COL. DAVID E. BUEL.

 

            SIX feet four inches in height, had he met Saul his first question would have. been: "Son of Kish, which of us are the people looking up to?' He obtained his military title by leading a band of men against the Pitt River and Modoc Indians who had been raiding the settlements on the lower Pitt river, in California, in 1850 or 1851. His command brought home many scalps.

            He had fairly earned his title, for he was never afraid. His brain was filled with a rude but far-seeing strategy, and his tactics, though not elaborate, were effective. They may be described in the few words, ''Find 'em; then take 'em in."

            He was a natural leader. With his height, his breadth of shoulders, his aggressiveness and the absolute absence of fear in his make-up, he could not help but be, for men have been looking up to and following that style of man since before the days of Saul.

            He was a pioneer on the Golden Coast, one of the first. It was naturally so, for had any started before him, he would have passed them and led them in. He early made a name in California. Readers will have already recognized how perfectly in place he must have been in a Democratic convention, and how natural it was when he arose in a convention and said "Mr. Speaker?' for the presiding officer to recognize him, and for the full convention to see him.

            After a while he was elected sheriff of El Dorado County.

            With all his plunging ways, he had a profound respect for law, and for any sworn officer to betray or fail in his trust, he held to be the unpardonable sin.

            In the early days on the west coast people had not much patience with criminals, and as they had to rely a good deal upon themselves, executions were sometimes summary. There was a tree outside of Placerville in those days, called Hangtown -- a live oak, if I remember correctly, upon the branches of which tree it was said that some thirteen or fourteen men

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had suffered as Absolom did they were caught in the branches and their mules walked out from under them.

            A man charged with some crime was in the jail, which was not a very secure structure. Col. Buel had but a few days before qualified as sheriff. He was called to a distant part of the county and was returning. He was resting for a few minutes at a wayside station, twelve miles from Placerville. From the station there was a grade up the mountain for three miles, then the path descended gradually into Placerville. The colonel always rode a thoroughbred horse, and it was more to rest the horse than himself that he had stopped at the station, for he and the horse were close friends.

            While there a messenger dashed up on a foaming horse, sprang to the ground and handed the colonel a letter. It was from one of his deputies, and stated tersely that there would be an attempt that night to take the prisoner from the jail and lynch him.

            The colonel crushed the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket and called sharply for a bucket of water and a bottle of whiskey. He broke off the neck of the bottle, poured half its contents into the water, then held the bucket up to the horse, which eagerly drank its contents. Rubbing his hand over the face and nose of the horse, and calling him by his name, said, "Come," and started with his long strides, like a gray wolf's lope, up the steep grade, the horse following like a dog close behind.

            Reaching the summit he sprang upon the back of the horse and gave him the rein.

            When he reached Placerville, the night had come down, the crowd already had taken the prisoner to the fatal tree and had a rope around his neck.

            Buel rode straight to the crowd, sprang from the horse and began to force his way through the excited mass toward the prisoner, the horse following at his heels.

            Twenty revolvers were drawn on Buel, and he was sternly ordered back on pain of death. But he continued to force his way, crying to those around him: "Don't be inhuman, men. The man may have a last message to send or a prayer to offer."

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            Through his tremendous strength and determination he quickly reached the man, with his knife cut the rope from his neck, then, seizing the man, threw him upon the horse's back, struck the horse's flank, with the flat of his hand and bade the man ride for his life.

            Then, turning to the crowd, he denounced them as cowards and law-breakers, and declared them all under arrest.

            There were hot words and many threats for five minutes ; then the mad-men realized that they had all been baffled by one man who was not afraid, and one of the bunch proposed three cheers for the new sheriff. Then, I am told, they made a night of it and that the sheriff went along to see that order was kept. He got back his horse in a day or two, but the prisoner was never seen in that region again.

            Of course, Colonel Buel went with the crowd to the Comstock. In the ten years in California he had learned much about mining and mine formations and was a practical expert.

            He visited all the camps in the state, but finally decided that for him the neighborhood of Austin was better than that about the Comstock. The leads were narrower, but the ore was richer and the competition less.

            From Austin, he went off south, with a company, on a prospecting trip and wore out his shoes. One of the boys found a dead ox on the desert; from its hide he cut two pieces, bent up the edges, attached some buckskin strings and tendered them to the colonel for sandals. He put them on; they worked all right. On reaching Austin there was a call for money for the sanitary fund.

            The colonel was a red-hot Democrat, but the cry appealed to him. He put up his sandals at auction. He called attention to the value of the sandals, pointed out their length and depth and breath and beam, and asked for bids. One man offered a dollar, another a dollar and a half, but the bidding was slow. The colonel bid twenty dollars, then upbraided the crowd, told them the money was for sick and wounded soldiers and put up the sandals again. The result was they brought $916.00.

            At last he drifted down to Belmont and bonded one of the mines there. He took the bond and the needed data.

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went to England and sold it, realizing a little fortune from the sale.

            Then he determined to make a run over to Paris and see the sights for a week. It was not long after Napoleon III and Eugenie were married, and all Paris was rejoicing.

            In his youth the colonel's study of French had been at best most superficial, there was not a word in the language that he could pronounce correctly. But, by the show bills that were hung out with their pictures and by the preparations he saw going on, he knew a great horse race was going to be run, so he followed the crowd to the track. The seats were all occupied except those in one special stand. He noticed that over this stand were flying many gay flags. It was carpeted and supplied with easy chairs. He immediately took possession of one of these chairs on a long row of seats. Soon an officer rode up, saluted and delivered a brief oration, of which the colonel did not understand a word. But he bowed politely to the officer and thanked him, but kept his seat. The officer seemed much perplexed, and finally turned his horse and rode away. Then an officer covered with decorations rode up, curtly saluted, and in a most impressive tone explained some- thing to the colonel, upon hearing which he bowed profoundly, told the officer that he was greatly obliged, pointed to a seat beside him and in pantomime invited the officer to occupy it.

            The officer was wild, and was just entering upon a most vehement speech when a trumpet sounded and a carriage and four, superbly caparisoned and attended by a glittering array of mounted outriders, drove up and the emperor and empress alighted and entered the stand. The officer, with extravagant gesticulations, explained something to the emperor, who turned and glanced at Colonel Buel, then with a smile, bade the officer let the elongated American alone. And the colonel watched the races from the royal stand.

            The colonel was one of the pioneers of Eureka, Nevada. He and his associates obtained a working bond on the Eureka Con.; built the furnaces and worked them successfully; thoroughly opened the mines, when they sold out at a large advance to an English company. It would have been better

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for them had the sale fallen through, for the mines paid $1,000,000 per annum dividends for fifteen years.

            The colonel removed to Salt Lake and operated mines in Utah and in Nevada for several years, then went to Joplin, Missouri, and worked for awhile until finally, overborne by a life filled with hardships, died in St. Louis some eighteen or twenty years ago.

            He was one of the most typical of frontiersmen. No undertaking was too hazardous to make him quail, though when he was prosperous nothing was too good for him. He slept on the ground in every county in California ; he slept on the banks of the Eraser River when the rain that was falling was half ice; the sagebrush of Nevada made a good enough bed for him, and the simple food of the miner was a feast for him when he was prospecting, but in town he insisted upon the best, his ideas being that the man who did not get the finest that could be procured every day was discounting his own rights.

            He was honest in business and would throw any one who deceived him or played false, through a window on land, overboard at sea. He was an intense American; he was public- spirited ; he wanted to see the foremost of other countries made second-class by comparison with his own ; he was sensitive of his own honor and had any man maligned a friend of his in his presence he would have broken him in two. He passed a stormy, restless, laborious career ; all his aspirations were high and true, and he prized his individual honor more than he did his life.