Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1879 — THREE LIVES. [ARTICLE]

THREE LIVES.

BY MARINER J. KENT.

■•a Francisco Arfonani. Batt'o Mountain, nearly the centre •f the desert mate of Nevada, U not a particularly attractive place. A railrr.ad office and a frieght depot, a row of business houses and saloons,and a cluster of unpretentious dwellings eomprise its extent. At? the time of which I write, some five years ago, it was a lively burg, however, and a iough one. - •Hiilfidozing one day in a saloon, I was aroused by the remark most emphatically delivered: “It’s fourteen inches between my eye*, and I smell like a wolf!” The speaker, a large maguificently proportioned ruffian, supplemented the peculiar description of himself with: “Pards, come an’ drink?’’ With the exception of myself every man in the room gathered around the bar, addressing the powerful stauder of treats as Joe. Tne giasxs were filled and tipped, when he turned and noticed me. I saw the quick, wicked flash of anger in his eyes, a momentary survey he broKe ki«v~i c v aud this terse dialogue followed: “Yer from the city ain’t yer?” “I am.” . “Yer don’t know me, do yer?" “I dou’t.” , “Take a drink an’ git acquainted then.” “Don’t drink.” ’ “Smoke then.” “Don’t smoke.” “Dcfyer shoot?” “Not worth a continental.” My years of assurance acquired as a oorresiKjndent, and my knowledge of aggressive characters, did not prevent me from feeling some uneasiness as J observed my interrogator’s dextrous fingers slide to his belt and grasp the kilt of his “whistler.” Ah unpleasant termination, of the conversation was avoided 4 by the strange appearance of a woman who st* pped from the overland train, just then arrived, and directed her steps toward the saloon. She was rather a comely-looking female of thirty-eight or more, and evidently ill and suffering from the effects •f an extebded debauch. ' Joe stared at her, as one looks at the arisen dead, for % moment, and then walked quickly to the door, threw himself into the saddle aud rude away. As he passed the woman she lifted her hands imploringly towards him and fell to the earth Unconscious.' She was borne to the hotel, and the kind women of the village did what they could for her. Bhe spoke in* word when recovered from her swoon, but lay quietly, unmindful of her life fast ebbing away.

During the day 1 inquired of Brokennoeed Charley, who knew everybody and everything about the town, regarding the mau Joe. Charley said that little was known of him except that he mined some, gambled some, drank like mad, and altogether was a bad lot. He hod killed two or three men, and had been shot and cut himself several times. He invariably preceded an invitation to imbibe, or the shooting of a man, by the expression, “It’s fourteen inefies bet ween my eyes, and- I smell like a wolf.” From his blood-thirsty disposition he was known and dreaded as “The Wolf.” The wolf returned to town the next and on entering the saloon from which he had made his hurried exit, quietly asked — “Has that.ar woman gone?” He was told that she was sick acul sould live hut a short time. A great •hange came over his face: the hard furrows of dissipation and crime were transformed to the pitiable Unee of sorrow. Not-noticing the drain preffered by the bar-keeper, he hastened to ked-eide of the dying woman. Abruptly he questioned: . “Was yer fullerin’ him?” “No, Joe; I was hunting you.” “Sure?” “So help me God!” * The poor, white face, scarred and deep, seamed by excesses and sin, grew radiant with gladness as Joe kneeled down and kissed her. With the seal of forgiveness; with the pressure of his lips but half returned, she sank back dead. Through the service at the simple burial the following day, Joe stood with uncovered head, but his brpnzed and immovable features betrayed no emotion, nor vouchsafed any clue to the mystery that enshrouded the cofined outcast and himself.

The evening of the funeral the Wo f •ailed on me at my rooms. Seating himself without preface, he said: “As ainan of sense an’ no coward, yer kin look at a brave man's agony in the right way. The past I’ve hidden for twenty years, fur I ain't the kind to Carry my heart on my sleeve fur daws to peck at But thar’s a feeling as though I’d choke if I didn't talk to some one. The woman buried to-day „war my wife. Here’s some letters the wimin folks found on her an' fve to me. Yer look them over while chin, fur I’m slow on the read. We war married in the States when she war sixteen an' I just some of sg«. A

bit after it I got the gold fever an’ went -toCalifony. In a couple of years mode quite a pile, an' weut home fur her. She war changed, -an’ it warn’t long before I heard the stories, an’ found the truth, that she had gone wrong.« He war a fine-haired chop who bod come into town while I war away. I war a likely young feller then, but the blow turned me into a devil. 'I went fur him, but he heard of It an’ slid out fur Califbruy. Fullered, an’ Air twenty year* I’ve bin huntiug him all over this coast. A. voicj of hell h«« urged me on, an I’ve killed nqeu that the taste ”f blood might keep fierce my hopeofreveuge.l'venevj er found him. During these years I’ve i beard about her onoe in. a while, an’ ! bow she war drinking an’ going to the dogs. I’d alius meant to see her when ; I’d settled with him. His name war : BUI Armstrong,” The letters' taken from the dead wo*man, which I had beeu looking over, were mostly answers to inquiries re- ; girding ‘he whereabouts of her husband. An unfinished letter of her , own to some friends in the east, and dated a few days previous to her death, showed that to this poor, lost creature, with the grasp of death upon her, there had come back to her the glory of her i first and only pure love, and the un- < conquerable desire to die at hi* feet, treed from the burden es bis eurse. , Strangely enough, another letter gave ! information of Bill Armstrong, aud stated that he was living near Boise City, Idaho, These two I read to the desperate man who sat before me, his burning eyes gleaming with pain and , his lips mute with anguish. When I ceased, he grasped my hand with, ‘•Thank yer, stranger,” and left the room- I watched him mount his horse and ride out into the black night. The Wolf waa again on the trail. ■ The circumstances I have related were vividly recalled to mind during my present visit to Battle Mountain by casually overhearing an account of a fatal shooting affair between Bill Armstrong, a mining speculator, and Joe, the Wolf, at Boise City in 1878. The details of therecontrel give in the words of the narrator, who was an eye witness:

“Job met Armstrong on the street, and with the single exclamation, ’l’m Aggie’s husband!’ pulled and fired. From some unaccountable reason, he missed. Armstrong returned the fire, shooting Joe plump through the heart. He fell on one knee, and for a second, swayed like a reed before the storm. Grand in his physical strength, in the power-of his hate, hereoovered himself. As from his ashen lips rang out the old cry: “It’s fourteen inches between my eyes and I smell like a wolf!’ he fired, killed Armstrong instantly, and fell upon his face dead.” Thoughtfully, to-day, I sought ths pauper’s field, and stood before toe rude pine headboard which bore the mure of her whose weakness had destroyed three lives. It was almost hidden by clumps of sage-brush, which unsightly and palid green, were fitting growths of unhallowed ground. * The old story of shame and sorrow, common, in all the epochs of the world, as the grains of sand that drifted over her lonely, uncared -for grave. Yet rarely is the recompense for sin so terribly meted out as in the tragic end aud wayward, bitter lives of Jos and Aggie Garland.