RED RIVER GULLY.

Evening Star, Issue 8098, 24 December 1889, Page 7 (Supplement)

RED RIVER GULLY.

The camp-fire burnt low one clear summer evening ; the full moon had risen, and as she floated through the banks of fleecy cloudß, cast her reflection on the lake in a golden path of rays that stretched from shore to shore.

" Tell you a story ? Wall, I guess I kin," said the old hunter, looking round the circle with alert, bright eyes. " You boys always does want arnusin' at this time o' night. • Red River Gully,' you say. Wall, I 'spose I'd as soon tell you that aa any tli in'else."

He cast a keen glance at us, to be sure lie should have o\ir attention, and to humor him we feigned to move closer, that we might not lose a word. His weatherbeaten face relaxed into a smile; he was a born narrator, and loved a sympathetic audience.

" I warn't much over twenty, I guess, boys, when I fell in with a crowd as wanted to go out a gold diggin' to ' Red River Gully,' out theer to the Black Hill region. Wall, I hadn't no objections to makin'money easv, and we was told as we'd nothm to do but pull the nuggets out of the earth as fast as_ we could dig 'em. So off I goes along with the rest of our boys from old Vermont State. We soon found out as we had to work harder than we'd ever done in our lives before ; and though there was some as found considerable of gold along there, I warn't one of them; and so I kinder lost heart, and I took up with some fellows as made a better livin' out of huntin' than gold diggin'. I had a good enough time after that.

" The diggers, as a rule, was a pritty rough set—pritty rough they was, and there was some on 'em a sight wuss than t'others. We called 'em, or they called themselves, the ' Devil's Own'; and they lived together —about a dozen they was—in a shanty a mile from where the rest of us herded together at the mouth of the gully. Dick Kent, he was the leader of the gang ; folks said as how he'd come of a proud Boston family, and had been a Harvard graduate, and they suspected he'd changed his name. Wall, he was a wild one, was Dick ; a big fellow, with fierce black eyes and a long beard, and a power ovor t'others as made you almost think folks was right when they said the Devil himself had got into Dick Kent. That, sirs, was Dick as I first knowed him in ' Red River Gully.' " One day, as I was out huntin', I come on a log cabin, pritty near hidden by the trees as growed on the cliffs, about three miles from the mouth of the gully. 1 was so curious to know who could be living there that I went up to the door to beg a drink of water. There was no one there boys, but a little gal of about seven years of age, and very small for that; a purty little gal she was, with hair curlin' all over her head in golden rings. I was used to my prayer book in them days, and, thinks I, ' She's likethecherubimas we sings about at ohurch.' She was a simple, trusting child, and she soon told me all she knew of her own story. Her mother had been dead only a few weeks ; father had gone down to the gully to get gold, and had never come back ; and brother Ralph took care of her, and waa out in the woods hunting. I met the boy soon after, trying to sell some birds in the village. He was a fine fellow, and he'd never told the child as the father—a drunken ne'er-do-well—had fallen over a precipice, and been killed. Ralph, he was trying to make money enough to take his little sister back East.

"Wall, when I got back to camp I began a-tellin' of the find I'd made up there on the cliff, when a rough voice growled : "'Git out there—a-talkin' about yallerhaired gal:'.' " As sure us you're alive, 'twas Black Joe, one of the ' Devil's Own.'

" Wall, I shet up. I was but young, you know ; aud as soon and as often as I could, I'd go up the cliff and take something for that poor lone child. I'd about made up my mind to tell the story round, and get up a pile for the two children, when the Lord see fit to take the matter into his own hand —and this was jest what happened : "I was a-oomin' home one afternoon, when the sky clouded up, and all at once a hurricane struck the valley. 'Twas a kind of cloud-burst, too, and torrents began to pour down the gully. The river rushed on at flood-tide, and the trees come crashin' down at such a rate as made me look pretty keen for a place to shelter in. Seeing a light near at hand, I made a dash for it; but when my foot was on the threshold of the door, I knew I'd got right into the shanty of the ' Devil's Own.' "They was civil to me, though, and gave me a seat by the fire, but they was a swearin' pretty considerable about the wash out that had driven them from their work. They took little notice of me after the first, and I sat on a log and tried to get myself dry. As soon as t'waa dark they lit their lamps, pulled out cards and dice, and began gambling and brawling, just as I'd hearn they did. The rain and wind was over by dark ; but I got so interested watchin' them fellows that I kept my seat by the fire. I was jest thinkin* what a fierce, wild ruffian that Dick Kent was, and wondering why t'others looked up to him so, when he turns to me an' says :

" ' Boy, you'd better go. This is no place for such as you.' "There was something in his wonderful eyes as he spoke that went to my heart. I was afraid of him no longer. I wanted to stay with him, somehow. 'Go!' he says again, This time I got up, and strapped on my rifle. Wall, just at that instant I hearn a low tap at the door; so did Dick. lie turns round sharp and cocks his revolver. "The door was gently pushed back, and there on the threshold stood that little, yaller-haired gal. "The men stopped brawlin' as if they'd been struck dumb, and Some on 'em hid the cards and dice as though the angel of the Lord had come to shame them of their evil ways, and no one spoke a word. She stood there lookin' with her blue eyes from one fierce face to another, her dress all soakiu' wet, and her bare feet cut and bleedin', and her curls a-layin' all damp on her neck. And while we was all starin' at her she began and told her story. The wind had blown the trees down on their house, and Ralph was struck down and held somehow by one or the other, and the little creature, finding she could do nothing to help him, had set off down the Gully all alone to find someone who would go to his rescue.

"The angel of the Lord must have led her, boys, for the path was washed away and torrents was pourin' from the cliffs, and rocks was fallin' round, displaced by that great cloud-burst; but here she was, and a miracle, I say again, as ever that tiny child readied the ' Devil's Own' alive.

" Six of them devils got up and took their ifles.

" ' Coyotes,' they aaid meaningly to Dick, 'we can't get there in time.' But they went all the same, and a terrible time they had of it, climbing them cliffs and carrying that poor lad down afterwards, for they did get there in time, boys ; and though Ralph was badly hurt they doctored him up amongst them, and he's a living man in Boston city to-day. " Wall, I've kept that little angel standin' a long time at the door, but reely 'twarnt a minute before Dick Kent had her on hib knee by the fire, and Black Joe—he brought a tin bowl of warm water, and tenderly bathed the bleeding little feet, and I seen a tear fall into the water as he bent over the child. The rest of the men they crowded round, aud there warn't one but tried to do something for her. Dick Kent he kept her in his arms, and she nestled up to him as if she'd known him all her life, and I seen tears in eyes as I shouldn't have thought would ever have shed the tear of pity in this world again.

" One of them devils went down to the village an' spent his day's earnings a-buying bread and milk, and the t'others was most jealous when he comes back, and began feediti' the child. She ate and drank as if she'd been furnished, and Dick he took up one of her little hands and held it to the light, and I seen a look come over his face as made all the fierceness die out of it. Somehow I warn't afraid to see that child a-clingin' to him ; I guessed she'd found a friend in Dick Kent. "Before the men came back with her brother she fell asleep with her head on Dick's breast, her yaller hair curlin' in rings over his rough coat. The men sat round starin' at her.

" ' There ain't no place here fit (o, lay her

do#n on,' said ou* of them at last. They looked round the hovel, which had contented them ere this, with supreme disgust. "'.And it ain't a tit place for herwheu alio wakes up,' said another. " ' That's so,' said a chorus of voices. "'l've got one 'bout that size, I guess,' said a voice, so husky that the men hardly recognised it. Reproachful eye 3 were turned on him. "' If I'd cot one I shouldn't be here fooliu',' said Kent. " ' Nor I,' said a chorus of voi"cs. " ' Them as has women-folk and children to home ain't no businets in Red River Golly,' said Black Joe, bending a gloomy look on the fire. 1 learnt afterwards as he'd lost his wife and two purly children before ever he come to the gold d/ggin's. " ' I guess I'll go and see my old mother,' said one of the men, with an uneasy look at Dick Kent. " ' Yes ! Go,' says he ; ' and as God sees you, never come back to this place no more.' Soon after this one of the men, as had been a sailor, turned over the table, and made a place there as would do for a bed for the child, and just then the other fellers come in carrying Ralph, and I had to go back to the camp ; so I didn't see no more that night. "Wall,-boys, there wasn't no 'Devil's Own * after that. Dick Kent, he'd had good luck, and had made considerable, and as soon as the boy was well enough to travel, he set out with them two children, and took 'em to Boston. The relatives there looked pretty shy on them, and wanted to send little Milly to some institution ; but Dick he wouldn't hear of it, and he adopted both of 'em.

"I was gone to Boston some years ago, and I seen Kent one Sunday mornin' a-goin' to church. I follows after aud slips in, and takes a good look at him. I seen Milly and a fine fellow, her husband, I suppose, there, and some children, and there was one little yaller-haired gal as sat close to Kent, and as he seemed to watch over like the apple of hia eye. She was but a bit of a creature, and before the service was over she was asleep with her head on Dick's breast. Her mother—a beautiful woman she'd growed to be—smiled round at her husband, as if 'twas very pleasant for her to see her old friend a carin' for the child. Wall, wall, I seemed to fergot I was in church. All as I could see was a little child, sleepin' in those same arms amidst those reckless men as called themselves the ' Devil's Own.'

" Perhaps'twas my thinking so much of him as made Dick turn round and take a long look at me with his deep black eyes. I could not tell if he knowed me, till we come out of church, and he put his hand on my shoulder and spoke to me. That warn't all; he took me home with him, and I guess I stayed a week in his beautiful house. Long enough, boys, to see that the Lord had done His work in His own way, and the night as brought that little child safe to the door of the ' Devil's Own' brought also an angel of light to the heart of Dick Kent, and, may be, others of that gang."