Kansas University Weekly.
221
ADDITIONAL LITERARY.
The Miner.
A storm is gathering about the cluster of higher peaks that loom up beyond the head of La Sancla canyon. It is the first one of the season—marking the beginning of the rainy period so characteristic of the Zuni mountains. Great masses of black clouds are poised upon the distant peaks, muffled thunder echoes from every side and lightning flashes from point to point and plays among the cliffs.
A miner as rough and uncouth in appearance as the rocks about him, stands at the mouth of his tunnel and gazes at the storm-enveloped peaks with an air of great anxiety.
But it is not for himself that he fears. He is thinking of the danger which threatens a curly-headed child whom he had left alone in a tent a mile down the canyon. He wishes that he had brought the child with him as was his habit, or that he had removed the tent out of the canyon bed as he had intended that morning.
Suddenly the miner throws his pick aside, tears the heavy mining boots from his feet and speeds down the canyon. A faint sweeping sound, gradually growing louder, has reached his ears. Once before, years ago, he had heard that sound. A cloud-burst has released a flood upon the mountains and the water collected in innumerable small ravines which extend up the heights is pouring into the canyon.
No thought of saving himself by ascending the canyon walls enters the mind of the miner. He heeds not the stones that bruise his feet nor the thorns that tear his clothes and cut his limbs; he only hears the sound of the rushing water behind him growing louder and louder until it fills the canyon with a mighty reverberating roar. He only sees before him occassional glimpses of the white tent which he is nearing. Dread and hope, alike lend superhuman strength to his limbs. He leaps over boulders, logs and crevices and bursts through dense thickets with headlong speed to save the child or be swept away with it.
The torrent, eager to engulf its prey is close behind, but the goal is nearer. The miner reaches the tent, grasps in his arms the terrorstricken child cowering at the tent opening and springs up the ledges of the canyon wall. The tent and what it contained are mere atoms in the boiling, seething cataract. The miner cares not for that; he has saved his child. H.W.M.
An Unknown.
In babyhood, childhood and youth, our hero, if such he may be called, showed no marked indications of future greatness, and to add to the barreness of life he had the common name of smith, John Smith. In early years he was reared with care, but his father died, his mother passed away and at the age of ten, he was left alone in the world. For a short time he was cared for by the friends of his deceased parents but as there was little hope of return for money expended upon him, they gradually ceased their friendly services and he was then obliged to shift for himself. Finding no respectable means of employment, he passed his life upon the streets, driuking and quarrelling with other boys, in that worst of all cities for boys New York City. And thus he passed his life until he was eighteen years, just eighteen. Then one day he found himself in an uuusually depressed state of mind. He was nervous and irritable without knowing why. Even the finding of a ten dollar bill that morning did not elevate his spirits. That night he was beset with gloomy forebodings, yet he could not explain them, he could not sleep, and once in spite of himself he cried out with anguish.
That night his soul was born. And the rest of his story is soon told. Filled with a new desire to be a man in the world, he managed to get some old books he learned to read and write, and after a time obtained a clerkship in a large store, he passed the remainder of his life. Here he was little more than one of those "ships that pass in the night." What is the mission in the world of such man as this? Is it not unknown.? W.W.RENO