Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/290

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NOTES. THE railway company running up Pike's Peak was recently sued by a woman for damage to her ranch caused by a fire which was started, as alleged, by one of the engines of the railway company. The railway company, amongst other defenses, alleged that large numbers of tourists were accustomed to use, without its consent, the right of way of defendant company for a pas sageway upon which to walk to the summit of Pike's Peak; that these people were accustomed to build fires upon, and off from, and adjacent to the right of way for the purposes of warming themselves and preparing their luncheons, and claimed that the damage, if any, was caused

from such a fire. Plaintiff tried to strike this out from the answer and being unsuccessful evolved, amongst other replies, the following, which is too rich to be lost amongst the dusty files of a Colorado court. The " Baby Nell" referred to was a famous burro that was buried on the top of Pike's Peak. "And this plaintiff is informed and believes, and upon information and belief alleges, that said railroad of the defendant runs through romantic and historic ground, that long before the soil thereof was disturbed by a soulless cor poration and the rocks thereof echoed back the whistle of a grasshopper engine or the sweet music of the Rocky Mountain canary, — yes, long prior to the time when Zebulon Pike gazed from afar off upon the snowy top of old Pike's Peak, or before Major Long stood where Pike only gazed and Baby Nell now sleeps, even be fore the time when the noble Ute came whoop ing around its base to drink the bubbling waters ere they vere polluted by the microbes of the unhealthy white man, fires were built off of the right of way of the defendant, even so far off from said right of way as on Mexitili's soil, ere the heathen poet plucked the pinions of the king of birds and wrote therewith the following touch ing lines : "Harken! Up the Rio Bravo Comes the Negro catcher's shout, Listen, ' tis the Yankee hammers Forging human fetters out. From the seller of God's image, From the trafficker in man, Mother. Gracious Mother Holy! Shield thy dark browed Mexican. On they come the mad invaders, Like the fire before the wind. Freedom's harvest fields before them, Slavery's blackened wastes behind. "But this plaintiff denies that said fires, or any of them, were the fires that caused the damage to, and burned the timber of this plaintiff, as alleged in her said complaint.