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About The gazette. (Elberton, Ga.) 1872-1881 | View Entire Issue (July 28, 1875)
TTTTH PAPEE IS OS FTT.P WITH 130 WELL & r^HESMAN AX. Advertising Agents, THIRD & CHESTNUT STS., BT. LOUIS, MO. (EUmlcm Cavils. J. A. WREN, PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST Has located for a short time at DR. EDMUNDS’ GALLERY, ELBERTON. GA. WHERE he is prepaied to execute every class of work in his line to the satisfac tion of all who bestow their patronage. Confi dent of his ability to please, he cordially iuvites a test of his skill, with the guarantee that if he does net pass a critical inspection it need not be taken mch24.tf. MAKES A SPECIALTY OF Copying & Enlarging Old Pictures J. Fashionable ai lor, Up-Stairs, over Swift & Arnold’s Store, ELBERTON, GEORGIA. BOOTS $t SHOES. The undersigned respectfully an nounces to the people of Elberton and surrounding country that he has opened a first class Boot and Shoe SHOP IN ELBERTON Where he is prepared to make any style of Boot or Shoe desired, at short notice and with prompt ness. REPAIRING NEATLY EXECUTED, The patronage of the public is respectfully solicited. ap.29-tf G. W. CitEUIECEB F. H. K. CAIRDNER, ELBERTON, GA., 18Y BBUiOiICSIII, 11A RDWA RE, CROCK HR Y, SOOTS, SHOES, HATS Notions. &c** T. M. SWIFT. MACK ARNOLD SWIFT & ARNOLD, (Successors to T. M. Swift,) dealers in Dlt \ r GOO DS, GROCERIES. CROCKERY, ROOTS AND SHOES, HARDWARE, &c., Public Square, KI>2J S.IRTOIV C.i. LIGHT CARRIAGES & E'JGGiES. ewV'SM, it ’IEIV ' * L;V r ; -: -*'W' w - : ~jw J . F. AITLD (Carriage TO AN DFACT’ r GLiIERTON, BEST WORKMEN! BEST WORK! LOWEST PRICES! Good Buggies, warranted, - $125 to SIGO Common Buggies - SIOO. REPAIRING AND BLACKSMITIITNG Work done in this line in the very best! style. The Best Harness My 22-1 v DIinSJUMIY. ]p. j. sii Saddler & Harness Maker Is fully prepared to manufacture HARNESS, BRIDLES, gA „p U!s . At the shortest notice, in the best manner, and on reasonable terms. Shop at John S, Brown's Old Stand. • ORDERS SOLICITED. F. A. F. SOBLETT, mmnm iaioe ELBERTON, GA. Will contract for work in STON'D and BRICK anywhere in Elbert county [jel6 6ai J. S. BARSETT, ATTORN EY AT LAW, ELBERTON, GA. J. F. STEWART, PAXNT3OR. & GXiAZXSB ELBERTON, GA. WJ ILL GIVE PERSONAL ATTENTION TO * * any work in his line. Satisfaction jrutu nteed. Rates reasonable. feb.l 6m THE GAZETTE. ISTew Series. AN EXCITING EIDE. I had ridden hard and fast, and was astonished to find myself coming into a straggling settlement. On the course which I should have tak.n there was nothing of the sort. Almost any trav eler in the border sections would have been glad to thus stumble upon a place for food and refreshment. Not so wit a myself. In the breast pocket of my coat I carried five thousand four hun dred and ninety odd dollars, United States money. I had received this amount from Major-General T. M. Lacy, and it was to be carried through to Fort L , and placed in the hands of Col. Asa F. Som-hard, to defray necessary army expenses. “Get through at your best gait, Carnes,” said the Major, “the money is long since over due, and Southard’s rare irascible temper must have been tried to the utmost. Ycu know how the soldiers get to growling if Uncle Sam is at all delinquent in paying up. Ride in a careless manner, but be careful. I dou t think that any one dreams of the arrival of this money—save, of con se, the mail agent and the clerk who delivered me the packages.” I was directed over an unfamiliar sec tion, hence my losing of the right route. I considered it my safest plan, so long as I had blundered into the settlement, to boldly enter and rest, as an ordinary traveler would do. Should I push hur riedly on, I might, by that very act, ex cite suspicion. There wero only two men in the bar room when I entered, the .landlord and the hostler. Under Iris familiar cordial ity the landlord furtively eyed me in a manner that made me wish that I was well done with tire job, but I reassured myself with the thought that it was the consciousness of tlie responsibility re posing upon me that caused his glances to disturb me. Before I nad finished my supper two more travelers rode up, called out for the hostler, and ordered drinks, or rather one of them came in with the orders, and the other threw himself down on the bench outside, and began loading his huge pipe. Strolling carelessly about the room I managed to glance out of the window. My heart leaped into my throat, for in the man t utside I recognized—from desciiptio is of him—Bill Wolf, one of the most ties perate characters that ever figured in the annals of border ruffianisn . There was the huge red moustache, the thick, hairy throat, and the shoulders hunched up about the head, suggesting the shape of a mammoth clam—and the voice with a deep down intonation like the plop, plop, plop of water hurriedly leaving a jug. If the description of the .notorious rex egade is inelegant, it has the merit of truthfulness and must, therefore, be ex cused. I went through my supper in form, but whatever appetite I might have felt upon my entrance into the inn, had vanished with my discovery. After a time the other fellow came in, having been out, he said, to looa after the atii mals, and they also ordered supper. Now was rnv time to leave, which 1 did in a careless manner, passing some com monplace remarks with the two men as I crossed the dim, smoky bar room. As they seemed to take no notice of me whatever, 1 felt my spirits rise with hope that I should make a safe transit It was quite duskish outside, bm the hostler was Bitting about the stable with his lantern, which emitted but a little more effulgent light than a white Dean would have clone, but he graciously brought out my steed at the order, and, mount ing, I thankfully trotted away. The moon—a little past full—would make her debut in something more than an hour after sunset, and I pushed along at a smart trot so as to get well out upon the plains and into the right trail before that time. The animal went along at, an assuring gait, and I was feeling infinitely relieved at my providential escape from contact with the desperate characters whom I had left at the settle ment, when my acute, trained, ever alert ear detected the sound of swift riding. In which direction ? From behind me, and the mildly floating breeze blew from that quarter. The face of the prairie in this section was a little rolling, but not so as to afford any shelter, and not a shrub or bush dotted the expanse for miles I drew up my horse one moment to listen. No chance travelers ever rode like that. It meant pursuit. I gave my horse a galling lash and she broke into a convulsive gait, hove her body up with one or two plunges, stumbled, going down upon her knees to her nose, and pitched me literally heels over head. For an instant I was paralyzed with astonishment, the next I seized the bit to fetch up the fallen ani mal which had in the brief mishap undergone a strange metamorphose. She ha and lost her white face on or in the grass, and passing my hand between her eyes, I found the hair was wet In an instant I was examining the white logs— my horse had been peculiarly marked with white legs and face—and I found these sticky with whitewash. What then ? Simply, my trappings had been transferred to another animal, gotten up to exactly represent mine in the evening. This discovery brought an appalling in terpretation of the coining horsemen. I gave the horse the whip, as soon as his unstable legs were well under him, and sent him scouring on ahead while L ran off to the rigut making for a little shallow, dry ravine. Here to my pro found astonishment, I discovered a lone ESTABLISHED 1859- ELBERTON GEORGIA, JULY 1875. cabin, or hu , about the dimensions of a common country log house, and impul sively dashing up to this 1 gave a rapid succes: im of knocks. A shrinking, pale and eov exing woman opened it. “What is a, ? was her first question, noticing my breathless haste. Had I stopped foramcment's reflec tion upon the strangely isolated position . f the cabin, I should not have pushed in by her with Lhe explanation. “Is there a chance to Lode here? My horse has thrown me and I believe a party of desperadoes are close up with me.” I noticed that the moon was coming up dry and red in the east, when she mechanically closed the door behind me, before I had fi..fished my explanation. “No, no, there is noplace," she gasped, he quick ear now catching the sound of the horsemen. “This is all the room there is—and there’s neither cellar nor attic.” “But this ?” I exclaimed, rushing for a dark object in the corner. “It’s a coffin,” was her quick response, “but there’s no other chance; they are turning up to the door, get i I had barely time to place myself jn this receptacle for the dead, when a hoarse voice—one that I knew from de scriptions I had had of it—called out: “Hear, you Dick.” The woman threw her apron over her head and went to the door. “Where’s Dick ?” “He hasn't come back yet,” said the woman. * “Oh, lie ain’t—Jen, liev you heard a horse go by to night ?” “Yes, only a little whilo ago —a small man ?” “Yes—driving like the devil." “I guess,” she said, and then paused, “you can hear the horse now," feigning ' to listen. But Bill Wolf must have been of a ; suspicious nature. I heard him leap from his horse and strike with a jarring plunk upon the sod. A smouldering lire was burning on the stone hearth. I could imagine Bill’s attitude —he had a hand on each door casing, his brutal j head was thrust inside the room ; be j was peering about the apartment. “What in li is that?” he ques tioned, and my heart stood still, for I knew he spoke of my retreat. “It's Stauffer’s coffin. Dick is going to carry it o.'ar to night.” “Stuff!" ejaculated the desperado, “as lie made his bed, so let him lay—buz zards are the sextons for the like o’ h m.” The woman sort of groaned, and then I I hca and Wolf go up'ami joggle the rain i barrel at the coiner of the cabin, and ! finally go away with the remark : “He ain’t far off; he couldn’t stick to that blind critter when he begun ter hurry.” “What shall I do : what shall I do ?” gasped the woman ; “they will be back in twenty minutes, for I believe that your horse is in sight, not more than three quarters of a mile off, and my husband is liable to come at any mo ment.” “But with him inside the house we might—” “With him!’’ she emphasised it in desperate tone, “he is Bill Wolf’s bro tber.” I was out of the coffin in a trice then, you may well believe. “It is death for you any way, for I hear the rattle of Dick's axles already,” she moaned. “Stay, there’s the rain barrel,” said I in desperation, “they’ve tried that once, they may not again.” And before you would be able to speak a sentence, the water was dashed out of the cask and stealing down into arid soil, and I was in the barrel, and the woman dropping a tub half filled with water in at the top as a cover. She had barely time to enter the house, the door of which, fortunately, opened on the side away from the moon, when a rattling vehicle drew up at the door, and I heard a voice raving and swearing at the woman for something done, or undone, and them from the bunghole, the plug having been dislodged in the upsetting of the cask, I saw the furious return of the three desperadoes. There was a good deal of loud talking and explanations, and rough remarks about the coffin in the corner; but Dick and the woman both seemed sore about the matter, and the man peremptorily refused to join the hunt because of the coffin. “Well, you’re going our way a piece,” said Wolf; “likely enough you'll have the fun of seeing us wing the turkey on our way.” The conversation was distressingly personal, made actually 60 by Dick’s asking: “Is there water <muugh out here, Jen, to drink my borse ?” “i'll sec,” she returned, moving slowly over the door sill, and then leaping to the cask she lifted out the tub and tipped my prison over a little so that Fcould spring out. I was behind the cask when Dick came to the door, and chi rupped up his beast to the tub to drink. “I’ll go with you as far as the forks," he said, as two of them came out with the coffin and slid it into the body of the wagon. Then they stepped back, probably to call tht others. At that moment a wild and desperate plan entered my brain, but feeling ior my knife I found that it was missing, along with the belt to which it was at tached. In the sudden jostle which the falling steed had given me, the girdle had been snapped and lost without my knowledge. The horses of the three renegades—my own, which had been retained by the hostler at the inn, among them—were hitched on the further side of the door where the moonlight, striking by the end of -the cabin, rested fully upon them It was suicide to attempt seizing upon them ; but as the woman with some purpose in her mind sang out to the men to come back and get the last dipper full of liquor which she had mixed, I seized the only alternative. I sprang lightly into the wagon, lifted the coffin lid, and again crawled into the long, narrow prison. There was no choice. The flood of moonlight had swept so far toward my hiding place that only a part of my body was concealed by the barrel, and I knew that discovery was inevitable, for the man’s horse stood in such a position that m order to recover the reins he must bavs trodden upon me ; and there was no earthly thing as far as the eye could Teach over the plain, behind which a man could bids Ah, but what if he should ride on his freight? Can you think how my heart pumped away at tlie thought ? You wonder what my pain could be? I had none, other than the thought of having only one man to deal with, if he went on his way as he calculated. The three ruffians were mounted and all were ready to start, when the woman -ran out with some sort of* a blanket and muttered some thing about covering the coffin. The man yelled out to her to mind her busi ness and let the thing alone. She retreated with the cloth, but she had accomplished her purpose. In its folda she had concealed a bowie knife ; under its cover she had raised the lid and dropped the weapon inside, risking giving me a cut as it fell upon me ; but in tile momentary noise and confusion I had got the weapon in my band with its point raised tne heavy lid of the rough box the fraction of an inch so that breathing was easy if my position was cramped. The three horsemen spread out, re marked to each ocher: “Beat up the game now speedily, before, by any mira cle, he gets into the wooded belt by Buford’s Springs." JJhey continued to halloo to each otin r ■forborne time, their liberal potations surmounting their discretion. “Dick,” they yelled back as they were driving off, “a cool two hundred apiece ; throw out your old shod and join in the hunt.” The driver mumbled something, but the liquor had thickened his speech so that it was unintelligible to me. If he did attempt to move the coffin I was lost. They kept within hailing distance for the length of some three or four miles, Dick smashing the wagon along at a furious gait, and I expected every mo ment that the shell would be jostled out. Bv and by there was a shout off to the right “a tally ho” as if the huntsmen had sighted the quarry. Nothing but an unwarrantable amount of liquor could have influenced them to conduct then selves as they did, for no sooner had they called out from the right than Dick came to a sudden halt, leaped from his seat and ran off towards those who were hallooing. For one instant my heart stopped beating at the thought -of the hazard I was about to run The next moment I sprang from the coffin to the ground. A few lightning like strokes, and I had severed the traces and hold backs of the harness. The whole scene is pictured vividly in my mind. The moon-lighted prairie, the little ravine toward which the rene gades were dashing, the wagon standing in the trail—then the cutting of the thills reached the ears of the party, and with a wild shout they sprang towards ine. I was on the horse’s back, but boldly defiued by the moonlight. There was a sharp report of two rifles. I felt a stinging in my foot, another in my shoulder, but the borse was uninjured and the race for life began. There was a disheartening disadvan tage for me, for I bad no saddle, but I was riding for my life, and I held the steed between my knees, and took the broad trail with the fury of a tornado. But the issue would rest mostly with the horse. I knew nothing of the one which I rode ; I knew nothinc of those that were pursuing me excepting my own white-faced mare. She would run like an antelope, and outwind a hurri cane. On and on and on nr? steed, desper ately spurred with the point of my knife, bore ahead, actually causing me to gasp for breath, and two hundred yards in the rear rode my would-be murderers. On the rolling prairie now, and my animal took the declivit es with a plunge and the elevations with a sure, tieice stride— cross the brawling ford—but crack came another rifle echo, and again a stream of fire seemed to strike my shoulder. They were coming—closing up. One of these had discharged his rifle at me, and the other I knew was held at rest to come a little nearer. A momentary dizziness lopped _me over on my horse's neck The ruffians yelled triumphantly behind, but a distant echo brougut me up, and giving my beast a stinging blow, I emitted the wild, long, fierce yell of the border rangers, and sped on again; but my horse had that peculiar squirm now and then in his gait that told me he was faltering. Again that echo reached me, swelling out on the rising wind—it was the shrill squeal of the fife and the rum-did-dle Vol. IY.-No. 13. urn, did e-um-dvtm dum, dnm of infantry returning from some expedition to Fort L. Again I sent that long, wild, border yell, and I knew by the quicker breath ing of the fife, and rapid pulsing of the drum, that the soldiers had broken into the “double quick” in the heed of my cry. A parting shot fired at random, and the desperadoes turned; but one of them at least I was not done with. I called my horse with a peculiar whistle ; I re peated it, and then beard her crashing again in pursuit, while her rider shouted and lashed her and tried to pull her around the other away. For a brief time the desperado wrestled with the animal, lashed, goaded, and roared at her, but my incessant, jerky whistle call kept her mind and head toward me. He only gave up the fruitless struggle and leaped from her back when a squad of infantry dashed over a billowy swell of prairie, and rushed down towards ua at that steady, measured run, which is so effective in contrast with the disorderly gait. “It's Wolf, boys,” I exclaimed, as they came up with mo. I had no need to tell them that there was a price set upon his head, as it had j been clearly proved that he had stirred j up the savages to commit more than one massacre of the settlers ; and a dozen of them, uttering a yell of fury, started in pursuit, while tho others, noticing my j swaying about on my animal which Ii rode, began to think that I had found j something serious in the race for life. In fact the plain was rising and falling and shuffling about lo that it took a i great amount of nerve and equipoise to sit a I ought. They got me into Fort Laramie, however, with Uncle’s prom isory notes all safe in my breast pocket, while a boot full of blood, and the galling flesh wounds in my shoulder, accounted for the odd manceuverings of the plain while I was on horse back. After a brief but desperate conflict, Bill Wolf was brought in and passed over to the proper officers “to have and to hold” until there should be meted out to him the measure he had given to others. The position of a bank cashier does not seem to be a particularly enviable one at this moment The plan of going to his house at night, gagging him, and dragging him with a halter round his neck to the bank safe, and making him open it, lias been found to answer so well that it is being pursued as a trade in various parts of the country. We report this morning a raid of iliis kind which was made upon the Barre National Bank, Vermont. The cashier was seized, his wife and daughter were gagged, and the robbers, four in number, dragged their captive to the bank vault. But there was a chronometer lock which defied all their ingenuity, and couse quently they had to depart without the prize they had come to seek. Of course, the police have not been able to find the four men, any more than they found the man who shot Mr. Schute, over in Brooklyn, or Charley Ross, or the Nathan murderer. In these days, the criminal classes arc more than a match for the agents of the law.—N. Y. Times. A TERRIBLE PROBLEM, A recent number of a scientific journal, speaking of the relative proportion of the sexes in the human race, says Max Adel er, declares that for every one hundred and fifty men that come into the world, one hundred and seventy-two one hun dredths (100 72 100) women are born. Ido not dispute these figures. I only ask for light. It apjiears, according to this, that there are some women whe are only seventy two one liundreths of wo men. Wliat the remaining twenty eight one hundredths are I can not imagine. Now, whatl want to know is this: If a wo man of this kind marries a one-hundredth and has a daughter, will the daughter be an eighty-four hundredth woman or a ninety six one hundredth woman? And what will be the exact relation between suehadaughterandaseventy sixone hun dredth aunt and her eighty seven one hundredth daughters, especially if the eighty' seven one-hundredth girls marry the brothers of the ninety-six one hun dredth girl, and so become her ninety eight one hundredth first cousin, but also her ninety five one hunrdedth sister-in law, the aforesaid seventy six one hun dredth aunt becoming also the eighty nine one hundredth mother-in-law of the eighty-eight one-hundredth nephews, will the—the—. Let ms see, where am I? It is au awful subject to grapple with.—Oh, yes! 1 say if the seventy six one hun dredthaunt —. Bat no. The question can't solved in any such way as this, I give it be up. The only way to get at it will be to do the sum in algebra somehow, mak ing the daughter x, the aunt, y, the first cousin, a, and the mother-in-law, b. Then it seems to me, if you multiply the aunt by the daughter and divide the lifst cousin by the mother-in law, in some wav or other, or else extract the square root of the cousin and subtract the re sult from the aunt, keeping the daughter as a common denominator, and at the same time make a decimal fraction of the mother in law, perhans the result might be satisfactory'. But I ara not certain. lam poor in mathematics. I wish that Prof. Tyndall would subject it to a chemical analysis. “I wonder what makes my eyes so weak?” said a fop to a gentleman. “They are in a weak place,” responded the latter. A MOURNPUL DiIEAM, How Mr. Keyser Anticipated Death. Max Adeler has the following: Last December my friend Keyset* dreamed one night that he would die on the 13th of January. So strongly was he assured of the fact that the vision would prove true that he began at once t.o make preparations for his departure. He got measured for a bran new suit, ho drew up his will, he picked out a nico lot in the cemetery and had it fenced in, he joined tho church, and selected six of the deacons as his pallbearers; he also requested the choir to sing at tho funer al, and ho got them to run over a favor ite hymn of hiR. to seo how it would sound. Then he got Toombs, tho undertaker, to knock together a burial casket, with sil ver plated handles, and cushions inside, and he instructed the undertaker to rush out his b st hearse, and to buy sixty pairs of black gloves to be distributed among the mourners. He had some trouble dociding upon a tombstone. The man at the maxble yard wanted to shove off on him a second hand one with an angel weeping over a kind of flower-pot; but Keyser finally ordered anew one, with a design repre senting a rose bud with a broken stem, and the legend, “Not lost, but gone before.” Then he got the village newspaper to put a good obituary notice of him in tyi e, and he told his wife that he would be gratified if she would come out in tho spring and plant violets upon his grave. He said it was hard-to leave her and the children, but she must try to bear up under it. These afflictions are for our good, and when he was an angel he would come and watch over her and keep his eye on her. Ho said she might mar ry again if she wanted to. for, although the mere thought of it nearly broke his heart, he wished her above ali to be hap py, and to have Rome one to love her and protect her from tho storms of the rude world. Then he, and Mrs. Keysor and the children cried, and Keyset 1 , as a closing word of counsel, advised her not her to plow for corn earlier than the middle of March. On the night of the 12th of January there was a flood in the creek, and Key ser got up at four o’clock in tho morn ing of the 13th, and worked until night trying to save his buildings and his woodpile. He was so busy that he for got all about its being the day of his death, and as he was very tired, lie went to bod early and slept soundly all night. About six o’clock on the morning of the 14th there ws a ring at the door bell. Keyser jumped out of bed, threw up the front window and exclaimed: “Who’s there?” “It’s mo, Toombs,” said the under taker. “What do you want at this time of the morning,” demanded Keyser. “Want," said Toombs, not recogniz ing Keyser. “Why, I’ve brought around the ice to pack Keyser in, so’s he’ll keep until tho funeral. The corpse’d spoil this kinder weather if Ididn’t.” Then Keyser remembered, and it made him feel mad when he thought how tho day had passed and left him still alive, and how he bad made a fool of himself. So the corpse said : “Well, you can jest skeet around home again with that ice ; the corpse is not yet dead. You’re a leetle too anxious, it strikes me. You're not going to chuck me into a sepulchre yet, if you have got everything ready. So you can haul off and unload.” About half-past ten that morning tho deacons came around with crape on their hats and gloom in their faces, to carry the body to the grave, and while they were on the front steps the marble yard man drove up with rosebud tombstone and a shovel, and stepped in to ask the widow how deep she wanted the grave dug. Just then the choir arrived with the min stcr, and thecompany was assembled in the parlor, when Keyser came in from the stable, where ho bad been dosing a horse with patent medieino and warm mash for the glanders. He was surprised; but he proceeded to explain that there had been a little mistake somehow. He was al so pained to find that everybody seemed to be a good deal disappointed, particu- the tombstone man, who went away mad, declaring that such an old fraud ought to bo rammed into the ground anyhow, dead or alive. Just as tho deacon left in a huff, tho tailor’s boy arrived with tho burial suit, and bo fore Keyser could kick him off the steps the paper carrier flung into tho door the Morning Argus m which that obituary notice occupied a prominent place. Anybody that wants a good, reliablo tombstone that has a broken rosebud on it, and that has never been used, can buy one of that kind, at a sacwfice for cash, from Keyser. He thinks the bad dream must have been caused by eating too much sausage at supper.—New York Weekly. -■■■-■—♦ A California story tells of a man who resolved to give up drinking, and went to a- notary to get him to di'aw up an affidavit to that effect. The document was drawn, read and proved; the party held up bis hand and murmured the usual promise. The paper was then properly scaled and delivered. “What’fl to pay ?” asked the pledge taker. “To nay—to pay 1” exclaimed the notary. “Nothing, of course—this is a labor of love.” “Nothing to pay!” returned the grateful but forgetful pledge-taker.— “You are a brick. Let’s have a drink. Here is a poet who says : “I’m sit! ing sadly on the strand, that stretches to the water's brink ; and as the day slips slowly by, I idly fold my hands and think.” While he is sitting on the strand with idly folded hands his family at home may be suffering for the neces saries of life. He should skirmish around before the day slips slowly by and secure a job of digging a cellar. Abraham wis the first sick man. Ha had Hagar in the wilderness. To. Archbishop Whately is ascribed this paradox: “The larger the income the harder it is to live within it.”
