ent when he knows that people actually subscribe for it. Very soon
Piutes began to go to the shack to spend the heated term. Every Piute
who took the _Appeal_ saw the advertisement, which went on to state that
hot and cold water could be got into every room in the house, and that
electric bells, baths, silver-voiced chambermaids, over-charges, and
everything else connected with a first-class hotel, could be found at
that place. So the Piute people locked up their own homes, and,
ejecting the cat, they spat on the fire, and moved to the new summer
hotel. They took their friends with them. They had no money, but they
knew Johnson Sides, and they visited him all summer.
In the fall Mr. Sides closed the house, and resuming his blanket he went
back to live with his tribe. When the butcher wagon called the next day
the driver found a notice of sale, and in the language of Sol Smith
Russell, "Good reasons given for selling."
Mr. Sides had been a temperance man now for a year, at least externally,
but with the humiliation of this great financial wreck came a wild
desire to flee to the maddening bowl, having been monkeying with the
madding crowd all summer. So, silently, he obtained a bottle of Reno
embalming fluid and secreted himself behind a tree, where he was asked
to join himself in a social nip. He had hardly wiped away an idle tear
with the corner of his blanket and replaced the stopper in his tear jug
when the local representative of the U. G. J. E. T. A. of Reno came upon
him. He was reported to the lodge, and his character bade fair to be
smirched so badly that nothing but saltpeter and a consistent life could
save it. At this critical stage Mr. Davis, of the _Appeal_, came to his
aid, and not only gave him the support and encouragement of his columns,
but told Mr. Sides that he would see that the legislature took speedy
action in removing his alcoholic disabilities. Through the untiring
efforts of Mr. Davis, therefore, a bill was framed "whereby the drink
taken by Johnson Sides, of Nevada, be and is hereby declared null and
void."
On a certain day Mr. Davis told him that the bill would come up for
final passage and no doubt pass without opposition, but a purse would
have to be raised to defray the expenses. The tribe began to collect
what money they had and to sell their grasshoppers in order to raise
more.
Johnson Sides and his people gathered on the day named, and seated
themselves in the galleries. Slim old
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