The Kentucky Gazette

An Interesting Rencontre.
From the New York Mail.

"Now, in Silverton, Nevada, we used to"
"Silverton?"
"Yes."
"Nevada?"
"Yes."
"Well? you're the first man I've seen from Silverton in a coon's age. I left there six years ago; left my wife there."
"I went there nearly six years ago."

Such was the passage in a conversation going on between two strangers taking a meal in a Utah restaurant, which attracted the attention of myself, eating at a different table.

The man latest from Silverton was a short, stout, sandy-looking man, with beard closely cropped, and a scar beginning, as I supposed, somewhere in the hair of his head, thence running down the forehead along to the right of the nose, making nicks in the lower part of the nose and in the lips, then disappearing in the beard of the chin. It looked as if some one had started to skin him and gave it up on the offer of a better job. The other man was tall, quick-spoken, nervous and dark-looking, with beard stricken with gray, and he would have been cross-eyed if he had had two eyes; as it was his one eye was set crossing

"Well, how is Silverton now?" continued the dark-looking man.
"Oh, petered."
"Anybody there?"
"Few old fellows sticking to claims that they think there's something in. They'll stay till Gabriel's trumpet rouses them out."
"Did you know Tom Slemmons?"
"Reckon Sandy Jones ain't there now?"
"Sold out of the Bet Your Boots for forty thousand, went back to Pike, and is cultivating a family."
"Dick Branigan made money there?"
"Yes; but he's dead—whisky got him."
"Did Harry Martin get rid of his money?"
"Yes, went to the Black Hills; got killed by the Sioux."
"Did his brother Thad go?"
"He went, made a big fortune out of the placers; is member of Congress from Nebraska now."
"Alyia Sanders, that kept the Dew of Heaven Saloon, has left, I suppose?" proceeded the one-eyed man.
"Left for good; got loaded with a stray bullet while a row was going on in his saloon one night."
"Wonder what became of Pat Pyburn, that run a saloon there—that Angelic?"
"He's a banker in San Francisco."
"John Blogden had a bank in Silverton; where's he banking now?"
"He's herding sheep for Tommy Pugmire, on Mud Lake."
"Tommy, the bootblack?"
"The same; he got feet in the Sweet By-and-By, and sold for twenty thousand."
"Well, Harry Sloper is the Co. in Blasdale & Co., a mercantile firm in Hong Kong, China. Luke Sloper killed a Chinaman in Slagtown and got six months in the Carson Penitentiary. Long sentence just for killing a China man. He'll be pardoned out though. Lige Sloper got into a shootin' scrimmage with Montana Jack and killed him. Lige afterward went to the Arkansas Hot Springs; he was not very well."
"Where did Charley Madden go?"
"Dead."
"Why, he was a stout, healthy-looking man."
"Whisky."
"Charley's wife and mine," continued the tall stranger, "were great cronies. My wife, somehow, never liked my name; heard she changed her part of it as soon as I left, and in a few months married without a divorce under her new name; married a fellow named Scraggs."
"Scraggs!"
"Scraggs."
"Ahem—ah—waiter, another cup of coffee. Suppose you know Charley's brother-in-law, Dutch Louis, that busted in the brewery business?" said the sandy looking man.
"First-rate; where's he?"
"He's in Silverbrockbury, Arizona. Got a big brewery there."
"Remember Alf Sykes?" said the stranger, with the one eye set crossing.
"Got twenty years at Carson for robbing the mail."
"Heard Ward Smithers had some trouble?"
"Five years at Carson for robbing Wells, Fargo. He didn't play it fine like they say old Blivens did; I believe that was his name—nick-name I guess."
"Old Blivens?"
"Old Blivens. You see he robbed Wells-Fargo, just out of Silverton; that was before I went there—heard of it. The messenger was the only witness against him, and on the morning of the day of the trial the messenger was found shot dead at the door of the room in which he slept, and which opened on a narrow alley. It was not known for certain who did it, but the Vigilantes suggested to Old Blivens that perhaps his head would be benefitted by a change of climate."

Said the dark stranger, with an expression of countenance which showed that he thought he was looking the short man square in the face:
"What might your name be?"
"Name? My name—is—is Scraggs. Yours?"
"Old Blivens."

Passing out of the door just at this point, I did not learn how they reconciled their conflicting locations.