Wichita Eagle

He Concluded, However, That Connecticut—
A Good Enough For Him—

At a certain far west railroad station we got into conversation with a man who was sitting on the depot platform waiting for the train.

"I came out to this country a few days ago," he said after talking some time, "for my health, but I am going back to Connecticut on the next train."

"Doesn't the climate agree with you?" asked E.

"Yes, I think the climate would agree with me all right, but the people don't. I went up here a few miles. A friend of mine had spent a summer near there on Big Nose George's ranch, and he recommended the place to me.

"I simply went there for my health, intending to board during the fall and return home before cold weather. As I got off the train when it arrived I noticed quite a crowd of men on the platform, all wearing big flat hats and spurs and walking very bow-legged. I started down the steps toward the hotel when one of them approached me confidentially and said: 'Be you goin' to open a bank, partner?' 'A what?' I asked. 'A bank,' he said. 'Why, no,' said I, 'what made you think I was going to engage in the banking business?' 'Oh, I thought you looked a little that way,' he replied. 'Me 'n' the boys 'lowed you had your outfit all excep' the tables in your grip—the boxes, an' keerds, an' chips, an' layout generally.' 'You are mistaken,' I replied, a good deal bewildered, and went on over to the hotel.

While I was registering the clerk leaned over and said: "Goin' to deal faro?' 'No, sir,' I replied, light beginning to dawn on me a little. 'Keno or hazard, then?' he went on. 'Nothing of the kind!' I said warmly. 'Jess straight draw poker, I s'pose?' he continued. 'No game at all,' I replied. 'Ain't goin' to try to work the boys on no thimble rig, I hope?' he said anxiously. 'They dropped a roll on that last week and they are a little cross about it.' 'No, sir; I have no gambling apparatus at all,' I said. 'I simply came out here for my health,' and I went and sat down by the door.

"I saw him looking at me pretty hard, and after a while the crowd I had seen at the station as well as others began to drop in and whisper to the clerk and talk low among themselves and look at me. Pretty soon one of them, who wore such a big hat that it made him stoop-shouldered, came over and said: 'Stranger, my name is Pete Doyle; they call me Webfoot, but my right name is Pete Doyle.' 'I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Doyle,' I said, shaking hands with him. He started a little and then said: 'I reckon you better call me Webfoot—I'm more onto it. I am one of the city aldermen and chairman of the council committee on strangers. The committee directed me to ask you a question.' 'Go ahead,' I replied. 'We wanted to ask you'—and he lowered his voice almost to a whisper—'what you had to leave the states for?' 'I didn't have to leave the east for anything,' I replied; 'I came out here for my health.' Webfoot looked at me very hard and started to retreat, when I heard some one behind us say in a loud whisper: 'Ask-him—how-fur-ahead-o'-the-sheriff-he-was!' Webfoot looked at me a minute and said: 'I take it there wa'n't no sheriff?' 'No,' I replied.

"A lot of others were standing outside and looking gloomy and depressed, and polishing up their revolvers with their pocket handkerchiefs.

"One man was talking very loud all the time about this idea of trying to make the town a corral for the escaped criminals from the states being about played out. I afterward learned that he was the postmaster.

And about this time the mayor of the town began to walk up and down the middle of the street with a shotgun on his shoulder, all the time looking off across the prairie. I heard him explaining to the probate judge that there might be more of 'em coming and that he 'lowed to give it to 'em 'fore they got into town and got a foothold like this rooster had done.

"Then another man made me roll up my trousers to show that I didn't have a striped pair on underneath. He went out and told the mayor that I probably had time to change them. The mayor said he noticed my hair had grown out some too.

"I was now thinking of Connecticut most of the time. And all the while those fellows were discussing the probable amount of the reward for my capture. And another began to speculate as to whether I had the money I had stolen about my person or in my satchel.

"And all the time the county sheriff was riding up and down the sidewalks, with his horse on the run, shouting: 'All members of vigilance committee meet at Maverick house in thirty minutes! Business of importance with small man from Connecticut!'

"I gave the subject a good deal of careful study and concluded that Connecticut was a pretty good place after all. I couldn't see why I should have ever thought my health was poor there.

The coroner dropped in and looked me over, and I heard him promise a dozen different men to see that each was on the inquest.

"About this time my old friend Webfoot came down the street, dragging a long rope behind him, with a hangman's noose on the end of it. He looked in and said I was the man who refused to shake hands with him or call him by his last name. He said any man who was too proud to shake hands with old Webfoot, councilman from the Second ward, had got to hang. Then he threw the rope over the limb of a tree in front of the door so I could look off across the prairie through the noose and enjoy the scenery.

"The sheriff was now announcing that the vigilance committee would meet in five minutes. I got a gleam of hope just then, when I saw the city marshal coming, wearing his star. I appealed to him for protection, but he looked me all over and then said he reckoned it was best for the civil authorities to take their own course, and he waved his hand so as to include every cutthroat in sight. The proprietor of the hotel came in and presented a bill for $2, for occupying his house two hours, and said I better pay before the exercises; and I heard the county judge yelling that the time was up.

"I then started out the back door for Connecticut. I found that my health was first rate for running. When I left Connecticut I thought I needed a change of climate, but I concluded that I still needed one more change. There's more health in Connecticut than I ever gave it credit for. Good-by."

—Fred H. Carruth in New York Tribune