The great Pike's Peak rush : $b or, Terry in the new gold fieldsSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
The great Pike's Peak rush : $b or, Terry in the new gold fields
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Gold mines and mining -- Fiction; Pikes Peak (Colo.) -- Fiction; Western stories
"There's Chief Little Raven--and Left Hand, too!" exclaimed Terry. "Wait
a second. I'm going to ask them about Thunder Horse."
Little Raven and Left Hand soberly shook hands with their former
acquaintances.
"Thunder Horse he dead from his leg," explained Left Hand. "Dog bite
poison him--mebbe he poison dog. Whiskey bad, make him fool. One day he
die; the two foolish men who run away in that wagon take him on in wagon
and sell him same day to one big-mouth man near the Republican trail.
Now his head is in Aurary. You want to see?"
"Pine Knot Ike's come!" asserted Terry, as he and Harry proceeded to
Auraria, whither they were bound anyway. "I don't want to see him."
"I'd a heap rather see Sol," answered Harry. "But we'll try to see the
Russells. That's important."
The creek was so nearly dry that several tents and log shacks had been
placed in its sandy bed. The banks were about four feet high here, and
a shaky log foot-bridge crossed from town to town.
Auraria was larger than Denver City, but the buildings were rougher,
whereas the Denver City logs had been surfaced and trimmed. Still,
Auraria seemed to have the principal store building, as yet--a story and
a half high, with a lumber roof. The upper floor was occupied by the
_Rocky Mountain News_. Through the glass window the printers might be
seen setting type. Under them was a noisy saloon.
Miners, emigrants, Mexicans, Indians--flannel shirts, heavy boots,
moccasins, much whiskers and long hair: in this respect the Auraria out
of doors was like the Denver out of doors.
"I hear Ike," said Terry.
At the corner just beyond the Eldorado Hotel somebody stationed beside a
flaring pitchy torch was declaiming in a loud voice, before a large
tent. But it wasn't Pine Knot Ike. It was the red-headed Mr. Reilly. On
a placard across the tent front was the announcement, rudely charcoaled:
"SEE IT! SEE IT! SEE IT!
The Ferocious Head of Chief Bloody Knife!
Cannibal of the Plains!
Slain in Hand-to-Hand Conflict by the Noted
Frontiersman Black Panther!
Admission 50c gold."
Evidently this was the show to which Mr. Reilly had referred. Standing
on a barrel, and occasionally coughing from the smoke of the torch
fastened to an upright against the barrel, he strenuously invited the
public inside. He accepted the price, and waved each patron to pass
within. However, business was not at all brisk; and suddenly catching
the eye of Harry, he beckoned.
"Go inside, gentlemen," he bade. "It's my treat. Walk in; view the
ferocious cannibal head and the equally ferocious scout who cut it off
after killing the wearer of it."
"Aw----!" attempted Terry; but Harry, with a nudge, interrupted him.
"Go on in, Terry. I'll talk with Mr. Reilly a minute."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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