THE SETTLERS' BRIDGE 

 A Profit of Nearly $20.000 Was Made on This Bridge, which Cost. Originally, about S500 



And this is not all. Most of these 

 homesteaders located in the vicinity 

 k-ft their claims during tin- severe win- 

 ters, and sought residence in the sur- 

 rounding towns. I'.nt Cascade Hill re- 

 mained on his claim all winter, for 

 there was money in it. About once 

 a month, he dictated a letter to nearly 

 every .settler, informing him or her. 

 that a storm had damaged the bridge 

 to snch an extent that it would have 

 to be repaired immediately. 



He explained that each man or wom- 

 an's share of the expense would be 

 about 85. It i.s said that, in the fift- 

 years he practiced this scheme, he 

 collected about $8,000 for repairs to a 

 bridge, which people in Index told me 

 never was damaged but twice in that 

 time, and then was repaired in a half 

 day at a cost of about S;<>. 



I hit Cascade Bill soon met his 

 Waterloo, as murder came out. He 

 came home tearfully intoxicated one 

 night in December, kicked his faith- 

 ful spouse out of doors, locked her 

 in the woodshed, and threw in after 

 her the bones his dog had not touched 

 that night. The next morning he 

 temporarily disappeared, and one of 

 our rangers found the woman in a half- 

 dead erudition from cold and hunger, 

 two days later, attracted by her pitiful 

 584 



cries fur help, as he passed near the 

 claim to a ranger station close by. 



\\ e took the woman in charge, and 

 after she had fully recovered, she told 

 us i me of the most heart-rending sto- 

 ries of abuse that I have ever listened 

 to. A complete separation and divonv 

 followed, and on the condition that she 

 would testifv against her husband in 

 land matters. | agreed not to push the 

 poison case' against her. 



The shadow of prison walls hover 

 grimlv over the wasted form of ('as 

 cade Mill to-da\ . and his dreams can 

 only be of the ill-gotten gold he took 

 From the ignorant poor who trusted 

 and listened to him. The guards sa\ 

 that he turns restlessly in his .]rep, and 

 mutters something about "tun- !<>ca 

 lion." and a "fee of S^j^." In a dis- 

 tant northern city his wife, old and 

 gray, \- toiling out her few remaining 

 \ ears over a sowing machine, and shed- 

 ding a tear now and then for the man 

 who came to her many years ago in the 

 excellence of his young and promising 

 manhood, and asked her to be his wife. 

 She can only live over in her memory 

 again a few happy years before he be- 

 gan his downward course, and who en- 

 vies this isolated woman the little com- 

 fort she may gain from a few stray 

 golden thoughts of the bnriud past? 



