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Show A WESTERN CHARACTER. 33 a Cherokee that was leaving, an' worked it five years, an' got every thing fixed beautiful, with lots of stock and grain. But it seemed like they was no luck in that cussed country ; anyhow, I was turned out bag an' baggage." " Turned out! How? Did you lose your land?" " Well, yes ; it amounted to that finally." He seemed desirous of giving the story, and yet was reluctant to begin. " But how did it happen ? " I persisted. " Well, stranger, I never just got the right of it, an' for a long time I never liked to think of it, for I always got mad an' swore under my breath, an' it worried the old woman, an' made me lose sleep, an' so I've pretty much quit thinkin' about it. You see when the Injins left, there was a deal of swindlin'. Most of ' em was ignorant, an' some signed away their land when drunk, an' a few rascally Injins traveled ' round with the speculators, signin' away others' rights, an' swearin' they was the ones. A man just come up one day with a deed to my land, an' the court pow- wowed awhile about it and said it was his'n, an' I just had to clear." " But you had your stock." " Well, no, not exactly. You see I lawed him awhile, an' the court made me pay for that, an' my lawyer cost something; an' the height of it was, when the thing was done I just put my wife on the only hoss we had left, with a little one behind her, an' the baby in her arms, an' me an' the oldest boy walked, an' we went back to Ten-nessee." " And began again without a cent !" " Well, not that exactly. I raised some money in a year or two. But somehow it didn't seem the old thing to me there, an' so we come over west of the mountains, an' got a little piece of land in Coffee County, an' that was our home till we come out here. After all we've got along, an' I've never been in jail but once." " In jail ! Why you never committed any crime?" " No, but come mighty nigh it once near enough to be took up an' mighty nigh hung for it. But that was out in Iowa." " So you did take another trip, after all." " Yes ; it was along o' the boys, specially brother Joe him that 1 always sot most store by. Joe married young married an Irish girl in the neighborhood, though all of us opposed it. I could see she had temper ; but every feller's got to take his chances on that, anyhow. You know how that is." 3 |