279

A MODEST OLD MAN.

He Gives a Strictly Truthful Account of His Wonderful Record.

Briart got into conversation with an old man who was sitting in front of a livery barn in Leadvill, Col., who incidentally mentioned that he was born in Missouri and had lived all his life in the Territories of extremene Western States.

"Ah, then I suppose you rode the first pony express that went through to the coatst?" Briar suggested, mildly but confidently.

"No, I never rode the pony expressed at all," he replied.

"Didn't? Then you're the original discoverer of gold in California?"

"No, you're mistaken again," returened the old man, sadly.

"I am?" said Briar, now thoroughly astonished. "But of course you guided the first Union Pacific surveryors?"

"No," and the old man sighed. "No I didn't do that, neither."

"Weil, this beats me!" said Briar, still more surprised. "Perhaps you aren't the orginal owner of the land where Denver now stands?"

"N-o-o; never owned it."

"See here, now, weren't you chied of scouts for the Government for fifteen years?"

"O, no,no--no, honest I never was."

"Now, be careful--tell the truth-- weren't you playing cards with Wild Bill when he was shot a Deadwood?"

"No! Let up please--I wasn't in any of those places nor didn't do none of them things, an' I can prove it; but then, young man, I don't mind telling you that Idid guide Brigham Young on his first trip to Salt Lake, an' I was all through the Kansas-Newbrasky trouble, an' finally put it down, made the first find in Nevada, learnt Buffalo Bill how to load a gun, drove the first Black Hills treasure-coach, an' was the only man that come through the Custer massacre alive, after layin on the battlefield wounded for forty-eight hours, surrounded by the groans an' shrieks of the dead an' dying! That's my record, young fel er, an' I got the papers for ev'ry word of it!"--Chicago Tribune