ndreds of other frontier
villages had grown, in the flush times; it died, as so many others died,
of the financial crash which was the inevitable sequel and retribution
of speculative madness. Its history resembles the history of other
Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take the trouble
to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble to read about it, if
the history of the town did not involve also the history of certain human
lives--of a tragedy that touched deeply more than one soul. And what is
history worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is not of
value on account of its temples and statues, but on account of its men
and women. And though the "Main street" of Metropolisville is now a
country road where the dog-fennel blooms almost undisturbed by comers and
goers, though the plowshare remorselessly turns over the earth in places
where corner lots were once sold for a hundred dollars the front foot,
and though the lot once sacredly set apart (on the map) as "Depot Ground"
is now nothing but a potato-patch, yet there are hearts on which the
brief history of Metropolisville has left traces ineffaceable by sunshine
or storm, in time or eternity.

CHAPTER I.

THE AUTOCRAT OF THE STAGECOACH.

"Git up!"

No leader of a cavalry charge ever put more authority into his tones than
did Whisky Jim, as he drew the lines over his four bay horses in the
streets of Red Owl Landing, a village two years old, boasting three
thousand inhabitants, and a certain prospect of having four thousand a
month later.

Even ministers, poets, and writers of unworldly romances are sometimes
influenced by mercenary considerations. But stage-drivers are entirely
consecrated to their high calling. Here was Whisky Jim, in the very
streets of Red Owl, in the spring of the year 1856, when money was worth
five and six per cent a month on bond and mortgage, when corner lots
doubled in value over night, when everybody was frantically trying to
swindle everybody else--here was Whisky Jim, with the infatuation of a
life-long devotion to horse-flesh, utterly oblivious to the chances of
robbing green emigrants which a season of speculation affords. He was
secure from the infection. You might have shown him a gold-mine under the
very feet of his wheel-horses, and he could not have worked it
twenty-four hours. He had an itching palm, which could be satisfied with
nothing but the "ribbons" drawn over the back