THE ATTRACTION AT PARLIN'S. 



II. N. BEECHER. 



Why didn't I write another letter for 

 Recreation ? Well, I'll tell you why, and 

 you will not wonder at my silence if you 

 are a married man. You see, the last let- 

 ter I wrote addressed to "Dear Phceby" fell 

 into the hands of my wife, and she has 

 warned me never to write for Recreation 

 or "any other of those horrid hunting mag- 

 azines" again. But she is away from home 

 just now, spending a few weeks near Man- 

 itou, doing a little sketching, and I reckon 

 she will be so busy trying to discover in the 

 red boulders of the Garden of the Gods 

 the beautiful scenery so largely advertised 

 by the railroads that she will not have time 

 to read Recreation or anything else. 



So I'll snatch this opportunity to tell you 

 about our little picnic over at Parlin's last 

 summer. If you never hear from me again 

 you may know that the hand of Fate has 

 dropped this copy of Recreation down into 

 the sun scorched, dude infested sand 

 gulches of the Garden of the Gods. 



For the past few years, as regularly as 

 summer came, there has been a stampede 

 from our camp to Parlin's to fish in Quartz 

 creek, as the stampeders would say. Now 

 I've fished in Quartz creek myself, and 

 never had wonderful luck. There are 

 many places, near, where the fishing is bet- 

 ter. I began to wonder what the attrac- 

 tion at Parlin's could be. If the 'break 

 had been only yearlings and 2-year-olds, 

 I shouldn't have wondered so much, for 

 Parlin's is a nice little one store and post 

 office town situated on the railroad, has a 

 boarding house which is just hotel enough 

 so one can do as he pleases and home 

 enough to exclude hair from the hash. It 

 is an ideal resort for dudes and dudesses. 

 But when a lot of regular old outlaws like 

 Doc, and George, and Frank, and others 

 who know what good fishing is, joined the 

 rush, then I knew there was some attrac- 

 tion at Parlin's that held over fishing. I 

 asked George what it was, but he only 

 laughed and lied to me. I didn't get any 

 satisfaction. Then I tackled the Deacon. 

 He blushed and blundered out something 

 about it's being a nice place to cast aside 

 the burdens of everyday life and commune 

 with Nature ; but when I asked him why 

 in thunder none of the boys took their 

 wives along to commune with them, he 

 only blushed blusher than ever and said it 

 was too hard a trip for the ladies. 



I saw there was no use in trying to get 

 anything out of them, so I made up my 

 mind I'd join the next stampede myself and 

 put my brand on some of the bunch with 



a Kodak flashlight. When the Denver pa- 

 pers mentioned the School Teachers' An- 

 nual Excursion to Parlin's, I tumbled at 

 once, and when the boys were ready for 

 the start the next week, as I knew they 

 would be, I was on hand with my Kodak, 

 tripod, and some packages of flashlight. 

 The boys didn't seem to appreciate my 

 company. George growled about the dod 

 gasted Kodak, and Doc cussed Kodakers in 

 general and me in particular ; but I knew 

 I was enlisted in a good cause, and that 

 my turn would come in time ; so I bore it 

 meekly. 



We got to Parlin's the same day the 

 school teachers' excursion arrived, and 

 when I witnessed the meeting of our boys 

 and the teachers, I knew it wasn't their 

 first. I didn't blame the boys much, for 

 there were some mighty fine little critters 

 in the bunch. You see, Colorado school 

 teachers aren't like your down East old 

 schoolmarms- 



There was one little girl in particular, 

 from Grand Junction, that I called the 

 White Fawn, because she always wore a 

 white shirt waist and had a way of looking 

 at a fellow kind of scared like and then 

 dropping her eyes that made him think of 

 a young fawn peeping through the bushes 

 just before it bounds away over the hills. 

 She was a dear little deer, and seemed 

 pretty dear to the whole outfit, especially 

 to George, though she showed no prefer- 

 ence. She treated them all alike from the 

 Deacon down to the calico pusher; but I 

 could soon see that George held the high 

 card and that Doc didn't like it. I knew 

 I should have a chance to play even with 

 them for cussing me and my Kodak, so I 

 lay low and waited for a bite. 



George bit. I got him to let me camp 

 with him in his tent, because the hotel was 

 full, and Doc and Frank camped in their 

 tent next to us. We would all turn in 

 early, as is usual in camp ; but I noticed 

 George didn't always stay. He would go 

 out after he thought I was asleep and not 

 come back until midnight. It didn't take 

 me long to guess a thing or 2. I knew 

 he was not going out alone, so one night 

 I camped on his trail. I saw him go to the 

 hotel, wait awhile, and then go down the 

 creek with the White Fawn. They had 

 their fishing outfits, and I knew they were 

 going to try night fishing at the favorite 

 pool down the creek. It was a royal place 

 to fish and was hidden from view by a lit- 

 tle bunch of willows. 



I crawled back to my bunk and slept 



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