AN OLD MAN IN TROUBLE

Constable Puckett of Manor has in the toils an old negro, aged about 70 years, named Burton Jennings.

Burton lives out from Manor a few miles, and hitherto has been considered a quiet and innocent old man far beyond the period of life to be caught in the current of crime that too often carries away the indiscreet young of the land and finally lodges them behind prison bars.

Burton is charged with the theft of cattle and the evidence against him is very strong.

He is no common cattle thief. He hasn't bothered his aged mind and venerable limbs scheming and stealing ordinary scrub stock found browsing over the range or leaning against the sunny side of fences after the manner in vogue among the stock of Sheriff White when seriously considering if feeding time will ever come.

Old man Burton Jennings scorns to appropriate such stock. He was not in the business for fun or because its excitement and delights might peradventure tend to ease the monotony of his declining years.

He was in the business strictly for the money in it, and the story goes that he drove a lucrative trade with his droves of cattle.

Naturally, to his mind hoary with years, droves of cattle should inevitably produce droves of dollars that would meander his way and be corralled in his pockets, or old socks, especially if the cattle belonged to some other fellow.

Settling this to his entire satisfaction, Burton Jennings would go forth at the dead hours of night and round up one or two big fat beeves or work oxen. Then scanning the heavens to get his course and time by the stars, as in slavery days, he would strike out for Taylor, reaching that bustling place as the flush of gold was tinting the eastern heavens.

In Taylor, his venerable looks and 'honest' demeanor paved the way for selling the beeves, and he had no trouble disposing of them.

It is the belief that he certainly sold at different times about twenty head of large, fat beeves, some of them work oxen, and it is quite possible he got away with a much larger number.

The bringing to light of Burton's thefts occurred this way: A few days ago a Mr. Victor Carlson, a prosperous farmer near Manor, observed a man trying to drive off one of his best work oxen. He went out and found the man was Mr. Jim Waldsmidth, a Taylor butcher, and he explained to Mr. Carlson that he had bought and paid for the ox and his mate a day or two before, and that the animal he was now after had escaped from his pen.

Mr. Carlson scratched his head and meditated a brief space.

It was an opportune time for thought. Mr. Carlson had missed the mate of his ox. Indeed, he had missed both of them from about his pens, and in conversation with Mr. Waldsmidth he discovered that Burton Jennings had sold him the yoke of cattle.

The description given, and all the circumstances connected with the affair, unmistakably fastened the crime upon the venerable darkey, and he is now in the county jail, Sheriff White bringing him in yesterday.