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Show 326 WESTERN WILDS. The regular winter storms struck them at Rocky Ridge, but not until the first relief company from Salt Lake City had reached them. In their worst extremity some had even accepted charity from the wretched Goshoots, whose existence from December till May is organ-ized famine and misery. But help came too late for one of our friends. Old Man James had borne up long and well. The day the first storm of winter came he sank by the wayside with scores of others. John Chislett, commander of this hundred, took off his own blanket and wrapped it around his older and weaker brother; and a few hours later the relief party brought him into camp. They warmed* and chafed his cold limbs, and pressed food upon him ; but his thoughts were far away. He babbled of green fields, and the hawthorn along the English lanes; of the village ale- house and the Chartist's Club, of his little Nixie, still a child, as he thought. This recalled his later experience, and starting up, he cried: " My curse, my eternal curse on those who brought us from our English home ;" then fell back with glazing eye and stiffening jaw. The Old Radical had found the Brotherhood of Man at last. But Brigham's kingdom had lost a subject. # * * * * <* While fanaticism was corrupting fresh young English hearts, the harsh attrition of rural life in the West was wearing another hero into shape. But who would have chosen Willie Manson for a hero that spring afternoon? his face covered with dust, through which the tears were washing little tracks ; his feet bare, and his head half covered with a dilapidated straw hat. He had but dim recollections of a tall and kindly man who spoke to him as " my boy ; " since then his " legal guardians" had made him more familiar with the phrase, " that wretched young one," and the neighbors' children had nicknamed him " Binder," in allusion to the legal tie which relegated him to the authority of his master. How have they wasted their time those poets who write of " innocent childhood?" Cruelty is bound up in the heart of a child, and is manifested against the helpless of his own age. If you do not believe it, watch a group of school children, when a pauper child, or a " bound boy " or girl is first sent among them. But to- day Willie Manson had received blows as well as harsh words, and as he came across the fields on his errand, a glance west-ward showed him a wide expanse of open country; and all at once arose that vague longing which appears to have moved our race ever since the first Aryan turned towards sunset. Obeying a wild im-pulse half anger and half a formed desire to run away the boy fled |