Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1890 — HOW LITTLE KIT DIED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOW LITTLE KIT DIED.

STORY OF AN INCIDENT IN A TOWN OF FAR-OFF IDAHO. Small and Trembling Hands That Held a Hark for a Shooter—Tragic Kasait of a Kaaaken Han’s Boast.

t was a told autumn evening, but (be red sun going down behind the spectral mountains on the desert of Idaho seemed to brighten up everything, just as A blazing log paints the white ceiling of the sitting-room and colors the faces of those who watch the incandescent embers

glow. The village was quiet as it always was at this time of dny. It wasn’t much of a village—a house here and a store there, and all blackened by storms aud age. People were scarce, too. Those who were on the one broad street were the kind that grow among sage brush and grease wood —tall, heavily jawed men, with an awkward swing to their gait and their faded clothing and highheeled boots bespattered with mud. A. lean, skulking dog prowled along tbe road, and three heartily saddied and branded ponies were tethered near the Ark saloon. There were 250 people in tho village but every body who lived there knew the population exceeded 500.

On this cold afternoon five of the in- j habitants sat in front of the Ark saloon. Four of them were men who wore soft j hats and collarless shirts. Their coarse hands and rugged faces showed that j they toiled out of doors —herding cattle I on the plains no doubt. The fifth person j was a little girl with hair as black as the 1 lava blocks aud eyes so big and so round that they looked like wells of ink. Bhe wasn’t even seasonably dressed, for whenever the wind brushed her she shivered, hardy as she was. A coral necklace clung so tightly to her neck that it looked like a scar. Her thin blue dress, clumsily cut from a large garment, hung in scandalous proportions about her well-rounded body. The men had beea driuking heavily. The little girl had come to lead her father away. But the big, rough man was angry. A man from tbe Snake River country had questioned his ability as a marksman with a six-shooter. The dispute had been going on for an hour or more, with delirious tales of gua feats aud terrific expressions of profanity,when the mite of a child stole timidly up to the big man. For a moment the child was not noticed. The wind picked up the ragged hem of her dress and whipped it about her legs, and the big sun, glowing with tbe richness of a solferino disk, made the tears in the cbiid's great eyes shine as one hits seen rippling water glitter in a stream of sunshine. The glass in the shop windows was red, too, aud the snow on the three mountain peaks in the distance looked like a carpet of crimson geraniums stretched over cathedral spires. “Hese’s Kit. boys,” the father finally exclaimed, as he looked admiringly at tbe tot who had in some way managed to neßtle beside bis leg. ’Til leave it to Kit, fellows,’as to who is the handiest man with the gun. Who's the best man as what you ever seen. Kit?” “Ma wants you to come home and eat supper.’’ enme the stammering, almost pla in t iye re ply. - “So she sloes, Kit; bnt who’s tbe best shooter ns you know of?” VPap." “Who shoots hens right and left and never spiles the meat?” “Pap:” ■ — ‘"Whose Kit beyouf” * “Pap’s; but mam wants you home for ■upper.” The four rough men looked at the child with a stupid gaze. “Why, I'll tell you, fellers, an speaking about shooting, me and Kit will show you something, won’t we Kit?" and tbe big man drew two enormous revolvers from his bolsters and placed them upon a box. The child shrank instinctively at the sight of the weapons. “Won’t we. Kit?” repeated the big mnn, noticing that tbe child was silent. Tbe black head nodded a reluctant affirmative. “Course we will. Kit knows pap, and seeing as somebody does not know us we will make us known.” Then tbe man drew a leathern bag from his pocket and took from it two five-dollar gold pieces. ’"Now, Kit,” he said, with as much pride as liis thick voice could portray, “you take these shiners and walk out into the wagon track and bald ’em up stiddy like, and then we’ll ’em how pap kills hens." The child faltered, bnt parental dis- ■ ciplino had been stern in her home, and < with nervous fingers she seized tbe coins and walked bare-headed out into the • street. The father seized his heavy guns and staggered prondly to the roadway. “Stand straight like Kit,” commanded the father.

The little girl’s tattered shoes came together and her white face was turned directly toward the father. “Hoist up the shiners, little un’; this way—see?” and the man, placing his pistols upon tbs ground, held up his ■ thumbs aad index fingers so that those •f each band came together, _ .. .

The little coins flashed above the tangled mass of hair. J “Be you ready. Kitf* There was not a tremar jm the little body. The drunken man. proud of his marksmanship, leveled the muzzles of his weapons at the child. Tne eyes of the shooter closed and opened in maudlin fashion. Oa a sudden two streams of fire, poured from the black barrels of the pfstols. The smoke from the weapons turned crimson as it rose in the. red light; The child lay upon the ground with her legs stiffening in the lava dust. A white hand crtffefred one of the gold coins. Tito metal once clasped by the other hand had been blown down street by a bullet. Oae bullet had toru its way somewhere beneath that crown of tangled hair. “Guess you hurt the child, Ike,” out of the drunken men exclaimed, aa he gave his trousers a hitch and reeled out to the Bpot where the ettild lay. The father’s heavy revolvers fell upon the ground. His ashy face moved toward the head of his child. As he grasped the rigid shoulders a tiuy stream of blood trickled over his gnarled fingers. Then he rose. Men and women with terror-stricken faces were clustered about him and dogs skulked around the crowd. The sun waa now so low that the peaks of the distant mountains glowed with a delicate pink and tbe sky, beginning with a deep maroon at tbe i horizon, ran in beautiful shadings to a soft, rich purple at the zenith. For a moment the father was silent. He seemed to be looking for a familiar face in the crowd. He was sober now. His face was almost hideous iu its determination. “That’s the worst Bhot what was ever made,” he finally stammered as he wiped the sweat off his face. “Boys, I can keat that. Hands off, till I show you.” And before one of the villagers could reach him the frantic man picked up one of his weapons and, turning it full upon himself, fired. They didn’t take the bodies home that j night. They were placed side by side ' in n feed store and guarded by three hardy villagers. There are two graves in the sage brush near Soda Springs. The boasting marksman and his guns ! rest in one. The yellow grass or the other grave covers little Kit, who was j buried in her tattered dress and worni out shoes. The mother married tbe mnn front the Snake River country.— - Chicago Herald. —