Bill Nye and Boomerang. Or, The Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary Gems

We went to the warden's office, and talked with him a little while, showed him that we were not loaded with giant powder and cross-cut saws, and then we were placed in charge of an usher, and sent through the building to view the mighty manufacturing interests that are carried on inside, where the striped criminals silently and doggedly are moving about at their varied occupations.

After awhile I got gloomy and began to whistle one of my tearful refrains in G. The usher told me to please put up my whistle, and I did so, partly to gratify him and partly because he had a temporary advantage over me. Most every one who has heard me whistle seems glad that his lines have fallen in such pleasant places; but this man, as I afterward learned, did not know the first principle of music. He groped along through life without knowing the difference between a symphony in B, and the low, sad song of the twilight cat.

Pretty soon we came to three men whose faces attracted my attention.

They were the Younger brothers. Their faces were easy of identification from the resemblance to wood cuts published at the time of their capture. I stood silently looking at them for some time.

Their countenances are a study for the reader of human character. Sullen, grim and depraved, they impress the beholder with their utter scorn for the laws and usages of the land. I asked the usher if I guessed right; but he turned away and told me it was against the rules of the institution to point out any one to visitors, or identify the convicts in any way. Then I knew that I was right, because he was so reserved.

I gave one of the men my card and entered into a conversation with him. It wasn't much of a conversation, however, because the usher broke in on me, and shut me off, as it were.

The description that I have given of the Younger brothers in this letter is not over full, owing partly to the fact that the usher wouldn't let me be as sociable with them as I wanted to be; and partly because I afterward discovered, casually, that they were not the Younger brothers.

Speaking of convicts reminds me of my experience with a poor, ignorant man at Laramie – the creature of circumstances – who was sentenced to three years in the Territorial penitentiary, for stealing a pair of flea-bitten bronchos. He was convicted mainly on the testimony of a man, who was afterward sent up for the same offence, and it was the general belief that the first-named man was entirely innocent. He was trusted about the penitentiary at all times, and allowed to go outside the walls without guard, but never betrayed the trust reposed in him.

I went to him and talked with him. His spirits and health were broken, and he told me, with tears in his eyes, that he hoped only for a merciful death to end his sufferings. While acting as guard to a party of convicts outside one day, they fell upon him and nearly killed him with a huge stone, and then leaving him bleeding and insensible.

He could not tell of his sufferings without crying. I undertook to enlist sympathy for him, and when I told his tale of misfortune to the governor and authorities in that thrilling way of mine, I had no difficulty in securing his pardon.

He came to my office and sobbed out his gratitude till I told him it was of no consequence, and begged him not to mention it, although it was the proudest moment of my life. He went to work for a citizen of Laramie, with the old, industrious, patient air, and I pointed him out with pride to my friends as a man whom I had rescued and brought back to a useful life.

One morning, however, before the pale dawn had streaked the eastern sky he took his employer's team and what money there was in the house and struck out for the Gunnison country. He did not know anything about mining, but he had such implicit confidence in himself that he started out alone and without letters of introduction to leading men in that country. It was a good thing that he did have perfect confidence in himself, for no one else had much confidence in him after that.

During that day a good many of my friends came around to see me. I didn't know I had so many friends. They all seemed to be in first-rate spirits. They seemed glad to see me, and laughed a good deal. Sometimes I couldn't see what they were laughing at, for my horizon was shrouded in gloom. It don't take much to make some people laugh.

I have never felt perfectly at ease with Governor Thayer since that. I know that he regards me as a confederate with that man, and he thinks that I got part of the money realized from the sale of that team, but I didn't. If it were the last statement I should make on earth I would still say?

As Heaven is my witness, that I have never realized a single dollar from the sale of that team.

HE WENT OUT WEST FOR HIS HEALTH

In my capacity of justice of the peace and general wholesale and retail dealer in fresh, new-laid equity and evenhanded justice, I often meet with those who have seen better days, and who, through the ever-changing fortunes of the west, have fallen lower and lower in the social scale, until they stand up and are assessed as "common drunks," or "vags," or "assault and batteries," with that natural and easy grace which comes only to those who have been before the public in that capacity, so numerously, that it has ceased to indicate itself by the usual embarrassment of the amateur.

Perhaps no surging sentiments of pity have stirred my very soul during my official career, like those that throbbed wildly athwart my system a few days ago.

It was a case of the most bitter disappointment of a young life. A youth from Chicago, came to me, near the close of day. I was just about to lock up the judicial scales for the evening, and secure the doors of the archives, preparatory to going out and "shaking" the mayor for the lemonade, after which I intended to breathe in a little fresh atmosphere and go home to dinner.

It had been a hard day in the temple of justice that day, and the court was weary.

It had dealt out even-handed justice at regular rates, since early morning, at so much per deal, till fatigue was beginning to show itself in the lines upon the broad, white brow.

Therefore, when a halting step was heard on the stair, there was a low murmur on the part of the court, and a half-surprised moan that sounded like the tail end of an affidavit.

The young man who entered the hallowed presence of eternal justice, and the all-pervading and dazzling beauty of the court in its shirt-sleeves, was of about medium stature, with shoes cut decollette, and Roman-striped socks clocked with brocaded straw-colored silk.

He wore an ecru colored straw hat, with navy-blue brocaded band, and necktie of old gold, with polka dots of humberta and cardinal, interspersed with embroidered horseshoe and stirrup in coucherde soleil and ultramarine.

His hair was dark and oleaginous, and his shirt was cream colored ground, with narrow baby-blue stripes, cutaway collar, and cuffs that extended out into space.

He also had some other clothes on.

But over all, and pervading the entire man, was the look of hopelessness and corroding grief. With all his good clothes on, he was a hollow mockery, for his eyes were heavy with woe.

The nose also was heavy with woe.

This feature in fact was more appropriately draped in token of its sadness than any of the rest. Few noses are so expressive of a general and incurable gloom as this one was. It had evidently at one time been a glad, joyous, and buoyant nose, but now it was despondent and low spirited.

There was a look of goneness and utter desolation about it that would stir the better impulses of the most heartless.

The feature had evidently tried to centralize itself, but had failed. Here and there narrow strips of court-plaster had gone out after it and tried to win it back, but they had not succeeded.

I said, "Mister, there seems to be a panic among your nose. It's none of my business, of course, but couldn't you get a brass band and call it together? Then you could hold a meeting and decide whether it had better resume or not."

The gentleman from Chicago went through the motions of wiping the wide waste and howling desolation where his once joyous nose had been, and then, putting away the plum-colored silk handkerchief with the orange border, he said "'Squire, I have been grossly deceived. You see in me the victim of a base misrepresentation. In Chicago this season of the year is extremely unhealthy. The intense hot weather carries away the innocent and the good, and I feared that my turn would come soon.

"I heard of the salubrious clime of your mountain city, where the days are filled with gladness and the burning heat of the mighty city by the inland sea never comes.

"I came here two brief days ago, and you can see with the naked eye what the result has been.

"It is not gratifying. The climate may in the abstract be all right, but there are certain sudden and wonderful atmospheric changes that I cannot account for, and they are very disastrous.

"I was sitting in a Second Street saloon to-day, talking about matters and things, when the conversation turned on physical strength. One thing led to another, and finally I made a little humorous remark to a young man there, which remark I have made in Chicago many times without disastrous results, but the air clouded up all of a sudden, and in the darkness I could see Roman candles going off and pin-wheels and high-priced rockets and blue-lights, etc.

"Shortly after that I gathered up what fragments of my face I could find and went down to the doctor's office.

"He held an inquest on my nose, and I paid for it.

"I shall go back to Chicago to-morrow. I shall not be as handsome as I was, but I have gained a good deal of information about the broad and beautiful west which is priceless in value to me.

"All I wished to say was this; if you see fit to mention this matter to the public, tone it down as much as possible, and say that for a bilious, nervous temperament, perhaps the air here is too bracing."

I have considered his sensitive feelings, and have tried to give the above account in fair and impartial terms.

A QUIET LITTLE WEDDING WITHOUT ANY FRILLS

Another class of those who frequent the temple of justice includes those who are in search of matrimony at reduced rates.

I remember one unostentatious little wedding which took place at the general headquarters of municipal jurisprudence, over which I preside, and during the earlier history of my reign.

It was quite a success in a small way.

I had just moved into the office, and had been engaged that morning in putting up a stove. The stove had seemed reluctant, and as my assistant was sociably drunk, I had not succeeded very well.

The pipe didn't seem to be harmonious, and the effort to bring about a union between the discordant elements, had not, up to the time of which I speak, produced any very gratifying results.

I had reached down into the elbow of the pipe several times, to see how it felt down there, and after satisfying my morbid curiosity in that respect, I had yielded to a wild and uncontrollable desire to scratch my nose with the same hand.

This had given me an air of intense sadness, and opaque gloom.