The Perils of 'Honest' John Kelly

Honest John Kelly has arrived at Cle-Elum from the upper Cle-Elum country, where he was snowed in. He was so thin that his clothes rattled on him, and his beard was as long as a Populist senator's. Late last fall, John started to do development work on an iron ledge well up toward the summit and thoroughly isolated. He took in his winter's supply of provisions, and every day he sallied forth from his cabin to the tunnel, 300 feet away, to hit the rock. The Cle-Elum Tribune says that on arising in the morning, John would work up an appetite for breakfast by shoveling from eight to ten feet of snow from his cabin door. One morning, about two weeks ago, he put off a shot in the tunnel which shook the whole mountain, causing a snowslide that completely blocked the entrance. Kelly made a vigorous assault upon the snow, and for three days and three nights he drifted away for dear life, without food or drink. When again on the surface, the slide had so changed the physical features of the surroundings that it required a diligent search to find his cabin. Before Kelly closed his eyes that night, his mind was made up. The next morning found Mr. Kelly aboard a pair of improvised snowshoes, with his three-legged cat and a day's feed in a sack, hiking off down the mountain toward civilization. Kelly was congratulating himself on his narrow escape, when just as he doubled the point at Big Salmon la Sac, he came face to face with an immense cougar. He had no weapon of any kind, but the cougar calmly surveyed John for a few moments, gathered itself, and left the path for the mountains.