The Beulah County “War.”
By H. M. Vernon.
One of the most striking characteristics of the Westerner is the high regard in which he holds womankind. Even in the roughest mining camps a woman is absolutely safe, and is treated with a consideration unknown in many more civilized centres. This remarkable story illustrates the Westerner’s innate chivalry in a very striking fashion. Sooner than drag the name of a young schoolmistress into a quarrel, a resident of Three Corners, Montana, allowed himself to be made an outlaw, and for weeks defied the population of a whole county to arrest him, even when a field gun was brought out to shell his fastness. How in his extremity the girl he had befriended came to his rescue and put an end to this extraordinary “war” is graphically told in the narrative.
In the extreme western part of the State of Montana, U.S.A., in the County of Beulah, lies a little town called Three Corners. At first only a junction on the Rio Grande Railway, from which point countless thousands of cattle were shipped to all parts of the world, Three Corners grew to be a flourishing place. The wooden shanties, gambling “joints,” and dance halls gave way to brick buildings, several banks, a school, and other signs of progress, as respectable settlers moved farther toward the Golden West. Of course, a part of the old town remained, and with it a few of the characters typical of a Western “cow town.” Among these was a tall, raw-boned man who had drifted West in the ‘eighties, settling at Three Corners and opening a gambling-house. His name was “Jim” Cutler. He was a man of very few words, but with one great failing—he would shoot first and argue afterwards. Yet this gambler, who was known and feared far and wide as a “gun-fighter,” was at heart the mildest of men, beloved by all the children in the town, to whom he gave coppers galore. Furthermore, Cutler would put up with all manner of insult from a man under the influence of liquor, or from “Tenderfeet” who did not know their danger. Cutler’s shooting propensities were directed solely toward avowed “bad men” or those who delighted in being known as bullies. In the course of his altercations with such characters this tall, raw-boned man—who could, and did, “pull his gun” like a streak of lightning—added to the population of the local cemetery with a score of six.
Among the new-comers to Three Corners during the rehabilitation of that town was a Hebrew named Moses Goldman. This man, a good-looking fellow of some twenty-eight years, hailed from New York. He opened a shop, and, with the business ability of his race, soon succeeded in making it the principal draper’s establishment of the place. Before long, however, reports began to circulate that the handsome young Hebrew was not quite so respectful in demeanour towards his lady customers as he should have been, and, although highly popular with a certain element, the major portion of Three Corners’ female population gave Goldman’s shop a wide berth.
One Monday morning Jim Cutler, who had been up all night looking after the “game” in his establishment, was just leaving the place when a young woman, whom he recognised as the schoolmistress, ran up to him and said: “Oh, Mr. Cutler, would you mind walking as far as the school-house with me?”
Cutler, somewhat astonished, did so, and was gratefully thanked for his trouble. After leaving her he walked slowly back to his rooms, wondering why he of all men should have been chosen to escort the pretty “school ma’am.”
Some days afterwards Cutler, who passed the school on his way to and from the Gem Saloon (his place), saw the mistress deliberately cross the street just before reaching Goldman’s shop, and continue on her way on the other side. He also saw Goldman come to the door and try to attract the girl’s attention. When he reached Goldman, the latter; twirling his moustache, remarked, laughingly, “Shy girl, that, eh?” Cutler looked at the Hebrew for a moment, and then answered quietly, as he moved away, “She ain’t your kind.”
Three weeks after this little episode there was a ball at the City Hotel, and, naturally, almost the entire youth and beauty of Three Corners “turned out.” The City Hotel was just opposite Cutler’s saloon, and at about one o’clock the gambler was sitting in a chair outside his place, listening to the music, when the schoolmistress and her mother left the hotel on their way home. A moment later a man also quitted the building and followed them. Presently he stopped the two ladies and attempted to converse with them. The younger of the women apparently expostulated with him, and then the two went on, leaving him standing at the corner. Cutler recognised the solitary figure as that of Goldman, the draper, and drew his own conclusions. Next morning Cutler made it his business to leave the Gem Saloon just as the schoolmistress was passing, and strode up to her.