Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1878 — THE GAMBLFR’S END. [ARTICLE]

THE GAMBLFR’S END.

Fcyrndthe bnlnnm ibicktt tho gamlkr nn tie bis stfind. Carson, the defective, wns in full pursuit, an< as be I nrst fbronph the balsams be found himself within twenty feet of hisnntagonitt. Both men stood for an instant, each with a pistol in his band, each looking fu dat the other. Both were experts. Each knew the other. “You count,” said the gambler, cooHv. “One, two,” said the detective, “three. Fire!” • One pistol alone sounded. The gambler’s had failed to explode. “You’ve won; you needn’t deal again,” said the gambler. And then he dropped. The red stain on his shirt front showed where he was hit “ There’s some lint and a bandage,” said the detective, and he flung a small package into the gambler’s lap. “I hope you won’t die, Dick Raymond.” “ Oh, it was all fair, Carson,” said the other, careless’y: “ I’ve held a poor hand from the start ”

He paused; for the detective had rushed on, and he was alone. Twenty rods further on the detective caught i.p with the trapper, who was calmly recharging his piece. On the edge of the ledge above the haP-breed lay dead, the lips drawn back from his teeth, and his ugly countenance distorted with hate and rage. A rifle, whose muzzle smoked, lay at bis side, and the edge of the trapper’s left ear was bleeding. “I’ve shot Dick Raymond by the balsam thicket,” said the detective. “I’m afraid he’s hard hit.”

“I II go and see the boy,” answered the trapper. “ You’ll find Henry furder up. There’s only two runnin’. You ami he can bring ’em in.” The old trapper saw, as he descended the -hill, the body reclining on the mosses at the edge of the balsam thicket. The earth gave back no sound as he advanced, and he reached the gambler, and was standing almost at his very feet ere the young man was aware of his presence ; but, as the trapper passed between him and the shining water, he turned his gaze up to the trapper’s face, and, after studying the grave lines for n. moment, said :

“ You’ve won the game, old man.” The trapper for a moment made no reply. He looked steadily into the young man’s countenance, fixed his eyes on the red stain on the left breast, and then said :

“ Shall I look at the hole, boy ?” The gambler smiled pleasantly and nodded his head, saying: “It’s the natural thing to do in these cases, I be Love.” Lilting the hands, he unbuttoned the collar, and unscrewed the solitaire stud from the white bosom. The trapper knelt by the young man’s side, and, laying back the linen from the chest, wiped the blood-stain with a piece of lint from the white skin, and caieiully studied the edges of the wound, seeking to ascertain the direction which the bullet had taken as it penetavted the flesh. At last he drew his face back, and lifted himself to his feet, not a shade in the expression of his face revealing his thought, “Is it my last deal, old man ?” asked the gambit r, carelessly. I have seed a good many wounds ” answered the trapper, “ and I have noted the direction of a good many bullets and I never knowed a man to live who was hit where ye be hit es the lead had the slant inward, as the piece had that has gone into ye.” For a minute the young man male no reply. No change came to his countenance. He turned his eyes from the trapper’s face and looked pleasantly oft toward the water. He even whistled a line or two of an old love ballad • then he paused, and, drawn, perhaps, by the magnetism of the st -ady gaze which the ey- sos the trapper fixed upon him he looked again into the old man’s face ’and said: ’

“ What is it, John Norton ?” “! he sorry for ye, boy, ” answered the old man. “I be sorry for ye for life be sweet to the young, and 1 ’wish yer years might be many on the ar th.” “I fancy there’s a good many who will be glad to hear I’m out of it,” wa s the careless response. “I don't doubt ye have yer faults boy, answered the trapper, “ and I dare say ye have lived loosely, and did many many deeds that was better undid but the best use of lire be to learn how to live, and I feel s-irtin ye’d have got bet ter ai ye g >t older, ai d made the last half of yer life wipe out the fw t, so that the figures for and agin ye would have balanced in the jedgment.” “Y<u aren’t fool enough to believe what the hypocritical church-members talk, are you, John Norton ? You don’t believe there’s any judgment day, do you ?” J ’

“I don’t know much about churchmembers,” answered the trapper, “for 1 ye never ben in the settlements ; leastwise, I've never studied the habits of the creturs, and I dare say they differ, bein’ good and bad, and I’ve seed some that was sartinly vagabonds. No, I don’t know much about cbu'■ch-members • but I sartinly believe, yis, I know, there is a day when the Lord shall jedge the livin’ and the dead; and the honest trapper shall stand on one side and the vagabond that pilfers his skins and steals his traps shall stand on the other. This is what the Book says, and it sartinly seems reasonable, for the deeds that he did on the arth be of two sorts, and the folks that do ’em be of two kinds, and atween the two the Lord, es he notes anything must make a dividin’line. ” “ And when do you think this judgment is, John Norton ?” asked the gambler, as if he was actually enjoying the cru le but honest ideas of his companion. Ihe trapper hesitated a moment before he spoke, then he said : “ I conceit that the jedgment be always goin’ on. It’s a court that never adjourns, and deserters and the knaves ami the disobedient in the regiment be always on trial. But I conceit that there comes a day to every man, good and bad, when the record of his deeds

be looked over from the start, and the good and the bad counted up; and in that day he gitsthe final jedgment, whether it be for or agin him. And now, boy,” continued the old man solemnly, with a touch of infinite tenderness in the vibrations of his voice, “ye be nigh the jedgment day, yerself, and the deeds ye have did, both the good and the bad, will be passed in review.” “I reckon there isn’t much chance fox me if your view is sound, John Norton.” And for the first time his tone lost its cheerful recklessness. “The court be a court of marcy, and the Jedge looks upon ’em that comes up for tr al as es he was their father.”

“That ends it, old man,” answered lhe gambler. “My father never showed me any mercy when 1 was a boy. If he had, I shouldn’t have been here now. If I did a wrong deed I got it to the last inch of the lash,” and the words were more intensely bitter because spoken so quietly. “ The fathers of ’arth be not like the Father of Heaven, for I have seed ’em correct their children beyond reason, and without marcy. They whipped in their rage and not in their wisdom; they whipped because they was strong,, and not because of their love: they whipped when they should have forgiven, and got what they ’arnt—the hatred of their children. But the Father of Heaven be different, boy. He knows the men be weak as well as wicked. He knows that half of ’em haven’t bad a fair chance, and so He overlooks much; and when He can’t overlook it, I conceit He sorter forgives in a lump. Yis, He subtracts all He can from the evil we have did, boy, and es that isn’t enough to satisfy His feelin’s toward a man that might have been different es he’d bad a fair •’hance, He jest wipes the whole row of figur’s clean out at the askin’.” “At the asking?” said the gambler; “ that’s a nfghty quick game. Did you ever pray, John Norton?” “Sartin’, sartin’, I be a prayin’man,” said the trapper, sturdily. “ At the asking ?” murmured the gambler. softly. “ Sartin’,, boy,” answered the trapper; “that’s the line the trail takes, ye can depend on it; and it will bring ye to the end of the great clearin’ in peace.” “It’s a quick deal,” said the gambler, speaking to himself, utterly unconscious of the incongruity of his speech to his thoughts. “ It’s a quick deal, but lean see that it mieht end as he says, if the feeling was right.” For a moment nothing was said. The trapper stood looking steadfastly at the young man on the moss, as he Jay with his quiet face turned up to the sky, to whose color had already come the firsi shade of the awful whiteness. Up the mountain a rifle cracked. Neither stirred. A red squirrel ran out on the limb, twenty feet above the gambler’s head, and shook the silence into fragments with his chattering; then sat gazing with startled eyes at the two men underneath. “Can you pray, old man?” asked the gambler, quietly. “Sartinly,” answered the trapper.

“ Can you pray in words ?” asked the gambler, again. For a moment the trapper hesitated. Then he said : “Ican’t say that I can. No, sartinly, can’t say that I could undertake it with a reasonable chance of gittin’through; leastwise, it wouldn’t be in a way to help a man any. ” “ Is there any way, old man, in which we can go partners ?” asked the gambler, the vocabulary of whose profession still clung to him in the solemn counseling. “I was thinkin’ of that,” answered the trapper; “yis, I was thinkiu’ es we couldn’t sorter jine works and each help the other by doing his own part himself. Yis,” continued the old man, after a moment’s reflection, “the plan’s a good un—ye pray for yerself and I’ll pray for myself—and if I can git in anything that aoonxa likaly to du ye aarvlue ye can count on it as ye can a grooved barrel. And now, boy,” said the trapper, with a sweetly-solemn enthusiasm, such as faith might give to a supplicating saint—which lighted his features until his countenance fairly shone with a light which came out of it, rather than upon it from the sun overhead—“now, boy, remember that the Lord is Lord of the woods as well as of the cities, and that he heareth the prayin’ of the poor hunter under the pines as well as the great preachers in the pulpits, and that when sins be heavy and death be nigh, His ear and heart are both open.” The trapper knelt on the moss at the gambler’s feet. He clasped the fl 'gers of his great hands until they interlaced, and lifted his wrinkled face upward. He said not a word; but the stronglychiseled lips seamed with age moved and twitched now and then, and, as the silent prayer went on, two great tears leave the protection of the closed lids, and roll down the rugged cheek. The gambler also closes his eyes; then his hands quietly stole one into the other, and, avoiding the bloody stain, rested on his breast, and thut the old man who had lived beyond the limit of man’s day, and the young one cut down at the threshold of mature life—the one kneeling on the mosses with his face lifted to heaven, the other lying on the mosses with his face turned toward the same sky, without word or uttered speech—prayed to the divine mercy which beyond the heaven and the sky saw the two men underneath the pines, and met, we may not doubt, with needed answer the silent upgoing prayer. Tue two opened their eyes nearly at the same instant. They looked for a moment at each other,' and then the gambler feebly lifted his hand put it into the broad palm of the trapper. Not a word was said. No word was needed. Sometimes men understand each other better than by talking. Then the gambler picked the diamond stud from the sp >t wheieit rested, slippad the solitaire from his finger and said, as he handed them to the trapper: “There’s a girl in Montreal that will like these. You will find ht r picture inside my vest when you bury me. Her address is inside the picture case. You will take them to her, John Norton ?” “ She shall have them from my own hand.” answered the trapper, gravely. “You needn't disturb the picture, John Norton,” said the gambler; “it’s just as well, perhaps, to let it be where it is. ” “I understand,” answered tie trapper, solemnly; “the picture shall stay where it is. ”

“The pistols,” resumed the gambler, and he glanced at the one lying on the moss, “ I give to you. You’ll find them true. You will accept them?” The trapper bowed his head. It is doubtful if he could speak. The end was evidently nigh. The trapper took the gambler’s hand as if it had been the hand of his own boy. Indeed, perhaps the young man had found his father at last; for surely it i n’t flesh that makes fatherhood. Once the young man moved as if he would i iso. Had he been able he would have died with his arms around the old man’s neck. As it was, the strength was unequal to the impulse. He lifted his eyes to the old man’s face lovingly; moved his body as if he would get a little nearer, and, as a child might speak a loving thought aloud, said, ‘ : I am glad I met you, John Noiton,” and with the saying of the sweet words he died:—7?eu. Mr. Murray's Story, in Golden Rule.

A late Chinese Masonic funeral in Eureka, Nev., was the most gorgeous barbaric displ y ever seen in Eastern Nevada, in which brass bands, Chinese bands, heathens in their robes, and hired female mourners were inextricably blended. The defunct one was Ah Hing, a big Mason, and he went oqt in a blage of glory.