Short Stories
But all bad things come to an end as well as good, and so
with Black Leclere. On the summer low water, in a poling boat,
he left McDougall for Sunrise. He left McDougall in company
with Timothy Brown, and arrived at Sunrise by himself. Further,
it was known that they had quarrelled just previous to pulling
out; for the Lizzie, a wheezy ten-ton stern-wheeler, twenty-four
hours behind, beat Leclere in by three days. And when he did
get in, it was with a clean-drilled bullet-hole through his shoul-
der muscle, and a tale of ambush and murder.
A strike had been made at Sunrise, and things had changed
considerably. With the infusion of several hundred gold-seekers,
a deal of whisky, and half-a-dozen equipped gamblers, the mis-
sionary had seen the page of his years of labour with the Indians
wiped clean. When the squaws became preoccupied with cook-
ing beans and keeping the fire going for the wifeless miners, and
the bucks with swapping their warm furs for black bottles and
broken time-pieces, he took to his bed, said "Bless me" several
times, and departed to his final accounting in a rough-hewn, ob-
long box. Whereupon the gamblers moved their roulette and
faro tables into the mission house, and the click of chips and
clink of glasses went up from dawn till dark and to dawn again.
Now Timothy Brown was well beloved among these adven-
turers of the North. The one thing against him was his quick
temper and ready fist—a little thing, for which his kind heart
and forgiving hand more than atoned. On the other hand, there
was nothing to atone for Black Leclere. He was "black," as more
than one remembered deed bore witness, while he was as well
hated as the other was beloved. So the men of Sunrise put an an-
tiseptic dressing on his shoulder and haled him before Judge
Lynch.
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