Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 34, Number 118, 6 March 1909 — Page 6

BY DAEIT ON CUR.FLI

AXDSTORM SMITH was full entitled to the elephant blend of dream stuff " said Jonesy of the Dizzy Ghost and we passed bim a pure bill of rights to wade in and designate the herd In the simple colors of his innocent delusions, not barring wings or roller akates. So, when he narrows himself down to one single, unduplic&ted elephant, the which beast of the customary shade of smoked oyster and proportioned according to nature, some in the party sits up and gives him the "Huh! Huh!" "Own up like a man, Sandy." said Red McKenna, 'that you couldn't count 'em all; that they were . little pink chaps that come through the transom, - down a stepladder, across the room single file, each trunk; that, one toy one, they hopped up on tlj.p'bed, made a little spring on your chest and somersaulted out the window. Confess, lad; for no man of your r disposition and custom of lubricating the intellect sees only one elephant at a time and aim not dono , la high colors and frisky." v The large perpetual smile which made Sandstorm Smith beloved of man, woman, and dog went out like snuffed light. You could see as his eye nar- , j uca ujai. vuiueuiiug was iirni aim nxea in nis mind . that he liked, and to disturb which put the (blower on his dander. He shut his lips hard and said : "Aloysius Xavler MoKenna, If it weren't that It would be a superfluity of speech and a statement of -open, clear-as-day, over-apparent fact I'd call you a , liar. I remarks there's only one packerderm in that dream of mine. Furthermore, that packerderm was . i a her not a him. She was a sober, orderly, mild lady elephant such as- which don't occur in the dreams of an acid-absorbing strawberry blonde that 'parts his name In the middle withvan X; and, moreover, he was no gymnast. "I leave it to the Widow Buckley here If I did not .partake of three satisfying, wholesome meals yesi terday, winding up with two orders of buckwheats and maple drip for supper. If you feel so moved, proclaim to the Widow Buckley that a man that dines with my consistency and appetite at the Home Grub should be subject to visions of rainbow elephants that dance the brangle on a dyspeptic chest." 'McKenna twitched his shoulders and smiiled .tight. "Patter ahead Sandstorm," said the Widow Buckley, helping him to a portion of rice pudding 4 that rose Wee a little mountain in the dish. , "Yes, do tell us all.a-bout that dream," cried Betty Buckley, "for It seems ages since I've seen an elephant. And goodness knows when there'll ever be a circus in Goldfleld." Sandstorm looked up and down the table suspiciously and said: "Subsequent to that tastesome little supper I mentioned I decided to bunk. I drops right off to sleep, and the first thing I knows there's a thundering knock on the door. I unhooks my gun from the headpost and sets up. The door's bolted fast and I -

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goes to the window, sticks out my gun first and then my head. It's mocnlifeht so clear I can read the sign on the Daisy stania) mill naif a mile off. But what ciamps my vision is the hind legs of an elephant occupying considerable space beyond the corner of the shack. Its tall was moving patient and gentle back and from. Still I was some stunned, not having met any packerderms round camp recent cr beforehand. But as you never can kno'w what to expect in this big boom diggings, the notion rises that I investigate that elephant. "I opens the door just a little, whereat the trunk attached to the- forward overhang of said elephant reaches , in and waves Itself nervous and timid, like a woman fluttering her hand.Ql openB the door wide and she gives a pleasant nod of her head and begins swaying. One look in her eye convinces me . she's my friend, and when she turns her head away with a bashful jerk I know she's a lady, -elephant and not used to glimpsing bachelors in their pyjamas. The minute I climbs into my overalls and boots her attitude changes and she takes me up on her bade as easy as a steam crane lifting a can of corn. "As soon as I'm seated comfortable, off she starts, up the Little Belladonna trail. Straight up the trail , she hoofs it swinging her trunk from side to side and now and then giving a contented little snort. .When she's abreast the shaft derricks she picks me off her back and sets me down, then grips a. sledgehammer in her trunk and swings it over her head, bringing it down with a bursting smash on the edge of the shaft. A cloud of rock and dust flies up, whereat she drops on her knees and reaches down , into the shaft. She's on her knees about thirty winks before she slowly drops back on her haunches, throwing up her trunk in which she's got curled a chunk of pure gold the size of a nail keg. "My eyes just about stand out on my cheeks at sight of that bullion gleaming dark in the moonshine, and as she waves it before me that elephant's face takes on a big, generous smile yes," and Sandstorm shot a fierce look around the table, "she laughs and passes me the nugget. Like a chump, not considering the heft of it, I takes hold of that Blab of ore and she lets go. So do I and it lands on my feet " , a ... Sandstorm became suddenly absorbed in negotlat-' tng that mound of pudding and is' so engaged until Red McKenna bends over tha table insinuatingly .and says: "And then" "I woke up," snapped Sandstorm, ' "and found abig blundering yawp In the room, dropping ore specimens on the bed. which yawp don't need specifying." "What a lovely dream!" cried Betty Buckley: "and it must mean something, too. (Mr. Smith. You will .probably strike it awfully rich on the little Belladonna." . There was a sudden nervous exit from the Home Grub. Smith had taken a new assay on the Little Belladonna that morning and found that it. would' cost him about $8 more a ton to mine than the rock would treat for. "Howsomerer that dream had gripped him - mighty deep and he sent down to 'Frisco for a box of books on elephants and a library of dream literature. The time he'd usually spend playing jokes and rigging tender feet he'd put in delving bK that lcre. If you refused to discuss elephants with him he took it as a personal insult. He and Red SfcKenna ' mighty near had a serious falling out. as Red. who'd some talent for drawing, sketched a- cartoon for The Goldfleld News," la which he showed Smith driving twenty eleohonts to a " chuck wagon, sahK chuck wagon's freight consisting of a in . pebble

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::-.xv-V-:-;--::: done up In a bale of cotton and labelled The Belladonna Nugget." - In Little Sammy Harbin, however. Sandstorm found some genuine sympathy. Sammy considered that he really owed the Big Joshua claim to Smith, though that camp cut-up didn't deserve a shadow of gratitude. . "It stands to reason,", argued Sammy, "that if he hadn't put up that joke on me I'd never have wandered into the desert and located that Joshua tree. "See here,", Sammy suddenly enthused, swinging on Sandstorm who was trying to hide hiB sheep's smile, "didn't you dream about that Joshua tree?" Sandstorm gave a guilty start. Then he said, "developing a sudden cough: "Not about that particular one I described to you, but off and on there's been a forest of Joshua trees walking through my dreams." "Fine!" cried Sammy. "There was a real one that's proven. 'Now, why couldn't there be a real elephant? "Of course," ran on our little 'bonanza king, whose Massachusetts- learning -had become shot' with some of the hunch fancies that eventually grip the minds of aH gold hunters, "there are probably. not any pachyderms forowelng round in the sage brush, (but suppose you brought one down. It might bring you the luck you dreamed of." "If you'll dream about a parcel of snakes," spoke up Rawhide Pete. "I know Where there's a nest of side-winders back of the Yellow Horse mine." "An' I know where there's a coffin maker that's got your size in stock," retorts Sandstorm, taking Little Sammy's arm and stamping out of the zone of Josh that develops in the Glad Hand. v Yes, it was due to Samuel Harbin, 'Esquire, late of Boston, .Mass., that Goldfleld was later afflicted with a one-animal zoo. He not only worked up the idea until it had rooted Itself deeper'n the base grips of a sum tree In Sandstorm Smith's mind, but he furnished the funds that enabled that featherheaded giant to establish his hunch, as a two-ton fact . In a Reno paper one day was a cut showing a procession of elephants, each' one liberally tateeed with a pill legend that was exciting the dyspeptie population of the Washoe slope at that time. The cut showed the populace of Reno thronging the mala street, feasting- their eyes on the novelty and purchasing pills in gross lots. But it wasn't the pills that agitated the breast of Sandstorm Smith when that Reno paper fell into his hands. He was stricken with an idea -bigger'n the biggest pill ever rolled, and forthwith Jumpted his motor-cycle, steamed over the hills to Little Sammy's mine, negotiated a considerable loan and burned up the Tonopah trail to catch the first and only daily train out of the desert. No particular notice was taken of his flitting so sudden and eager, but his return was an event that called for calamity type In the camp daily. A lone prospector on the Tonopah trail sighted the classic shape of Sandstorm Smith making pace through the chimisal for one standard size elephant, and being public-epirlted said lone prospector brings liis pinto Into camp under spur and-passes the good word. In consequence a cavalcade. Including a threehorn band, promoted and led by Red McKenna, find Sandstorm and that elephant three miles above the boundaries of our fair viYIage, but the Smith procession had stopped, the four-legged end of it holding an argument in short, sharp snorts. Sandstorm was wearing a look of pained weariness under the alkali smudge, so Red asked: "Is your friend tired. Sandy?" - -"Tired nothing." shot back Smith. "Don't you know a packerderm can outwalk anything on hoof. What she wants 's hay. If you fellers will run back and get a bale yon can go on with your blankety blank frivolity. I been afoo$ since the train makes the Tonopah yards at midnight, and while the hay's being brought I sleeps under the openwork shade of yonder Joshua tree." What' mere he gets an hour's' siesta spite of the worst that thre-born band can. do. and while he's so encaged Goldfleld arrives by foot, stage, pony, and motor-cycle and makes the acqnatntaace of that .' elephant. She was a young elephant, not over six feet tan . and about the same In beam, whereas from appendage to appendace she measured twelve. But aside from Che fact of her being an elephant her most strfVine feature Is the lettering on her flanks. Pills Is spelt out bold on both tdes. and Just before the Pills was a blur showing where the major portion of her original decorative literature had been rubbed off. - 7 worked a whole day on that pITf layout. 9sndstorm -riehed. when the hand finally bHrhted his cosy trance, "and 1 guess toward the last I scraped . her. for she readied round, picked ae up and shun xned me down mighty rude." . " "Did yen ride her down from Tonopah T asked Beans, the livery man. T did. for five miles." said Smith, "and the motion's so sootbfnr I clumbers and falls off. hreakiag " my ruidhur pole and ladder. After that I cot to lead her w band, and maybe she cooldnt cow grows d. notwithstanding she seems treadla? under dose . wrans. I got more aches In ay pedal extremities than a city policeman. Just tryhnr to make pace and keeo from hefag stepned on hr two ton of elephant. Wbsfe her name? In view of that white lead embroidery on her sides mas pfSs." - A side-winder Is of the enst deafly species cf rattlesnake. Although equrad wh it2ss It r rattles thsta la warning. .

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orthVooldfleTdlmported hay Red McSennaied off with his band and she swung along peaceful and smiling, keeping step with the rusty harmony of the horns. When Red haated the procession In front of Ue Hand be made a neat, taorew. uivnrcrpriented- Dhilanthroplst in that he'd furnished the camp with a considerable If one-idece hippodrome. Smith's blushes outblazed Red's hair, for that strange young person considered that hd done a big thing, and nothing fantastic in providing Goldfleld with a personallj -conducted soo and w hen the cheering died down and Miss Pills had bad a forty-gallon drink he marched her up the Little Belladonna trail. When Little Sammy came into the Home Orub that night there was an uncertain smile worrying his thin lips and a twisted crowsfobt crinkled deep between his eyes. "Sandy! having a hell of a time," he said low and solemn to me so Red MoKenna across the aisle couldnt catch It. "He can't leave that elephant out In the night air and there's no shelter available. They won't take her at Beans' stable and the doorway of his shack's too narrow and the Toof too low. Then there isn't a iooi or lumoer in mi wV of the desert to build anything with and by the time we get down some Miss mis may nave aeveiopeu pneumonia or grip. Sandy says she's fearful delicate. . He's got the camp tailor up there now figuring . on making her a suit of fore and aft pants for night wear, but they can't promise to weave four legs into a neat lit before tomorrow night. ItH be too Infernal had," conclude Little Sammy, "if she gets a stroke of that high altitude pneumonia after what It's cost us to got her dowa here." "But If she continues to exist." I said, -It's going to cost a whaling, sight more to feed her with hay selling by Troy weight." -But if she dies." groaned Little Sammy. "weH have to buy a mine to bury her la, as I guess every inch of ground 'tween here and Hawthorne's staked out In claims." The little owner of the Big Joshua was doing some nervous figuring in his notebook when the door f the Home Grub opened and Sandstorm burst in, rubbing his hand and smillsg. . "Judging from your looks," Red McKenna greeted him, "I guess Miss Pills's sold at a profit." "You're as humorous as usual. Red," laughed Sandftorm, "and as wrong as per ohedule. I haven't sold the lady, only got her housed snug aad cozy for the night." "Suppose you tucked her away la your palatial chateau." chuckled Red. Sandstorm shook his head and stirred his coffes with a slow and fastidious twist of the spoon, "No, Red," he said. "My chateau wouldn't fit" MoKenna dropped bis fork- Into bis plate and the mirth faded out of his eyes. Sandstorm was drinkins in unmannerly culpa and Little Sammy looking from one to the other in nervous puzzlement. (McKenna broke the pause In a slow hard voice. Mister Sandys Storm Smith." he said. if you pat that animated, double-ended Slaving van to my bungalow well" His throat closed and he turned tangerine red. "Ton wouldn't refuse an Innocent, homeless, female packerderm shelter. Red, would you?" said Sandstorm. McKenna exploded. He'd get that beast out ot his bungalow If be had to take It out in sections as bigger'n dice. 'Til begin by shooting her full of ventilating adits," he foamed, "and then 111 hire some carpenters to saw her up In one-pound lots. 111. 111 The Widow BucMey had to thump his hack to save him from strangling. "That would -be awful fooIHh. Red." said Sandstorm, concealing his Joy in his coffee cup. "You did so much for the lady this afternoon, providing a band and a gorgeous greeting, that I didnt think you'd mind doing more and save her delicate chest from this night air. Honest, I didnt think you d object to taking her' in for the night, though I won't ask you to sing her to sleep or fan her. Why you can bunk in with me. Red, and nil be like old times." . "And." he went on, low and purry. I wouldnt be for disturbing her now. It was a pretty neat fit. but as your bungalow's one of those portable hutches I managed to unscrew the back wall and slip her In without any considerable ruin. I tied your bathrobe around her neck to protect her throat and left her happy and contented as a ohuckawallah in a ' cloudburst." McKenna was past speech, and after watching the patrons of the Home Grab slip under the tables one by one and thresh among the chairs he got up with a growl and shuffled out. But he and Sandstorm made It up in the course of the evening and next day got Miss PUls out of his portable bungalow without any attending disaster. - However, from day to day Sandstorm's two-ton pet continued to furnish diversion and keep Smith's hair flying np in perpendicular until it became permanent pompadour. She followed him everywhere, nothing 'he could tie her to being of permanent enough character to reside long on its base or grip well In the loose stony soil. She moved his shock round so often - that he was In a perpetual state of tresBefore a week was out he began writing and wiring an owsr the country, offering Miss Pills for sale cheap, then proposing to give her sway to wtweverll pay the freight out of Goldfleld. Little Sammy balked on that, and aa the rest of the boya were getting a heap of fun out of it they were for Miss Pills a a permanent Institution. Sandstorm Smith wore did bare aa elephant oa his hands. . His hay bins scattered snow in his tawny locks aad he had to quit smoking and drinking so as to keep her trough filled with spring water from KShop. But as some phltosepher has ohserved. the darkest cloud, properly rent, wis reveal a silver lining. Twas along past siesta of a Saturday afternoon, when the heat gauges oa Mala Street had stopped . bubbling above the century register and the sua was taking on a purple circumference that the eye could mail The advance puffs of the cool evening breeze were tegfnalag to bring folks out on the sidewalks fa iSe gnaatp. The day's fever tn stock Jockeying mmA there was a little knot or you of recent Import from Triaco. troupes m

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ons, preferred. 1 had stepped out in front of the Glad Hand to chat with Bob Robler and Rawhide Pete and (ho -name of Sandstorm Smith was Just rising to my tongue when Pete, who was looking up toward the head of the street, burst out: "Here comes Sandy on his motorcycle, riding under a full head of aold. Must be Miss Pills' got a coUc and he's bhtaing the alkali to Doo Regan's office." Just one flash of a glance up the trail told me that on rushing smother of dust wasn't coaceraed in such small matters as elephant colic and doctors, and a . second look revealed that Miss Pills was la no way physically Indisposed. With the grace of a grand piano she was wsdloplng down the trail warm la her ownerw wake. Sandstorm abut off the power as he drew " labs the business center of the camp, shouting to left and right as he rolled by: "She's got a basket of dynamite sad detonating caps, and wherever she drops It there's going to be " We lost the finish of It. but not the sia niflcance. Tbe neavy tread of Miss Pills was waking the echoes and she wasn't more'n three hundred . yards away. If you've got lucked away ia your cranium the fallacy that aa elephant cant move Caster'n an oyster banish the conclusion. When eyes told us that there was a basket swinging In her trunk we could see her coming like the Over land Limited down the west tant of the " Sierras.. Rawhide Pete, Bob Robley. and your humble servant Joined the merry villagers Sandstorm Smith was pacing, and the big hands on Goldfleld clocks didnt slip many spaces before there wss a safe majority of the community moving south, east aad west, hut none north. It it was destined for that lady elephant to drop a basket of detonating caps and big powder the popular notion was to allow her to hog the consequences. By the time Miss Pills began to slow dowa la the middle section of -Mala Street. Goldfleld had taken on the aspect of a deserted diggings. There was only one man left behind Tobias Perkins, ths rank and file of the local O. A. R. and his failure to Join the departure was due to the fact that ho broke his wooden leg aad cratch la negotiating the swiftest pace he'd made since the battle of Bull Run. But crippled as he waa In him Umber prop he managed to mount to the roof of the Glad Head and gas dowa oa Use Pills with pstaading hair. , - . He told us later that She stopped plumb Is front of the Glad Hand aad looked up at him with malice In her eye. swinging bar trunk to and fro with an angry motion that threatened to toss that basket of annihilation through the doorway under him. Bat she didnt. She had a double loop oa the handle of that basket that failed to relax. . Ton ceo sandstorm had been teaching her to carry and fetch shoring timber and odds and ends np at the mine, aad she had picked up that basket In the magazine of the Star of -Hope mine adjoining tbe Little Belladonna, and trotted over to him with it. tMnfelna in her ptayfal. girlish wny Chat ho might Vke K. The tar of Hope people had warned, him in time to get hht motorcycle wader spark.At I said before, she was a small, two-toa eto phant and gentls tempered whea fed snog; aad she'd besa petted aad coddled by man, woman and child. Therefore I guess It made her feel mean and peevish to he shunned with such overwhelming unanimity; for as she looked np at Tobias Pefhfn on the roof sbe began to roar. Tobias said he heard ' only one roar, and that when he casne to ho looked round to see if hew ssade heaven. Clean time ftflss Pills, whea she found that ronrtn didnt bring her say company, and being soolany inclined, swung away from ths Glad - Hand aad started back the trail she came. From outlying hills we watched her pound up through the ssge to the Little Belladonna. She took it stow and tissual, swaying her trunk Mkve pendulum, he basket of murder and sudden death rkring aad falling with tha rhythmical motion. I never knew tha saa to take so Ions; settfaj fa Chess altitudes as on that day. Customarily ItH to toe J-hi i glowing ruby shot with flashes of amethyst, haag for a few seconds in a blanket of purple mist aad then take a header dowa the other side of Funeral Range. But on that evening the driver of that sky chariot must have dropped bis whip, for she stack fast, directing her flaming shafts ot light oa that easy-going elephant. And there waa color for oils fa the dark Csifw cf Miss Pills moving through that soft sunset glow, until finally sbe rounded the comer or Sandstorm's shack and moved over toward the derricks abovs the abandoned abaft. We had Just lost sight of her In the dimmerlng light when the earth tremble and there waa a sharp tnmlaoas glare that lighted op the vicinity of the Little ItelUdonaa: thea salence and the quick-curtain shadows of a Nevada night. A sigh of relief sensed round the foothills. Sandstorm Smith, who had Joined Boh Itofcley. Rawhide Pete, aad me we the nob of Tomahawk Hin. got some of his color aad aerro smok aad "Poor girl. he sure was an elephant oa asy hands, hut I was beginning to get mighty attached to her." Then he rode off on hie motorcycie aad the population of Goldfleld re termed to their affaira. Aa hour or so mier.we were discussing flie proV ability of locating any of Miss Fills la County when we heard the racket of Smith's motorcycle at the door. , His face was stone sober and aa walked into the Glad dfaad. hat there i liar nervous twitch about his eyes sad oath, Ko one spoke while he fortifled himself wtih two snecessive fortiflcatloaa. hat whea ho ordered a Chtrd Rawhide Pete conldat stand the i "DjernadsmyofhsrT ho "Any of her!" said from the bar aad raising his "Aay of her!" bo drawled. tSdag Us gSaat wltit amddenfng deKberaUoa. "TThy. she waant scratch ed. She dropped the basket down the oti Shaft and .ths shot opened ap that ttg-aey fsdso Pd' gfsea ap hope of. I left a slab ta the assay oOos that!! run forty thoiamad to the ton so tlsiaalas rich f saw the streak In it with a Isatsra. . "But." he costeroded, wfptag nwtrr aa ssmaarF tear. "Mtos PUhr has gat a bad axtatl of aorvao. aa T gaeas ffl ahfp her over to THsos. where TO pea tast Sbe gets the cosiest berth there ts fa Gate Park. Where's that VoSsaaa i taeren ae&lax ta