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1 I 1 , r WESTERN WEEKLY I Vol. VIII SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, APRIL 4, 1908 No. 4 H "Every Thirty-Five Years" I By LEROY ARMSTRONG H I A Reminiscence H Once in every thirty-five years I go to San Francisco. I have been there twice. There is a line on age. From the beginning of this article I can sec there is going to be a lot of first person singular ; which is to be regretted. And yet it is about the only way in which the story can be told. To begin as Adam did, at the beginning, I was walking post one morning in front of the guard house up in Fort Bidwell, California, along about the holidays of 1873-4, when the commanding officer's man, one Hanson who always "took orderly" when he mounted guard came down and told me the Old Alan wanted to sec me in the ) adjutant's office. I got relieved, and went up. The Old Man, of ' course, was the colonel commanding. It was R. F. Bernard, and I think he was only a captain at the time, but we loved him, and called him colonel. If lie had expressed a preference for general, we would have promoted him instantly. The Old Man asked me if I wanted to be discharged, and I told him very nervously that I did. He fussed a minute with some lolded papers, and then told me to turn in my kit, and the papers would be made out next day, "by order of the Secretary of War. And that was the end of my service in the regular army. At the time there was a great deal of snow between Bidwell and. Reno, the usual railroad point, and I remained at the fort in the ex pectation of going down with the ambulance when the colonel's wife and children were taken down a little later, for a trip to the East. But Ia comrade named Hunter was discharged about the same time with me, and was directed to get out of the fort. He had another story and it is worth thctelling, too. But he had quarreled with his super iors, and now had to suffer the consequences. And as he had no money, and I had a little, I thought it would be noble of me and all that sort of thing to start out and tramp down the two hundred miles from Bidwell to Reno, and see that he got things to eat. The alterna tive seemed to be his foodless and lonely wandering all over the Sierra Nevadas in winter. And when you arc the right age that is an im pelling picture. You will share your last dollar with the imperilled one. You get wiser later. So Hunter and I Avalked out of the fort one morning, and my Bunkey stood on the top of the stile and Avavcd his broom in farewell as we followed the valley road around the bend of the hill. For Bunkey was room orderly that day. At a little town called Lake City probably because there was J neither lake nor city there we stopped for the night. All day we had ' been tramping and carrying our blankets, and were tired. -That night it snowed, and next day that valley soil clung to the boots until every btcp meant lifting from one to five pounds of gravel and loam the richest soil in the world for raising wheat, but the most killing stuff imaginable to march in. The sun shone and the snow melted, and j the farther we went, the worse was the torture. Wc stopped at night in Cedarville, then a group of seven houses. They tell me it is quite a town now, with a printing office. How I should have welcomed the smell of the ink and the tilt of the cases then. The only hotel was a private house, and wc ate supper there ! and must have bankrupted the proprietor, for we were ravenously i nungry. After supper I sat down in a rocking chair by the fire, and J presently a neighbor woman came in, and I tried to rise in obedience ' o my Indiana manners, and give her the choice chair. But I couldn't move. The tired legs simply refused to obey my will. Then they I got me to bed, and in the morning I was as good as new. What would I not give for that.old power of recuperation one of the things that J go with the passing of many years. We sold the blankets in themorning. They were too heavy, and we couldn't bring ourselves to sleep in them on the ground as wc should have done. Wc slept in beds "like Christians," as Paul Ray H would have said which cost the usual price, and no one cared if wc H did have blankets. But they were willing to buy them. I don't re- H member what they paid, but Hunter seemed to think we had made a M good bargain. Then wc walked on, past Buffalo Meadows, and to the B Salt Marshes. A man named Murphy had a homestead there, and wc H stopped with him over night. lie and his partner owned a borax H field. Did you ever sec one? The stuff hid in the sand, a bright, cot- tony clump, and was easily taken without deep digging. They also H had a salt lake. There must have been salt springs, for the salt was H made by the evaporation of water, and scraped up with wooden M shovels. They worked at it next morning before wc started on, and M it was much as salt is made here at Great Salt Lake. The top layer M was mixed with sand, which was carried by the wind. But under H that was a quantity of excellent salt. They used it at table, and sold M it to the stores. The sandy salt was sacked and sold to cattlemen. M The man Murphy believed he had a fortune. H I remember only Shccpshcad and Fish Springs, or Warm Springs M I don't know which as stations for the rest of the walk. At the M latter place a ranchman came in just as wc arrived, and while the M Chinaman was getting supper the ranchman insisted on playing seven- H up for the drinks. I suppose he was a cowboy, but I didn't recognize H the species. Hunter and I beat the ranchman, and I couldn't under- M stand what made my head so funny as we went out to that supper of M soda biscuit and boiled beef. M A little nearer Reno Murphy and his partner overtook us in a M double-seated wagon, and invited us to ride. The last'tcn miles was H a delight. The tramp had been very tiresome, and the ride was a H blessing. M Wc reached Reno Saturday evening, and while they were putting M up the team I stood in the street and looked at the first town the H first real town I had seen in seven months. A woman in a good H house was playing the piano and singing "Silver Threads Among the H Gold," which was a mighty new song in 1874. It was the sweetest H music I have ever heard. I listened unmoved to the rhapsodies of the H Chicago Symphony Concert the other night, but the singing of that ,1 woman, and the wonderful notes of her piano came to me again. I I suppose she is dead these many years, and has gone where they play H better music, on finer instruments; but she will not exert a stronger H charm than she did that night with her vapid song, and the brass- H kettle beating of her pioneer piano. H There were church bells in Reno next morning, and a sermon H which made me so homesick I wanted to shake Hunter and buy a H ticket right away for the East. But loyalty to what I believed to be a H destitute friend returned before traintimc, and I remained with Hunter. H That night some gentleman stole my purse with its wonderful, beau- H tiful gold and paper money, and I went out next morning and sat on H the railroad bridge over Truckec river, and cried the first time since H infancy, and the last time for a great many years. Hunter was gone ,H My home was two thousand miles away and I had sixty cents. H So I walked to Virginia City and set type on the old Enquirer H till I accumulated some funds. By that time the homesickness had I vanished, and I went down to "the Bay." That season in Virginia H City remains as a marvel in my memory. Across the street from the I composing room was a keno joint, and whenever any player won, an H attendant would ring a gong. It kept up its temptations all night, and I was still publishing, some man's good fortune when wc printers went to our beds in the gray of the morning. H At some place near the Summit I went to sleep qn the trip west I of Reno. There were snowsheds, and masses of snow that seemed I everlasting, all about us. When I awoke there was a man plowing, H and a peach tree was in bloom. It seemed impossible. We reached I (Continued on Pace 21) I