead of the others and made my way up the path toward the lights, fully determ ined to warn Swanson of his impend lng doom. When I reached the Cour ier ofllce I found the front door open, but just as I entered, and while the light was shining full upon me, a bul let whistled past, cutting the lapel and one sleeve of my coat. I knew then that Fuller had divined my pur pose and made the only effort he could to intercept me. "Where's Swanson?" I asked as soon as I was inside the door. "Down at the Red Dog," said the printer nearest me, and I passed on through without a pause. The office of the Courier was built of logs and rough boards, with doors of heavy lumber. Back of the Courier ofllce the ground sloped up toward the frowning peak of the mountain, with . not a bush or tree in sight. As I reached the back door I could hear Fuller In the front office and knew he would shoot again at sight of me. I have witnessed his outbursts of wrath. I had not entirely given up the idea of warning Swanson. It was still in my mind, but at that moment I was more concerned for my own safety. I started blindly to climb the side of the mountain, and twenty feet up the slope I grasped a small bowlder that lay but slightly balanced. It rolled down toward the Courier office and closed with a thud the back door, which opened outward and was stand ing slightly ajar. The building was shaken, but the door was firmly closed. The loosening of the bowlder prob ably saved my life, for it closed the door against the coming of Fuller, who was in the act of emerging with a revolver In his hand. I could see no hiding-place on the slope of the mountain, the whole of it being lighted by the moon, so I started to ward the Red Dog saloon, stumbling over rocks and across ditches in the rear of the buildings. I stopped at the first one from which the noise of many voices came, and entering the back door, pushed into the crowd. I waa looking for Swanson, but 1 did not know him and had no descrip tion ot mm. wnen i saw a young man with flaxen hair and blue eyes I knew, somehow, that I bad found him, even before I had asked his name. He stood talking to a man who wore an apron and was without hat or coat. You are Swanson, are you not?" I asked. "I am," he answered in a clear voice. "What can I do for you?" "Fuller is here to kill you," I said. "He came up from Sand Creek to-day. I was on the train with him. I just left him at the Courier office." "Ay know ham," said Swanson. In bis surprise at the announcement he unconsciously went back to the lan guage he bad spoken in the Wisconsin lumber camps before he had attended, college and became a scholar and an athlete. With the man wearing an apron he went into a rear room and I sought safety in the thickest of the crowd and awaited developments. Other men were called into the back room and the crowd grew more dense about the bar. It was probably an. hour before Fuller came in. No sooner had he reached the cen ter of the long bar than he was in-' vited to take a drink by a tall miner who had but recently come from the back room. Fuller refused to drink, and the miner became offended. He raised his voice and talked loudly about the insult. Fuller tried to shove him aside, but the tall man crowded him toward the back of the room and became more and more abusive. The ranchman was not a coward. and when he deemed the proper time had come he reached for his revol vers. The holsters were empty! At the same moment that Fuller reached toward his belt the offended miner drew a revolver and began to shoot. Other revolvers cracked at about the same time and the room was rapidly filling with Enoke. Ful ler's shoulder was grazed and his hat had two holes in it. In spite of his natural bravery it was plain that he was frightened. At that instant Swanson emerged from the back room with a revolver in each hand, which he emptied in the direction of the big miner, who pitched forward to the floor. Two others with revolvers in their hands also fell, and Swanson seized Fuller by the arm, dragging him through the narrow passage and out at the back door. It was more than a year later that I was coming out of Denver one night on an east-bound train. In the smok ing compartment of the sleeper I saw Swanson, well dressed and apparently prosperous and happy. His blue eyes were bright with laughter as I glanced at him. He was on his feet as soon as he looked at me. "I've been searching for you for over a year," he said grasping my hand. "Will you tell me why you didn't register at the hotel that night in Gold Gulch?" I had to admit that the excitement incident to the killing of three men had upset me and that I had forgot ten to register. " 'Killing of throe men," he quoted, and laughed loud and long. "Como back here where my wife is and I'll toll you the whole story." We found Mrs. Swanson, who had been Susie Fuller, in the sleeper, play ing with the baby. Mrs. Swanson was a pretty girl with dark-brown eyes 'and hair and a color that looked all the richer beside her fair husband. After learning my name and introduc ing me Swanson said: "You see, as soon as you warned me that night in the Red Dog that Susie's father was looking for me, I took Doc rtixby he's the managing editor of that place into the back room and we fixed up the scheme. The old gentleman's revolvers were taken away from him before he was ten feet inside the door, so that he could not kill anybody, for he's mighty handy with a gun and would have cleaned the place out. W7hlle things were being arranged and while we were waiting for him to come I was in the back room drawing bullets out of my shells and filling the places with paper wads. "It worked out all right and I took the old man away as meek as any lamb you ever saw. I soon convinced him that I hadn't stolen his daughter and I didn't," he added, with a glance at his pretty wife, who blushed und gave closer attention to the baby. "She came to me," Swanson went on. "and was at home that night in our little house three hundred yards away from that stirring scie." "Well, I guess you wrote and beg ged me to come," said Mrs. Swanson, defending herself. '''You were afraid to come after me." ; Swanson admitted the truth of her statement proudly. "We waited, a week after Daddy Fuller went hjhne," he resumed, "and then I pretended to find Susie. We; had been married a month when he: came to Gold Gulch, but to make things safe wo announced that we had just been married when we went to' see him. He treated us. royally and. has been to see us ae'vfeial times, since. He's a regular old idiot about the baby. .' "There's another thing that may in-' terest you. When you rolled that! bowlder down against the backdoor ot the Courier office you uncovered one of the richest gold mines In the state, in which you now have a half interest" sides" .Not the Same That Brought Victory. Every fair day in summer and au tumn tourists crowd the deck of the frigate Constitution at " the Charles town navy yard. The most striking thing that en gages their attention, once they are aboard the historic ship, is the bat tery. The lines of grim, black guns, making up the ship's broadsides, have a fascination for every patriotic Amer ican who makes a pilgrimage to "Old Ironsides." The tourist fondly pats the iron, saying: "They could shoot with these old guns, after all," or, "This is what gave the British fits.' If the tourist is in a party, with a Conductor along, he hears, in the cclrse of a brief lecture on the ship, that the guns are not the original bat- l&ry of the ship, but modern replicas. This he might have surmised had he reasoned over the absence of any fir ing device on the guns. The rim of the old pan, in which powder was placed, is there; but there is no hole connecting with the interior of the gun. The reason for this is easily ex plained. The guns were cast at the navy yard two years ago, when the ship was restored. It was not neces sary to pierce them. For show pur poses they do as well as they are. Ex cspt for this omission they are like the original guns carried by the ship in the war of 1812. Allowing, therefore, these "dummy" guns to move the imagination, the vis itor, looking at the broadsides of the Constitution, can fancy them hurling death and destruction off Tripoli in 1805, or in the fine sea fights of the wcr of 1812. The battery of the ship In those days consisted of 44 guns, the heavi est of which were 36-pounders; that is, they threw a shot of that weight. Looking at the primitive wooden carriages on which the guns are mounted, and the cumbersome tackles by which they had to be drawn back every time they were loaded, one may pause in wonder at the execution they did. The wooden wedge or quoin, at the base of the gun, by which its muzz!- could be elevated or depressed, was the chief means of training it. It was a rule to fire as the ship rolled downward on a sea, in order to have the shot take effect In the ene my's hull. In the British navy the rule was the opposite. They fired on the rise of the ship. mis practice rulea in the engage ment between the Constitution and the wuernere, August 19, iiz. xne re sult was the speedy reduction of the British frigate to a wreck and her sur render, while the Constitution was in jured only in her sails and spars. One Way of Doing Business. Billy Emerson, the minstrel, took a company of black-face artists to Aus tralia in the old days, and had hard luck. On the way back he landed at Shanghai and gave a show. Emerson saw there was a good Louse. "Doing pretty well,' he said to the box-office man. "Fine," that official replied; "we've got in $400 in money and, $1,400 in chits." "in what?" gasped Emerson. "In chits." "What are chits?" "Why, promises to pay. Everybody uses chits here. Give a chit and set lie at the end of the month." "Do you mean to tell me- that you have let $1,400 worth of seats go for them chits, as you call them?" "Sure; why not?" "And those people just signed their names and didn't pay cash?" "Certainly." "What a business I could do in the states!" groaned Emerson. Saturday Evening Post. Kat Plant Stimulus. Some years ago, after a long and fa tiguing climb by Americans in the Abyssinian mountains, they were served with libations of "todj," an ex tremely refreshing beverage in which catha edulis, or the kat plant, was used. Certain tribes chew the leaves of the' plant commonly When compelled to exert special or long continued ef lort. the immediate effect being sleep lessness and stimulation. The freshly cut leaves have a rather pleasant taste and produce a kind, of intoxication of long duration", with none of the disagreeable features of Inebriety. Messengers and soldiers, by chew ing the leaves, are enabled to go with out food for several days. The better class of merchants chew these leaves three or four times a day, the habit being fairly comparable to the use of tea in the United States. STORE CLOSES AT 6 P. M. SATURDAYS II WORKERS UNION f j. STORE CLOSES v AT 6 P. M. SATURDAYS MEN'S AND WOMEN'S UNION MADE SHOES SEE OUR SPECIALS AT $2.50 - $3.00 - $3.50 - $4.00 Men's and Women's Dress Shoes in Patent, Calf and Kid at $3.50 and $4.00 a pair. Men's and Women's Street Shoes at $3.50 and $4 a pair. Men's Heavy Work Shoes-all Solid Leather waterproof, at $2.50, $3.00 and $3.50 a pair. FAIREST IN THE WORLD. And the Labor Editor Gets Scant Credit for It. The Rev. Charles Stelzle, whose knowledge of the labor press in gen eral is perhaps greater than that of any other man not engaged in publish ing one, says that "the labor press is the fairest in the world, because it has admitted to its columns criticisms against itself, which no other paper would -dare do. The labor press ex- sts for the whole labor movement, and not simply for. a part of it." We might add that the job of keep ing it fair is the hardest in the world and over which the angels continually weep when they think of the "cuss ings" the labor editors get for their efforts to keep its record good. Eas- ton, Pa., Journal. Wealth in Chemicals. Ultramarine is cited as an example of the industrial value of chemical in vestigation. When this was made by powdering lapis lazuli, a very rare mineral, the cost exceeded its weight in gold, but since the chemist's dis covery that the same material can be made from such cheap substances as sodium sulphate and carbonate, sul phur, charcoal and rosin, the price has fallen to a few cents a pound. Ready for Thenr.. Friend Now, if I were building a house I'd Owner Step around the corner, please, and you'll find a house I'm put ting up to carry out the ideas of my friends. This is one I'm building to suit myself: Judge. SHOP KICKS AND KINKS. Leadership in the Union" Discussed By Rev. Charles Stelzle. If there is one thing above another that stands out among the fellows that I know, it is the fact .that the day has gone by when the cheap, short-sighted, ignorant blatherskite of a so-called "walking delegate' or whatever else yoi' may choose to call this kind of a so-called labor leader, can long curse the workingman. His day is gone. There is a new type of leader coming on. And the men who are going to help us most are the men who have come up from the rauks, or better still, who are yet in the ranks. Slowly but surely such men are emerging from among the masses. Sometimes unap preciated by the very ones whose bat tles they are fighting, and whose des tinies they are working out, they are coming up just the same, to take the places which belong to them by virtue of their fitness for the job. They are not the men who have the gift of gab. Some of the best men we have today are not great orators. We don't need the spellbinder as much as we need men with patience and endurance. There is no job which requires these virtues more than that of a leader of laboring men. For workingmen are an ungrateful lot, and they expect perfec tion in the men that they elect as their leaders. After all, there's lots of religion in the labor movement, take it just as it is. So far as the practical side of things is concerned, the trades unions are making a fight which is about as religious as most anything can. well be. They don't go in for much of the pslam-singing brand of - religion, and then throw up the job. They seem to begin just about where that kind leaves off. And maybe, on the whole, they make just as few mistakes. In stead of singing about "The Home over there," the fellows, that I know most about, are busy trying to get a decent home right here and now. And they haven't much use for the kind of religion which says that their job is not Christian. Some day the hv bor fellows will add to their creed more of the real spiritual interests in life and then the church will have, to hustle to keep in the procession. If ever workingmen get on to the church job, and really mean business, there'll be something doing, for who knows how to suffer and sacrifice more than the men and women in the ranks of labor? Once let them get started on a genuine religious crusade, and there will be a repetition of the days of the apostles. Rev. Charles Stelzle, in "Letters From a Workingman." CARMEN TO AFFILIATE. At the annual convention of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, held in Atlanta, Go., recently by a unani mous vote it was decided to affiliate with the American , Federation of La bor and become a part of the recently created Railway Department. This enlists a membership of upward of 100,000 organized railroad employes,. ' and the prediction is made that sim ilar action by other railway brother hoods will soon follow. IN TORONTO. be a Labor Temple . Has Proved to Profitable Investment. The annual statement of the di rectors of the Toronto Labor Temple shows that the year's business was a profitable one. The receipts amounted to $13,568.33, leaving a balance of $1, 856.18. The assets of the company are the building, $35,888.34; furniture, $7,500. The profits show an unde clared dividend of over 13 per cent. The excess of assets over liabilities Is $17,309.87. The original allotment of stock has been taken up, and the sin. gle transaction of $5.00 for the year closed the final allotment. At present there is no stock on the market, arid the company will not issue any more, as the stocric as it now stands is worth more than double what was paid for it. DO A MAN'S PART. Mr. Union Man, are you doing a man's part in pushing the Labor Temple project to success? Have you contributed your share? Have you taken any interest in the movement looking towards provid ing the unions of this community with a home of their own? Or are you either doing nothing or else "knock ing" on the proposition? There is an immediate need of manly men self sacrificing union men. There is a need of men who will step forward arid say: "I'll do my share to wards securing and maintaining a Labor Temple in Lincoln." Will you be one of the five hundred or six hun dred men who are needed and must be had at once? If you are ready and willing to do a man's part, now is the time to make the fact known.