The Story Doller. THE HAUNTED RANCH.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 227, 8 December 1893, Page 4

The Story Doller. THE HAUNTED RANCH.

*• A WESTJiBJST STORY. 4 Stranger hereabouts, I reckon ? said the driver, inquiringly, as he pulled up his horses on the plateau to gel. their wind, before beginni g their descent into the gulch, through which the perilous mountain road ran in a narrow track of white dust, fringed by wild sage brush and broken chaparral. 4 Reckoned everybody knowed the story of Yates’ Ranch ? ’ "I reminded the driver that for four years I had been in Europe, and that this was my first trip overland to California. It was in ’49, long before a Pullman car had been dreamed of, and while the great railway, which now stretches from sea to sea, was a magnificent scheme yet unborn in the busy brains of its projectors, who at that time were careless schoolboys, doubtless, intent on tops and balls, and kites with stupendous tails. Every traveller of that time knows the dismal track which had to be crossed in the overland journey—mostly o>n the backs of mules, but sometimes for a little distance on the top of lumbering coaches, every lurch of which seemed to wrench soul and body apart, to say nothing of the imminent risk of broken backs and necks by being burled over some yawning precipice. Yates’ Ranch was one of the few human habitations we had passed during the last three days, but no smoke ascended from its chimney, and the wild mountain bushes grew on the rude doorstep. It w«s evidently uninhabited. For want of something better to say I had suggested as mucii to old Saunders, the driver I knew by the expression of his face that there was a story- 1 passed my pipe to him. Nothing like the influence of good tobacco to loosen a man’s tongue. t Come, old fellow,’ said I, ‘ let’s hear the whole of it ’ Saunders drew a meditative whiff or two and started his horses. «Steady there, Digby,’ said he. 4 Whoa Nick. Drat the critter, lie alters shies at that heap of stones, and no wonder, for, gtranger, that’s the grave of a murderer. Here Saunders blew out a mouthful of smoke in my face., whipped in his leaders, and regarded the distant snow clad peaks with a contemplative eye. ‘Reckon we’ll have snow afore many days, stranger. The air shaves like a razor/ i But about the murderer s grave, old fellow ? ’ . . , *On 1 ah! wall, it’s a niceish sort of a pi at e for a fellow of that kind to put his self under. Good look-out, if he should fancy to rise up and take a squ nt around, Snug, too, with bushes all around, and doosed bandy to where she’s buried, too, if that's any object.’ Saunders took a slight pull at a bask which he carried in his pocket, and after tendering the vile-smelling thing to me, and smiling with evident satisfaction at my refusal, be began his story. s Five years ago last June Torn Yates cum here from New York. His wife was along with him, None, of yer second class txasli about them Roth of ’em was upper crust elear through. The woman, she was as handsome as a picter, will) a red on her cheeks that made a feller think of the C;o uds about sundown, and a tia.-di in In r eyes that no diamonds I ev<r steel could beofin to hold a candle to. She was aregiar bi°h— stepper—like that leader there—jus the kind of woman for women 'oiks to hate like pisen, and for men to go crazy over. She had piles of dresses and jewels, am. I’ve seen her, dressed like a queen, cooking Yates’ supper of hominy and venison, ana never losing her dignity a particle, Yates, he was one of them quiet, stiiitonsrued chaps that a body can’t find out much about, but he loved his wife to distraction. and lie Govldn'* sneerceiy hear her out of his sight. His eyes lollered her all the time, ana he’d fly .to help her about anything he could do, jest au if be was her lover instid of her husband. And he wa.e a mighty handy man about a house. t bad a claim back there on that yer hill that we’ve just passed—a sort of a rich ’nil too ; and as it was more’ll he could work, he staked some of it off, and sold R out in lots to other parties. So that at one time there was quite a smartish little pillage round sTActs’ Rauch,

One dark, stormy night, a couple ol

81 rangers rid up to the ranch and want d to sec Yates. I was laid up with the rheumatiz, and was staying a lew days at Yates’, for he was a charitable fellow, and I had neither kith nor kin. I couldn't move hand nor foot for the cussed pain, but I could see and hear sharp enuff, The two strangers came in and t,browed off their wet coats. Mrs Yates, she was a-atooping over the fire, baking the bannocks for supper when they came in. She riz up , slowly and looked at them ! Never shall I forget the way that sunset red went out of her face. She growed as pale as a corpse, throwed her arms up in a wild, crazy way, and started to rush out of the room. One of the men—the one she had been locking at —grabed her by the arm savagely, and his voice sounded like the hiss of a rattlesnake. 4 I have found yon !’ said he. 4 And now, Elizabeth Osgood, I will have my revenge ! False wife, heartless mother ! you shall die !’ He drew a pistol and pointed it at her head. Yates sprang upon him fiercely, hut the woman laid her vrbite hand on his arm and •held him quiet while she spoke to the stranger. 4 John Osgood,’ said she, in a cold, hard tone, that made my aching bones shake with terror, ‘ I am no wife of yours ! You won me by a lie ! You told me that Tom was false—was married to another—and I, fool that I was, believed the words of a tongue which had never spoken anything but lies. And out of pique 1 married you. You knew I hated you, for did I not tell you so ? Afterwards Tom came ! I loved him ! In Heaven’s sight I was his wife — what did I care how the world thought ? I fled with him to this wild solitude, and I will never leave him ! You may kill me if you like —my corpse you can carry with you, but my living body—never !’ How her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks flamed with crimson ! She looked like a giantess ; but she was a little woman ; and as she stood there in her rage, her shining brown head would not have reached above my shoulder. For a moment Osgood fell back, and I thought he was going to back out, but the next instant he sprang forward, Yates closed with him. There was a dread fill struggle. Both used knives, and the blood was led all over the floor. I groaned and cussed because I was obliged to lay there and not lift a finger, and the olher man was holding the woman, Yales was getting the better of Osgood, for he was a strong, wiry man. and he had a ’emper like a tiger. Osgood realised it, so did the other stranger. ‘ Curse him ! shoot him, Osgood, and have done with it!' cried he. There was a sharp click of a pistol, and the sound of the shot almost together, and Yate3 fell over in a heap on the floor ; I knowed he was done for, and I shrieked like a fiend in my rage at being so helpless. ‘ l am finished, Lizzie,’ said the poor fellow. ‘ Good by, darling—good-by !’ Bhe broke away from the man who held her, and flung herself on the dying Yates. I heard her words distinctly. 4 Kill me, Tom !’ she cried 4 Quick before he seizes me again ! Your pistol—where is it ? Here is my heart! Oh, Tom! Tom ! thank heaven we shall die together !’ Then i he sharp report of a pistol was heard, I saw tlio smoke cloud for a moment Yates and his love, then Lis arms were round her and tier’s round him, and ;hey were dead. Stranger, rheumatiz was p ,-w< Less to keep me there any longer. I leaped to my Let, and oat into the night I went, rousing the miners from their beds, and stirring them up to vengeance. Already Osgood and bis friend were mounting tlreir horses, but they never stirred ten stops from that ranch up yonder, la them days we didn’t wait for no judges nop jixrors. Before two hours had gone by we bad Osgood snugly buried under the pile of rocks I showed ye, and t’pther chap Lad been sot adrift as naked as he cum into the world, and as good a coat of tar on him as coaid be spread. The feathers we had to leave out, because we had none. I reckon some folks’ll say that Osgood hsd ft right to claim his wife, but we fellers didn’t think so, under the sarcumstances, and besides, our blood W“ s BP, and there’s no knowing what a miner’ll do wb@n that’s the case. Yes, stranger, the ranch is haunted, and I couldn’t drive them leaders of mine past there after dark if l wap to wip ’em till

they dropped Horses is nigh about human, stranger, and some of ’em a leetle beyond that. Whoa there, Digby ! Stiddy now, Nick !’