Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1893 — TERROR AND TENDERFOOT. [ARTICLE]

TERROR AND TENDERFOOT.

Cold Nervo Developed Under Stress of Circumstances. “As a general thing,” said an.old ’49er, “the tenderfoot wasn’t in it with the bad man of the mining camp, and it wasn’t natural to expect that he would be, but occasionally there did appear one who could more than hold his own. 1 recall a man named Caleb Finby who came to Dream Gulch in its earlier days when that region was full of bad men. He was a tall, spare young man, with a head full of brains, and he was quick and busi-ness-like in everything that he did, but still he was not a man that tho generality of men would have picked out as the possessor of nerve. “Mr. Finby set out one day to goto the neighboring camp of Devil’s Claw Canon. As he was proceeding along the road he suddenly came upon, or, rather, there suddenly came upon him, a man who asked him to throw up hia hands. It was Big Bill Belter, the terror of Devil’s Claw Canon. “*1 throw ’em up,’ said Mr. Finby, cheerfully, as he raised them, ‘because you ask me to, and I don’t want to seem impolite. But at the same time I must inform you that you are taking an entirely unnecessary precaution;, my gun isn’t loaded.’ “Mr. Belter was himself a man of fine gall, and his recognition of that qunlity in another awakened in him a certain degree of admiration. Quick to perceive the change in Mr. Belter’s manner, faint and undefined aa it was, Mr. Finby went on :

“ ' But I realize now, as I have not done before, the carelessness of going about in this way practically unarmed; and if you’ll permit me, I’ll load now as a guard against future contingencies.’ “ Mr. Finby’s hands came down as he uttered the concluding words, for he had seen the hand that had held the pistol levelled against him fall slowly, as the Terror listened with a sort of astonished amusement. “ Mr. Finby had in his hip pocket a pistol and in his waistcoast pocket a box of cartridges, which he had bought in deference to the advice of friends, but which he had never brought together into useful conjunction, partly because he was not .personally bloodthirsty, and partly because of overconfidence in the human raoe. But he proceeded now to load, with perfect calmness, but in his heart amazed at the utter lack of precaution now displayed by Mr. Bolter, who stood leaning against a tree and laughing, apparently quite overcome by the broad humor of the situation. Suddenly it was discovered that Mr. Finby’s gun was being held in such a position that Mr. Belter could,without inconvenience, look square into the muzzle of it, and Mr. Belter discovered also at the same moment in Mr. Fiaby’s eye a light whose meaning no sane man could by any possibility misunderstand. Mr. Belter was a man with a vast appreciation of the humorous, but not even his sense of humor could discover the faintest gleam of fun iu the situation as at present developed, and he suffered the tender-foot to proceed without further molestation.”—[New York Sun.