AT THE LITTLE CHRISTABEL.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 6923, 1 December 1887, Page 2

AT THE LITTLE CHRISTABEL.

[By Zen-as Dane.] The Little Christabel mine in Colorado long ago went through a process vulgarly called '-petering ont." It is now a mere hole in the ground. The half-dozen shanties and cabins near it have long ago fallen into disuse. Their roofs have fallen in and it is years since the gulch in which their ruins are was the habitation of men. The ™ e ,| ,:il . dl is now, and the Little Ohpistabc! is only a memory to those who om-o shared in the prosperity it once brought to Fairplay Gulch. When the mine was most productive it gaveemploymenttoasmanyasonehundred men, most of whom lived in the cabins near the mouth of its main shaft. A long, narrow pile of decaying logs and parts of a. clapboard roof mark the spot where the boarding-house was. There are still living many oC the men who once gathered around the long, rough pine table that ran the full length of the cabin. One of them told mc the story of Miss Millicent. Miss Millicent Hay was the only woman ever seen at the Little Christabel'mine. When Harley Vance, the owner of the mine, advertised in a Denver paper for a cook for his boarding-house Miss Millicent Hay answered the advertisement in person,

She came walking up the trail leading to Hie camp carrying a little hand satchel and a stout walking stick. " I have been staying down in Camp Crystal," she said to the surprised Mr Vance, who had advertised for a man cook, " and I thought the place would just suit mc. The stage brought mc to the mouth of the gulch, and I walked the rest of the way. It isn'c more than six miles, is iff

She was a small but resolute looking woman, with keen grey eyes and a mouth indicating great firmness of character. Her thin brown hair was ccnibed plainly back from a brow beginning to show signs of wrinldes, although she was but forty years old. " I am afraid the place would hardly suit you." said Mr Vance, surprised at the unwearied appearance of this slightly-built woman who spoke so lightly of walking six miles up a rocky and wearisome mountain trail. "Do you think I couldn't do the work ?" she usked. "I am quite strong and I have known nothing but hard work all my life."

She helfl out her ungloved hands as she spoke. Theywere rough and wrinkled,■with bent fingers and calloused palms. "You might do the work," said Mr Vance. "There are only about fifteen boarders, and we live in a plain, rough way, and there is a boy to help. But it wouldn't be a pleasant place for a lady to live. There are no women in this gulch." "I care nothing for that," said Miss Millicent. " Men are sometimes kinder than women," she added, with a tinge of bitterness in her voice. The end of it all was that Miss Millicent was installed as cook in the boardinghouse. She had evidently come determined to stay, for the stage-coach that went rumbling through thegulch next day brought up a little hair-covered trunk with " M. H." on the end of it in brass-headed nails. Before a week the boarders began bless iag the good angel that sent them Miss Millicent. Such meals as she served had never been seen befove at the Little Christabel; and it was wonderful to see the change she brought about in the dirty little boardiag-house and its contents. Her energy and strength seemed unfailing. She went stepping briskly about,the neatest and sprightliest of housekeepers, singing at her work aud smiling on everybody. At the end of a fortnight every man iv camp knew Miss Millicent, and had felt

the influence a good woman exerts in every community.

Old hats and caps were doffed to her wherever she went. No oaths or rough words were spoken in her presence, and the man who would have dared to offer her an indignity would have " been rid on a rail," as my informant said.

For a year Miss Millicent lived at the Xiittle Christabel, and in that time she had won the sincere regard of every man in camp. There had been a great deal of sickness among the men that winter, and some of them owed their lives to Miss Millicent's careful nursing, good food and general good sense in everything pertaining to the care of the sick.

Her own cheerfulness and good health never failed her.

"1 don't believe you ever had a sorrow in your life, did you?" asked one of the men one day.

Miss Millicent was standing in the cabin door at the time. The smile on her face vanished as she made reply; she leaned her head wearily against the door frame; her face paled for a moment and her lips quivered as she said, slowly:

"Every heart knovreth its own bitterness ;" then she turned and went to her own little room at the end of her cabin, and the man who had asked the question said:

" Some villain of a man at the bottom of it all, I'll bet; I'd like to help stretch his neck!"

It was no secret that one or two of the men in camp had been suitoi-3 for Miss Millicent's hand; aud it was known that she had received'"their proposals with a burst of tears, and bad begped them never as they valued their happiness and hers, never to refer to the subject again.

The camp had been singularly free from the brawls aud lawlessness that both distinguish and disgrace most mountain; mining camps. Mr Vance would not allow a saloon within the limits of the mine, and Lad made it obligatory on the men that they refrain from many things common to the ordinary miner.

The presence of Miss Millicent had had muehtodo with the unusual goodbehaviour of the men and the good name the little Christabel wore as a mining camp.

But one day there came a bit of news to the camp thut changed the men from goodnatured, easy going jo vial fellows to angry, determined men.

There lived on a claim near the Little Christabel a man known as Capt. Tom, an honest, hard working and thoroughly good man, very popular with all who knew him and unusually so with the men employed at the Little ChristabeL .

For two yeara he had worked hard in poverty and deprivation, developing a claim that was generally believed to be worthless.

But fortune plays,«trange freaks in mining camps, and Capt; , Tom's unpromising mine pne day rovealed ;a splendid vein of rich silver ore. He came down to the Little Christabel, jubilant over hia good fortune. He returned home to find his claim " jumped" by two or three men, led by a fellow of unsavoury reputation known as Doc Grlgson.

- Grigson and his confederates were in possession of Capt. Tom's two years of labour, and coolly ordered him to " dear out "when he appeared at the door of bis own little cabin, the order being emphasized with threats of immediate annihilation If he tarried long on the order of his going.

This " mine-jumping" process is one I cannot give in detail here. SnflTce it to say that possession •Iβ oven more than " nine-tenths of the law" when applied to nnpatented and unrecorded mining claima,

There was nothing for Capt. Tom to do, alone aa he. was, bat to vacate the premises. This he did, golns directly bacfcto the Little Chrlatable and laying hia grievances befere hia friends there.

The "mine-jumper" to the most detes. table ef human beings in the estimation «f all good miners. He is bated as a hoiae

-ow n IS nf e merVSr^^ Gapt. Tom's story of his «-m intense excitement at X r, *" crwt <* tabcl. A«tt ( ChriJ Plan of action desdedutr ch ° U^efinr^-^-^orancco, /<»'.-said one oFthe^u * * Wo ** *ki Soon nfter supper that cvcnln™ i>, began leaving the cabin on "S fence* and in a short time was alone. This was an unS™"* ing on the part of tho men, bfe cent ,-as wholly unsuspicious^

An hour- later, while sitting bef ore „ fire mending a coat belongingtoWiJ men, Miss Millicnt suddenly tbrtnv2* her work and said : **& " There ! if I haven't eutirelv fn,,~u to give Mr Vance, that thft want trom down in Crystal City a A\ going n> start for there before breaS' the morning, and breakfast at SS2* office. I'll just run down to th-Ift house and hand the list to Tom DoES he can give it to Mr Vance in the J^

Tom Dolnn was the engineer ofo, Little Christabel. The shaft Sse\J * but a short distance from the boartl house. Throwing a shawl over her w! Miss Millicent went out hurriedly stennr. lightly down the trail made in th e £* snow. The night was cloudless and m 2 wondorousfau-bya full inoou and tW sands of shining stars. She reached the shaft house door Tim engineer and another man, unaware of h» approach, were talking. A name ther spoke caused her to stop suddenly with her hand to her heart and astranirelooV in her face. " I fell sure it is Silas Hover" the end neer was saying. •• He changes his name bout cv ry camp ho goes to, and I rectoa ' Doc. Grigson' suited him 'bout as weUu any other namo while he was here." "Well, he wont change it againtw soon,"said tho other man with ajjarl laugh. "The next time tho roll's he'll answer up to his own name, I'm thiukin , ." " Hover winy be his real name," neer said. "He swored it was when I knowed him two years agoover inParadiee Gulch. But he was a scoundrel there ana .just got away with his neck. I knowed him soon as I see him down in Crystal City one day last fall. But I never told nobody his name wasn't Grigson. Where did you say the boys intended fixing him ?'

"Down thegukh here 'hout two mlles t at that place where the big bowlder is thai tlKjy call 'Hanging Rock.' I reckon they'll make short work with him."

"Oh, sure," said the engineer with a laugh " they'll hang him, as ho deserve*, without hardly time for his prayers,"

The other man glanced carelessly at his watch aud said:

"And it's almost time they were at it Ten o'clock was the hour agreed on, and its after nine now."

Neither of them heard the half-sup, pressed cry of the woman standing just outside of the engine room door. Could they have swp her face in the moonlight they would have seen it drawn and old and ghastly in its terror and agony, ifer limb* trembled under her, and her bloodless lips moved in Hilent prayer. For a moment she stood so, an then, ' still praying for courage and strength, «he ran silently, but with all speed down the trail loading from the camp toward.-'tto gulch. . n^ The night was cold and tJio little shawl i she wore was her only protection ngainst the wind that moaned along the low pines. The trail was rough and she stumbled and fell again and again. She ran with all speed when she could do so, and the feat that she might be too late caused her heart to almost stop its furious beating. She could see the Hanging Kock ahead of her some moments before she reached it Dark forms were moving around, going to and from the mighty rock and the pines ft few yards from it. The light of one or two lanterns flashed' in the dark depths of the forest. She • heard the shouts of the men as theyassembled from all directions—fiendish shoiita they seemed to her. When near enough to make-her voice ■ heard it rang out in loud, sharp tones ol entreaty and command— "Wait! wait! wait!" The moving forms stood still. Two 0? three of them came toward her. Again • she shouted — "Wait! wait!" A moment later she stood in their midst gasping for breath, white and terrified. "It is I," she said; " Miss MHlicent*_. " Yes," said one of the men gravely, ' but what do you want here 1 This la no place for a woman." \ Her answer was— " Where is he—that man ?" " What man I" said one of the met evasively. , . "The man whose life you were going tt take here to night." A groan from the edge of the pines ca6« in reply to her ears. She ran toward tftfl spot from whence the sound came, thenwffl , seeking to detain her. Among a little group of men there stood one, trembling and ghastly, a rope already arouDdhis neck and the other end of it thrown over tf» branches of a tree. The man was moaning and protesting pitifully. .., - Going close to him she said in a choked and tearful voice: "Let him go." There was a murmur bf disapproval so* and refusal among the men. " Come, come, Miss Millicent, tihisUne place for you," said one of the men. *'**• mc help you back to the camp." " No," she said, Roing close to the trembling culprit, and laying her hand on his arm. He grasped her hand end »» hoarsely: "Save mc, woman, wherever you e»» save mc If you can." , ", She took a lantern from the ground «» held it up to her white face. She tM** the shawl back from her bead and said: "Don'fcyou know mo, Silas?" . He lifted his bowed head quickly, *» gave one glance at her face and eovew* his own guilty face with his hands, vtfW out :— " Milly ! Millicent I" •». The men looked on in amattauew, an angry murmur of disapproval *■■ heard when tbcmanspofeeKlssinnwewname in tones that seemed endearing , . She turn ed toward them and said a»»iJ and distinctly with painful effort:— " Let him go. He is my There was dead eilence fore ffl J*2hf Then the leader of the mob stc oat into the moonlight and «tarte<* eilenpe down the gulch in the direcuoo » the Little GhrlstabeJ. «. One by one the raea followed Jtoa». silence. In ten minutes alone -with her husband. He .*°s?£Jl •ward her and said In a chofced ana «*"*"* Tolce:— ■ . ■ "Millicent." •• Well, Silas." ' & c She held oat one hand toward \ w m. y grasped it in both his o^ f knees before hec, with her trembbn? ha»» held to his lip*. ' " #he An hour later they came BbadowK-of the forest and walk©* «w the trail in the moonlight, and we» "*~ no more In Eatrplay Gnksh. - # Th» oatgoinß st*g*4oafc np a »*» troman passenger nest day ten mUss m— Hanging Bock. -β-meeflft •"Tb<gr-wa» mighty sobex iaid the fttege drtvfir afterward, sn *en» looke*»j» if they'd cried all and th<sy to cay? Jber waned Uxk v& "wi«h * ehe e»Ba*J*»

I eP^^r^^bcyTalbo^nd^enver ««« heard of no more at the Little aftervrards Harley **^h≥f travelling in Calife>nna, ?Jfire, ««, a pretty little house Kidden «** * a most-bcautifalmoun--*C The occapente were α-man £;£" he of as models of fcd rS'«pSd c my head about it to " l fn ; invbodT," be said afterward, our Milly and that of hers ,ye all thought too worthi ßib?B Hve It wasn't my place to tell I knew about- them. I "Ffln to be as good and honest a Sn as ever lived, and if she'd made a ""■"V of Uiat scamp ef a husband of SJwhr.rmgladof it." tJVuicb « can all say, Amen.