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ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILL PHILLIP HOOPER 
 
 AND 
 
 W. W. DENSLOW 
 
AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 BY 
 WILL PHILLIP HOOPER 
 
 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 THRILLING ADVENTURES 
 
 TOLD BY 
 
 COL. R. H. SAVAGE 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 
 "MY OFFICIAL WIFE," "AN EXILE FROM LONDON," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 By A. C. GUNTER. 
 
 All rights rtttrnd. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 By Will Phillip Hooper. pagh 
 
 An Untold Tale 7 
 
 By Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 An Awkward Meeting 21 
 
 The Pool of Death 43 
 
 The Pirate of Williams Landing 63 
 
 The White Indian 83 
 
 Snowed In ">i 
 
 With the Caribs off Ruatan Island 121 
 
 Fighting the Tiger 139 
 
 A Hunt in Corea J 55 
 
 Boy Against Grizzly *77 
 
 Why the Mail Came Late 193 
 
 The Secret of Dr. Harper's Cabinet 211 
 
 The Mystery of Sergeant Armand Caire 229 
 
 How We Court-martialed Sergeant Maloney 247 
 
 M109688 
 
THE CONTESTANTS WERE ALL FAMOUS GOLFMEN. 
 
' 
 
 Will "PL III ji HooJ> 
 
 " Murder." Yes, that was the word, 
 "Murder," clear and distinct, that stood 
 out in quaint old script on the new sheet 
 of writing paper I had been holding idly 
 in my fingers. In my surprise and excite- 
 ment I almost tipped over the table by the side 
 of which I was trying to write a letter. This 
 paper I had just brought home myself from the 
 stationer's, and while taking a cup of tea, for 
 it was 4 o'clock on a dark London day, I had been 
 idly twirling a sheet in my hand, undecided 
 whether to begin my letter Dearest or Darling, 
 when this word " Murder " suddenly caught my 
 eyes, and as I scrutinized it more closely, it slowly 
 faded into oblivion. 
 
 I was seated by the grate. It was one of the 
 first cold days, when a cheerful open fire seems 
 the most comforting thing in the world, and I was 
 sipping a cup of tea from a genuine George II. tea- 
 pot. 
 
 Ah, what a hunt I had to find this antique treas- 
 ure ! Day after day and week after week I had 
 haunted the old bric-a-brac shops. Wardour 
 
8 AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 Street, with its modern antique furniture and 
 " hall-marked " relics, I knew from stem to 
 stern. Upper Oxford Street, with its big and 
 little silver stores, to White Chapel Road, all had I 
 explored. The silversmiths on the Strand and 
 the curiosity shops on High Holborn were equally 
 familiar to me. I could even go without a wrong 
 turn from Phillips's little shop on Oxford Street to 
 his big store on Thayer Street, but I felt well re- 
 warded for my trouble, my interesting, fascinating 
 trouble. 
 
 To be sure, my urn had several dents in its 
 beautifully engraved sides. One dent in particular 
 was almost fatal to its graceful symmetry, but this 
 only added to its interest to me, and tea had never 
 tasted as good, never smelled as aromatic, never 
 looked as golden, as when it flowed from the deli- 
 cate spout of my " find." 
 
 But how did that frightful word come on my 
 writing paper ? While still puzzling over it, hold- 
 ing it to the candle-light, the steam from my silver 
 teapot struck on the page; in a second, as the hot 
 vapor spread against the sheet, the word " murder " 
 again became visible, and while I held it there, 
 other words became clear. 
 
 With trembling fingers I moved the paper in 
 front of the nose of the steaming spout, and writ- 
 ing quickly appeared on the whole paper. (It is 
 explained later on why the old English style in 
 which the story then was first told is not retained 
 here.) 
 
 These were the lines : 
 
AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 "' Murder '—yes, there is no other word tor it, 
 and I was the unwilling agent. It was not I who 
 struck the blow. 'Twas not 1 who drove the 
 poisoned dagger to its hilt, but I caused it all. 
 
 That is why I never sing — ah, it is a great relief, 
 late as it is, almost two hundred years now, since 
 the fearful crime, to unburden myself of the dread 
 secret." 
 
IO AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 I was almost paralyzed with amazement as the 
 lines rapidly filled the paper, but as I snatched a 
 second sheet and held it to the nose of the myste- 
 rious silver urn, the writing continued, but it 
 seemed weaker and more straggly, and an idea 
 seized me. I rushed to the closet, took out a pinch 
 of tea, dropped it into the pot. The effect was 
 magical ; the writing at once became firm and dis- 
 tinct. 
 
 The narrative continued. 
 
 " It was a gift to the Duchess of " (name is 
 
 forgotten). " How well I remember my first intro- 
 duction to her presence. Queenly? Well, she 
 looked as if she'd been brought up on thrones and 
 tea. But ah, what a contrast when she was in her 
 retiring room, with only her serving maids and 
 me to listen — but that was neither here nor there 
 — she was called the handsomest woman in the 
 Court of King George. 
 
 " Her mother was the famous orange woman, 
 titled by George II. in one of his freaks, and beauty 
 seemed to be her only desirable inheritance. But 
 to stick to my story, at the time I first entered her 
 presence she was at her toilet table — the barber 
 doing her hair while the beaux and dignitaries of 
 the court were paying homage to her in their 
 morning call. 
 
 " It seems I was presented by Sir John " 
 
 (name was unreadable in the original writing), 
 " and her delight on receiving me was most gratify- 
 ing to my vanity and a proof of her good taste — and 
 
AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
12 AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 such tea as we had in those old days — why, I 
 haven't had real genuine tea put into me for over 
 a hundred years." 
 
 (This was discouraging — here I was paying 
 $1.25 per pound for tea and everybody pro- 
 nounced it perfect. Notwithstanding the in- 
 vidious remarks of the teapot, 1 found the writing 
 always braced up after I'd cast in a pinch more of 
 my despised herb.) 
 
 " Well," continued the writing, " with my ob- 
 servation — ' putting my nose into other people's 
 business,' as the sugar bowl used to say of me — I 
 soon saw Sir John had a formidable rival for the 
 affections of the Duchess— in the person of Baron 
 Lovelace, a younger, not to say a finer and better 
 looking man, and fortunately, as I soon found out, 
 he was in high favor with the King on account of 
 his skill as a golf player, but of this later. 
 
 " What bright,gay, joyous occasions these morn- 
 ing calls used to be, to which I contributed my 
 share of brilliancy, shining as only new silver can 
 shine and invigorating every one with the best 
 that was in me. 
 
 " Having no newspaper in those days, the con- 
 versation at these gatherings resembled the gossip 
 column in a modern society paper — ah, those were 
 times worth living ! But to my story. 
 
 "To make the breach between the two rivals still 
 wider, they were on opposite sides in a long and 
 hotly contested game of golf. The game lasted 
 nearly two weeks and the excitement over it in 
 
AN UNTOLD TALE I 3 
 
 the Court circles was more than you can imagine ; 
 talk about a tempest in a teapot, why a teapot 
 does have trials, but to see grown men, and ladies 
 too, become so excited over a game, simply makes 
 me boil over at the remembrance. Why, they 
 would get so angry, simply talking over the score 
 at the morning reception in our dressing-room, 
 that the hot refreshing cups of tea I was serving 
 out would be neglected, till it was cold, then I of 
 course was blamed. 
 
 " I did not witness any of the golf games myself 
 nor did I want to ; the talk of it was tiresome 
 enough to make a teapot explode, which I es- 
 caped doing by letting off steam." 
 
 (As this tirade went on, the writing became so 
 irregular and indistinct that several lines were 
 entirely unreadable. I hastily threw in another 
 spoonful of tea, and when the words again became 
 legible it was in the middle of a sentence :) 
 
 " black and blue, and other discolorations, 
 
 which showed me he had suffered in the argu- 
 ment. All these bits I gleaned the morning after 
 the celebrated contest was ended. His royal 
 majesty" (whenever the King was mentioned, great 
 wreaths of steam, almost like incense, issued from 
 the nose of the loyal teapot) " had won an unusual 
 amount of gold on his wager on the golf tourna- 
 ment. The contestants were all famous golfmen, 
 but the King " (wreaths of steam) " had heavily 
 backed Lovelace, and when the earnings were 
 gathered into the royal pocket, the Baron was in a 
 
AN UNTOLD TALE 15 
 
 position to obtain almost any royal favor, and he- 
 was not slow to avail himself of the opportunity. 
 
 " I gradually discovered one attraction, in fact, 
 the attraction Sir John had in the eyes of our 
 Duchess. Oh, my dent — my memory has never 
 been the same since I received that terrible fall — 
 where did I leave off? Yes, the Duchess; you 
 see she was not as rich as she seemed (or else she 
 was of a grasping disposition), any way, she was 
 pulling every string to get the King " (more wreaths 
 of steam — perhaps I should say esteem) " to bestow 
 on her a certain grant of land which had lately 
 reverted to the Crown, and Sir John had led her 
 to believe that his influence could bring this about, 
 which he claimed he would do on her promising 
 him her hand. 
 
 "Ah, how well I remember this interview ! how 
 the old courtier raved and tore and promised and 
 swore ; they were so vehement in those days — 
 the soldiers — and the lady, how she weighed it all 
 in the balance as she tilted a spoon on the edge of 
 her cup, quite forgetting the fragrant tea that I 
 had so liberally poured out. 
 
 " But Lovelace, too, knew of her ambitions. 
 
 "Suddenly — oh, my dent, what was I saying? 
 this exciting memory is almost too much — sud- 
 denly, as my lady seemed on the point of giving 
 her consent to Sir John, a servant hurried in fol- 
 lowed closely by Lovelace. 
 
 " The black and blue spot on the face of Sir John 
 seemed to turn purple at the interruption at this 
 
I 6 AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 critical moment, and the presence of his rival threw 
 him into a speechless rage. 
 
 11 But the Baron, utterly ignoring his presence 
 kneeled at the lady's feet, and in a voice almost 
 choked with joy told her that the King " (steam), "in 
 his gratitude at the result of the golf contest, had 
 given him the coveted grants, which he hastened 
 to lay at my lady's feet. 
 
 " With a bound Sir John sprang from a chair, a 
 drawn dagger in his hand, and in one second it 
 was buried to its hilt " 
 
 At this point the writing, which was growing 
 more and more indistinct as the excitement in- 
 creased, became totally indecipherable. 
 
 I sprang up for more tea ; in my hurry and ner- 
 vousness the teapot was knocked off the table ; it 
 fell with a terrible thud on the sharp corner of the 
 brass fender. In a /moment it was in my grasp, 
 but alas, there was a deep incision in its base, 
 through which the tea, now almost blood-like in 
 color, was bursting forth. 
 
 I tried every way that ingenuity would sug- 
 gest to close up the wound, so as to refill the 
 mysterious urn and obtain the sequel of the tale. 
 
 Every expedient failed. 
 
 Finally I pull aside the window curtain — threw 
 open the shutters; the first streak of dawn was just 
 tinting the sky. Impatiently I waited, and soon 
 as the sun was up I rushed out, the teapot under 
 my arm. 
 
 I found a little silversmith's shop, and pounded 
 
l8 AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 at the store door till the proprietor s sleepy head 
 appeared at the window above. 
 
 My offer of twenty shillings, instead of hasten- 
 ing his leaden feet, made him suspect he had a 
 lunatic for a customer — and the window was 
 slammed. 
 
 Finally I met with success, the fracture was 
 carefully mended, but the new dent still remained. 
 I rushed home — not a soul in the house was stirr- 
 ing. I fixed up the fire, heated water, threw a 
 strong dose of tea into the old silver teapot, 
 poured in the boiling water, grabbed a sheet of 
 paper, held it breathless to the steam, and waited. 
 
 Ah ! gradually it warmed up to the subject, the 
 paper became moist, straining every nerve my 
 throbbing eyes devoured the page. 
 
 Yes — a few faint lines slowly appeared irregu- 
 larly, wavering — and totally unreadable. Hour 
 after hour I worked over the poor old dented urn. 
 I rubbed it. I washed it. I poured all kinds of 
 strengthening mixtures into it. I even tried to 
 pound out the latest cruel dent in its engraved 
 sides — but of no avail. 
 
 The next night at the same hour I again tried 
 to get the writing resumed. 'Twas useless, and 
 never have I been able to obtain another in- 
 telligible word from my wonderful treasure. 
 
 But a disappointment almost as great was yet 
 to come. When I gathered up the pages of the 
 steam-written story not a line of the quaint old 
 writing was to be seen ; hold it as I would in all 
 
AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 *9 
 
20 AN UNTOLD TALE 
 
 lights, under the strongest glasses, and with dif- 
 ferent acid tests, not a word could be brought 
 back. 
 
 So the main charm of the story — its peculiar old 
 expressions, its early English words, and flowery 
 rhetoric — all are lost. 
 
 Finally, I've written out the legend as best I 
 could from memory and leave it to wiser heads 
 than mine to fathom the mystery. I can simply 
 show the beautiful, old dented teapot as my only 
 witness. 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAQE 
 
I SAW ONCE OR TWICE THE GLEAM OF WHITE AND YELLOW 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING. 
 
 I can look back now and see the anxious faces 
 of a score of hardy Californians gathered around 
 the fireplace of a huge log cabin, on the banks of 
 Soquel Creek, in that memorable winter of " sixty- 
 two." 
 
 Forty days and forty nights of unexampled tem- 
 pest and storm had realized the worst anticipa- 
 tions of property owners, and disaster and ruin 
 reigned over the whole Golden State ! The cap- 
 ital city, Sacramento, was inundated, all business 
 was paralyzed in these ante-railroad days, the 
 crops of the interior valleys were destroyed, the 
 broad plains covered with dying herds, and, every 
 water runlet of the State was a raging river. 
 
 Fenced in with the Sierra Nevadas and the 
 Coast Range, with a loop of mountains closing 
 the North and South, California was isolated. 
 Travel was impossible, the mails were cut off, 
 stage roads were obliterated, and only a few 
 steamers moving on the Sacramento and San 
 Joaquin, kept up a semblance of commercial move- 
 ment. 
 
 Mining was impossible in the Sierras, and for- 
 
24 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 tunes were swept away by the remorseless and 
 vindictive floods. With desperate efforts the 
 eastern telegraph and overland mails were kept 
 partly open, and, to the loyalists of a State about 
 evenly divided between North and South, the de- 
 pressing news of continued Union disasters 
 brought the last touch of misery to stern men, 
 almost ready to " throw up the sponge." 
 
 To the Committee on Ways and Means gathered 
 around that blazing hearth, the council of the 
 night was a momentous one. A dozen buildings, 
 with an extensive sawmill, were hemmed in at the 
 forks of Soquel and Williams Creeks, in the Santa 
 Cruz mountains. The huge forty-foot mill wheel 
 was anchored to the mill and a dozen huge red- 
 woods, with chains, cables, and all available fast- 
 enings. 
 
 The proprietor's pretty cottage contained his 
 «amily of a wife and two younger children, who 
 had watched in these days of storm their beautiful 
 gardens swept away, in dismay. To the west, 
 Soquel Creek, a purling trout stream, was now 
 running fifty feet deep, and the hugest iron-clad 
 might have been swept away like a lost buoy, on 
 that raging yellow flood. The coast Sierras rise 
 up five thousand feet on that side, barring off 
 help from Santa Clara Valley forty miles away. 
 To the east, the great spurs of the same Sierras 
 rose up in awful majesty, barring off any aid from 
 the Pajaro Valleys. 
 
 It was but ten miles to the sea, at the little 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 25 
 
 port of Soquel, on Santa Cruz Bay, but no human 
 ingenuity could devise a means of crossing the 
 doubled waters of the creeks to the south. 
 
 To the north, ending at the little plateau, where 
 the twenty workmen and their employer's family 
 were beleaguered, was a spinal ridge, extending 
 between the two creeks, and losing itself after 
 twenty miles in the huge natural fortifications of 
 grim Loma Prieta, thirty miles away. 
 
 The canyons and inner regions of Santa Cruz 
 County were settled then only by a few uncouth 
 Western and Southwestern squatters, who, at this 
 period, were waging a sporadic private war, with 
 revolver and rifle, and finishing up quarrels, begun 
 years before on the Missouri and Kansas bounda- 
 ries. A wild, lonely region was the great Soquel 
 Augmentacion Ranch, a territory large enough for 
 a foreign duke's domain. It stretched from Wat- 
 sonville to Loma Prieta, from the little village of 
 Soquel, near the sea, to the summit of the San 
 Jose divide. 
 
 Nature's boldest handiwork was seen in this 
 miniature Switzerland, and the hills and canyons 
 were clad with the forest primeval. Huge red- 
 woods, magnificent firs and oaks, superb ma- 
 dronas, pines and cottonwoods, maples and stone 
 pines were the unspoiled riches of this beautiful 
 solitude. The little clearings were occupied by 
 the Pike County marauders and their northwest- 
 ern foes, the " dim forest arches " hid the abun- 
 dant game of a hunter's paradise, and the creeks 
 
26 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 teemed with salmon and delicious trout. To a 
 city boy, released from academic toil, this wild re- 
 gion was a paradise of wonders. From fourteen 
 to sixteen, I found nature's magic in the breath 
 of these mountains, the superb ozone-laden air of 
 the dim canyons. A wonderful Nimrod and " a 
 mighty hunter before the Lord," was Johnny 
 White, the Missouri boy of eighteen, who was my 
 " dhuine-wassail," and taught me every art of 
 woodcraft. One of seven sons, who nearly all 
 perished by border feud, or who drifted east to 
 get killed with " Pop Price " in old Missouri. He 
 knew every bit of forest lore, and made me as good 
 a mountaineer, and finally, even a bit better rifle 
 shot than himself. 
 
 He taught me the arts of the " shekarry " which 
 have stood me in stead, in later years, over four 
 continents, and half the time we were absent from 
 our domicils, camping in the untracked forest. 
 
 It was the golden flood tide of youth, when I 
 had " time to burn," and the huge rancho seemed 
 to me to be only a hunting park for my especial 
 benefit, and Johnny White, my man Friday. I 
 bribed him with stores of ammunition and stray 
 half dollars to desert all useful pursuits and, as he 
 expressed it, " make a man of me." 
 
 I can see this tow-headed borderer yet, toasting 
 venison on a ramrod, by the fire, in our little biv- 
 ouac, or broiling the trout that we had twitched 
 from the pools, while I lay upon the drifted leaves 
 and read to him " Ivanhoe," or bits of the sad mis- 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 27 
 
 adventures of Philip Wakem and rich- hearted Mag- 
 gie Tulliver, from a stray copy of the " Mill on 
 the Floss." Johnny and I agreed on hunting as 
 the main object of man's career here below, with 
 riding a bucking horse, as an extra touch to a 
 polite education, but, he insisted that I should 
 skip all, but the " fighting parts " of the books — 
 and — alas! I went in for sentiment even then! 
 But, we compromised on " Charley O'Malley"! 
 In return for my literary tuition, he taught me to 
 play poker, California Jack, and to sing his reper- 
 toire of quaint old Missouri ballads and songs of 
 the frontier squatters. I recall " Barbara Allen," 
 and, a doleful lament over the death of " Mike 
 Fink, the Boatman." If Johnny has sought the 
 other shores, peace to his ashes ! He was to me 
 a human marvel, for he could make biscuits, and 
 I have often w r atched him, with gnawing pangs of 
 envy, for I never crossed that pons asinornm. My 
 culinary career stopped at flap-jacks. I stole bot- 
 tles of molasses from the family stores to reward 
 Johnny White for " extra effort," and, with that 
 succulent unguent, w r e did succeed in making 
 way with his " short-range," dead-shot, camp- 
 made hot bombshells. 
 
 On the particular night of the conference in the 
 log cabin, I was an eager listener. The one head 
 of a family was comforting his frightened house- 
 hold, for without, the storm howled in all its fury. 
 
 The long rains had loosened the soil upon the 
 mountain sides, and at intervals of a few minutes, 
 
28 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 the heaviest monster trees came sliding down the 
 steep slopes, falling over into the canyons with 
 the thundering boom of Gettysburg's artillery. 
 The great double log cabin was builded of squared 
 logs, eighteen inches thick, and heavily pinned at 
 the corners. The triple-laid roof of "shakes" 
 was proof against the wildest storms of this snow- 
 less land, and the one burning question before the 
 council was that of food. 
 
 It was a serious one, for with the exception of 
 a few family supplies in the proprietor's cottage 
 the larder was empty, only a half-barrel of salt 
 pork remaining. The chicken, sheep, and pigs of 
 the little delta had disappeared in the four weeks' 
 siege. The fifty oxen of the mill had been swept 
 away by the flood or lain down sadly to drown 
 in the flooded corrals. The two huge stacks of 
 hay garnered up had gone "down the river" with 
 the barns. A pretty cow had been slaughtered, 
 and now two pet dogs and a canary bird were 
 the only live animals upon the cut-off delta. The 
 flour was almost exhausted and twenty brawny 
 lumbermen have " growing appetites." 
 
 The disheartened proprietor had seen a fortune 
 in sawed lumber whirled away down the insatiate 
 flood. Only one horse remained of all the stock. 
 The mill was filled solid with stones and gravel, 
 and the wheel had to be later dug out of fifteen 
 feet of concrete. The river bed for a mile had to 
 be lowered to begin operations when all the water 
 buckets of the gods were emptied. 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 2<; 
 
 But, money loss, business ruin, and family trou 
 bles paled before the cold practical question of 
 possible starvation. The terrific mountains tow- 
 ered up behind to the north. It was eighty miles 
 across two mountain ranges with impassable tor- 
 rents to Los Gatos. None but the bravest moun- 
 taineers could hope to ever breast these trackless 
 hills in good weather, and now the greasy chap- 
 paral clasped eveiything with hooked thorns. 
 The refined wife of the mill-owner, the two tender 
 children prisoned there, were hostages to fortune. 
 
 The council was a long and earnest one. For 
 days, attempts had been made to open communi- 
 cation with the tribe of Whites on the west bank 
 of the now mighty Soquel. Old " Pop White," 
 bare-breasted and nimble at seventy-five, was seen 
 across the raging flood with his stalwart guerrilla 
 guard, "Morris," " Abe," " Luther," " Bill," 
 " Sam," " Dan'l," and last but not least, that admir- 
 able Crichton of all youthful " Pikes," the tow- 
 headed dead-shot Johnny. 
 
 Our whole party, headed by " Dad " Hall, the 
 head sawyer, had exhausted every trick and arti- 
 fice in vain attempts to open communication, un- 
 til finally, Johnny the hunter shot over a wiping 
 stick from his big-bore, Mississippi yager, to the 
 cleft, in the head of which, was attached a note 
 scrawled upon an old bit of newspaper and 
 wrapped up in a bit of buckskin. 
 
 There was a chorus of cheers as I read out the 
 words, " We have fifty fifty-pound bags of flour, 
 
30 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 our winter food. If you can find a place above 
 you, to cross the Soquel, we will pack the flour 
 up there on our horses, and you can bring what 
 you want down on your side. Somebody must 
 go up the mountain, and come down along your 
 side of the river. There may be a log jam or a 
 bridge of trees somewhere. That's the only chance 
 to get anything over to you. The creek will not 
 be fordable for four weeks yet." 
 
 It took us several hours to exchange our mes- 
 sages, and the whole circle, gathered around the 
 fire on that wild winter night, were busied with the 
 selection of a first pioneer to reconnoiter the great 
 canyon of the Soquel. 
 
 The twenty men were a strangely assorted 
 gang, though living in brotherly peace. The log- 
 gers and axemen were Maine and Michigan men. 
 The teamsters were Missourians. An old ex- 
 French Zouave, a cook of the same giddy race, 
 and three or four mechanics, made up a pretty fair 
 lot of workmen. Even then, the fierce passions 
 of the war were kindling bitter animosities. Big 
 Jim Hall died later, a captain before Atlanta, and 
 the good-humored young fellow who made me an 
 expert trout catcher stole away to cross the Gila 
 desert and become a bloodthirsty guerrilla, whose 
 very name made Union officers tremble behind 
 their lines of sentinels. 
 
 The old cabin has crumbled to ruin, the very 
 mills have disappeared, and the face of nature is 
 changed to-day — but on that March night of 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 3 I 
 
 "sixty-two" it was a Bret Harte throng which 
 listened to every man's proposals. The two great 
 tables were cleared off; one was covered with 
 old weeklies and the " illustrated journals," and 
 at the other, a squad of the elite played euchre 
 and dropped a wisely put point now and then, 
 through the clouds of tobacco smoke. A hearty, 
 cheery, good-humored band of fellows they were, 
 and not a blow nor a drunken spree had marked 
 the past two years. 
 
 " Long Eben" Wright, the neatest axeman who 
 ever dropped a two-hundred foot redwood just 
 on the line for loading, draw T led out at last, " Why 
 don't ye send him ! " pointing toward me, with a 
 calloused thumb. " He's roved over every inch 
 of these yere mountains ; he's feared o' nothing. 
 He's strong and light o' foot. He kin make the 
 trip in half the time we heavier men kin. I sus- 
 picion w r e'll all have to take the tramp, and each 
 of us pack a sack of flour back on our shoulders. 
 I carried one four hundred miles up the Fraser 
 River in fifty-eight. I kin do it ag'in." 
 
 " Eben, ye're right ! " said Big Jim Hall, refill- 
 ing his pipe. " The boy must keep on the highest 
 ground and skirt the whole river. I'm feared the 
 river has cut into the banks along our side, so the 
 horse could not get up, along our side. Let him 
 find a log jam or a tree bridge, even if it's ten 
 miles up. We must do something for the boss. 
 He is ruined, as it is. We are eating him out of 
 house and home. 
 
32 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 " The Whites have got plenty of horses. If we 
 find a place, they can pack ten or twenty sacks of 
 flour up there, and I'll marshal the hull detach- 
 ment, and we will pack it down the ridge, and we 
 can make a shift for three or four weeks more." 
 
 " Yes," said Billy James, "and, the Whites can 
 get down to Porter's store at Soquel, and fetch us 
 up some supplies. I vote that we all put in a 
 month's pay, and make a present of it to the boss, 
 for our keep." The generous proposition was 
 loudly applauded, and passed " nem con." 
 
 In half an hour, I had received the persona 
 counsels of the whole Log Cabin Club. My heart 
 bounded with pride at being selected as the fitting 
 one for the quest. A paternal sanction was easily 
 gained and the remainder of the evening was 
 passed in preparations for an early departure. 
 
 The good-humored help of the entire party was 
 offered to me. A well-greased pair of logger's 
 boots, a double jeans hunting jerkin, a pair of 
 corduroy trousers, were my climbing clothes, 
 while a hunter's pouch carried ammunition and a 
 belt with revolver and bowie knife completed the 
 outfit. My pride was at its height, when Big Jim 
 Hall said, " You can take my Colt's revolving 
 rifle." This privilege had hitherto been denied 
 me, and such deer, wild cats, and coyote as I had 
 killed had been slaughtered with a beautiful old 
 muzzle-loading Kentucky rifle, which I had 
 learned to shoot with microscopic accuracy. 
 "Ye might run against something up there, 
 
AN AWKWARB MEETING 33 
 
 boy," kindly said Hall, as he tossed over the bullet 
 molds : " Make up twenty or thirty slugs and 
 bullets ! " No happier lad was alive in all Cali- 
 fornia's brown hills than I as I knelt at the glow- 
 ing hearth, and turned out the slugs and round 
 balls from the double mold. The bright-faced 
 young fellow who helped me, in his cheery way, 
 lived to fire more than the score of balls we cast 
 into the hearts of blue-clad soldiers, and poor 
 genial old Jim Hall, dozing over his paper, little 
 dreamed of the red death waiting him at Peach 
 Tree Creek two years later. 
 
 The very first person awake on the water-be- 
 leaguered delta was myself, and a score of affec- 
 tionate suggestions followed me to the door, as I 
 grasped the well-oiled Colt's rifle, and cast a serious 
 glance at the huge ridge towering above me, with 
 its giant trees swaying loosely in the wet wind 
 gusts. A good-bye to father and mother had 
 been hastened with the wild unrest of a boyish 
 heart, and it was on the threshold of the old cabin 
 that Francois, the French Canadian cook, stopped 
 me, " Spose you get ketched out over night — good 
 thing to have some eat ! " he cried, handing me a 
 neat little haversack, made of a salt bag, and filled 
 with the now precious cold biscuit and fried salt 
 pork. His words seemed ominous, and I turned 
 back to hide a box of matches in the inner pocket 
 of my hunting shirt, having first dropped them in 
 a light tin pepper-box. 
 
 In the gray light of the morning,! strode away, 
 
34 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 leaving the Log Cabin Club to their varied " kill- 
 time " occupations. Some were making furniture, 
 some hewing out ox yokes, others mounting 
 powder horns, the Card Club was holding its 
 never-ending session, and braiding whiplashes, 
 buckskin tanning, fishing-rod making, and a dozen 
 simple arts were all in vogue. 
 
 Before me, lay a task of considerable difficulty. 
 The wooded ridge rose to six or eight hundred 
 feet and ran along a half a mile to a bold, bald, 
 round bluff of a thousand feet in height, this 
 second ascent leading to a steep ridge four or 
 five miles long, with gloomy plateaus of the 
 heaviest and densest uncut timber, and then, the 
 great mountain rose sweeping far away, in rocky 
 knolls and timbered patches, toward Loma Prieta, 
 twenty miles away. 
 
 In the pride of my selection " by unanimous 
 consent," I had dismissed all personal considera- 
 tions. To be trusted, to be considered worthy of 
 the unusual fatigue and the responsibility, was in 
 itself the honor of the whole writer's episode. And, 
 with my rifle lightly poised, I clambered steadily 
 along, under the swaying trees, until an hour's 
 climbing brought me to the base of the great bald 
 bluff. 
 
 The fact suddenly dawned upon me, then, that 
 mountain forays with Johnny White's cheerful 
 face at my side were different from this lonely 
 quest. For the woods were silent. No song of 
 bird, no scream of jay, no chatter of cheerful 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 35 
 
 squirrel enlivened the ghastly silence broken now 
 only by the sighing of the wind and the cold plash 
 of showers of water, lightly shaken from out the 
 gusty pines. I had avoided the trail along the 
 summit of the ridge, as I skirted the side low 
 enough to keep the great yellow flood in sight, 
 roaring along in the Soquel ravine below. 
 
 Great uprooted trees were to be seen whirled 
 along on the wild flood like chips, and hastening 
 shoreward with a velocity equal to that of a fast 
 steamboat. There was no sign of any log jam or 
 crossing in the first two or three miles. My spirits 
 sank as 1 neared the great bald bluff, and I ex- 
 perienced a distinct shock on gazing down into 
 the trail which I had resumed and observing the 
 perfectly fresh tracks of a giant grizzly bear ! 
 Johnny White and myself had often debated the 
 possibility of such a rencontre, and, with blanched 
 cheeks, we had deferred the question of what we 
 would do. But, my teeth chattered as I observed 
 the platter-shaped tracks a foot long, with the 
 heel prints in the soft mud of the bare trail un- 
 affected as yet by the drizzling gusts. And the 
 spoor was leading directly to the bluff I was to 
 climb. 
 
 Then, with a surge away from the heart, my 
 blood left me, and I realized that the grim forests 
 were weird and lonely in all the desolation of the 
 long-continued storm. A rising wind sent dried 
 limbs dropping around in a shower, and I refuged 
 near a huge trunk, whose burned-out cavity might 
 
$6 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 have invited me to rest longer but for that bear. It 
 was now near nine o'clock, and I cautiously ap- 
 proached the cliff, rifle in hand, and at a ready. I 
 had a dozen times debated the idea of turning back, 
 but the false pride of a hot-hearted boy restrained 
 me. The side-hills were covered with rotten, yel- 
 low-pine needles, my feet slipped from under me, 
 and the seriousness of my quest came suddenly 
 upon me. " If " — but I dared not continue. The 
 rain began to fall, and, with my eye upon the pain- 
 fully distinct grizzly tracks, I approached the cliff. 
 
 Suddenly I paused in astonishment, for a gaping 
 rocky chasm lay between me and the trail, which 
 could be seen zigzagging across the cliff five hun- 
 dred feet above. A giant landslide had carried 
 the whole face of the bald mountain away east- 
 wardly into Williams Creek, a thousand feet 
 below. It was a case of " No thoroughfare ! " My 
 only course was to drop down to the western side, 
 and skirt along the hill below the chasm, along the 
 Soquel, keeping its course in sight, and try to rise 
 again to the ridge beyond the gaping chasm. To 
 my inexpressible delight, the bear had turned off 
 to the right and plunged down into the glen of 
 Williams Creek, to which shades the acorns and 
 wild cherries always invited Ursus ferox Ameri- 
 ca nis. 
 
 It was an hour later when I reached a jutting 
 rock, a mile north of the break in the trail. I was 
 beginning to feel chafed and wet through. The 
 revolver belt and the two pouches galled me ; the 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 37 
 
 coveted beautiful six-shooting rifle was seemingly 
 fifty pounds in weight. But, I had given the 
 grizzly the slip ! I could see the whole course of 
 the Soquel River, and, four or five miles to the 
 north, I could see a dark line upon the yellow 
 flood, which appeared to be stationary, and 
 promised a gigantic jam of the great trees. Weak 
 and weary, I struggled along, my mind fired with 
 the hope of a final success. I had not seen a single 
 animal. The gray skies were darkened, the cold 
 gusts of rain drove in my face, and I began to lose 
 my nerve in the weird, ghastly forest. Keeping 
 my eyes fixed on the point where I could see the 
 black line of the log jam, I struggled along, not 
 daring to confess that the place was at least ten 
 miles from the mills. I began to sing, to talk to 
 myself, to chatter, as I dragged along. 
 
 There were missteps which sent me sliding 
 dozens of feet down the slippery hillsides. My 
 hands were cold as ice, my brow burning, and as 
 I at last consulted my watch, I found it was three 
 o'clock before I had skirted the unfamiliar moun- 
 tainside and arrived on the side of the third spur 
 of mountain, abreast of the obstruction in the river, 
 and about a thousand feet above it. 
 
 Ranging around till I found an open place in the 
 trees, I gazed long and eagerly. There appeared 
 to be fifty or more great trees, branches and all 
 interlaced, making a practical crossing, the only one 
 in ten miles. With a sinking heart, I prepared to 
 descend into the canyon of the Soquel, for I had 
 
38 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 suddenly realized that I would not be able to re- 
 trace my steps before dark night. To travel the 
 fearful road I had come was impossible, without all 
 my energies and the clearest daylight, in fashion, 
 for the forty days of the terrible visitation. 
 
 I stumbled along, weak and weary, determined 
 to verify the fact of a practicable passage of the 
 surging river below, and, casting my eyes about 
 for some place to refuge myself during the night 
 I had frankly abandoned all ideas of personal 
 bravery and I deeply regretted by boyish foolish- 
 ness. I had never listened to the suggestion of a 
 careful soul that " two heads were better than 
 one," and I felt the singular demoralization coming 
 from my untried youth and the jarring solitude of 
 the dismal woods. How gay in the hunting 
 forays with Johnny White at my side were these 
 now untenanted wastes! The possibility of meet- 
 ing the giant grizzly on the ridge returned again 
 and again. My limbs were stiff and sore, and I 
 wondered if any prowling, hunger-maddened 
 animal could follow my trail over the moist 
 ground. 
 
 But, I hastened before the shades of night fell to 
 examine the great log jam, now plainly visible. I 
 would then return to the hillside, and, trying to 
 find a hollow tree, make a store of dry branches for 
 a fire to affright any hostile beast. 
 
 With nervous desperation, I plunged down the 
 hillside, and, at last, reached the gravelly banks 
 fifty feet above the huge tangle of uprooted trees. 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 39 
 
 Even in my growing demoralization, I joyed to 
 see that great trees, sweeping down in the current 
 on either side, had interlaced their branches, and 
 that other huge logs and uprooted trees in middle 
 current had formed a splendid and perfectly prac- 
 ticable crossing. One huge redwood bound the 
 whole, its graceful green limbs arching in the air 
 above the great red trunk 
 
 I was anxious to verify the possibility of cross- 
 ing, and to be able to report that I had been the 
 only one of the beleaguered dwellers on the 
 Delta to touch the farther shore of the Soquel in 
 five long weeks, and so, cautiously, I climbed out, 
 picking my way along over the raging flood, 
 whose yellow surge tore past in angry white bub- 
 bling flakes of foam. 
 
 Not a bird, not a squirrel, not a single rabbit,— 
 nothing of life had I seen in the lonely day, save 
 one great gray eagle wheeling his flight far above 
 me, shining dark against the leaden, lowering 
 clouds. 
 
 I was in mid-stream, parting the pliant branches 
 with one hand, and still clutching the six-shooting 
 rifle with the other, when I suddenly saw a huge 
 yellow body parting the green redwood branches 
 not ten yards from me. 
 
 A pair of glaring green eyes shone out, and the 
 struggling animal crouched, vainly clutching at 
 the greasy redwood bark for a spring. 
 
 One moment I gasped in the sudden surprise, 
 and then I knew my foe, for I could see the white 
 
40 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 patch under the breast of the huge California 
 lion as it vainly essayed to spring. 
 
 There was no room for the giant feline to turn, 
 and its feet were bruised and cut with the slippery, 
 rain-drenched river gravel. 
 
 Holding the Colt's rifle steadily on the white 
 breast patch, I fired, with the deliberation born of 
 a thorough knowledge of my danger. The heavy 
 ring of the rifle was answered by a scream of wild 
 ferocity, as the big puma fell sideways and 
 clutched desperately with its forepaws at the 
 nearest limbs. I could see the whole broadside of 
 the animal, and I steadily held on the white line 
 under its sleek brown side, and then, sent a second 
 slug crashing into the quivering mass of sinews. 
 
 1 stepped cautiously back as the animal tore and 
 bit vainly at the sheathing bark of the great tree, 
 then one huge paw relaxed, and the wounded 
 beast clung desperately with the other. The 
 rounded head was turned toward me, and, I forgot 
 to argue upon the possibility of the beast swim- 
 ming! 
 
 I had revolved the barrel of the rifle for the 
 third time, and I noted with joy that the brute 
 seemed to be sinking lower in the water on the 
 down-river side of the huge log. I drew up the 
 gun and aimed directly behind the fore-shoulder- 
 When the smoke cleared away, I saw once or 
 twice the gleam of white and yellow, as the car- 
 cass was swiftly whirled away down stream. 
 
 Then, smitten with some sudden haste, I picked 
 
AN AWKWARD MEETING 41 
 
 my way back to the eastern shore, without finish, 
 ing the easy transit. There was yet light enough 
 for me to follow my trail back to a bald point 
 where a forest fire had hollowed out a dozen great 
 redwoods still standing. 
 
 Within the hollows were pieces of burned 
 branches and fragments. I cleared away the in- 
 terior of one of these, and in half an hour had 
 kindled a glowing fire. I selected strong branches 
 and stones, with bits of rotted logs, to make me a 
 breast-high barricade. 
 
 Reloading my rifle, I warmed the cold pork 
 and divided my scanty store into two meals. 
 Then, walking around my fire, I dried myself 
 partly, and finally retired within the barricade 
 which I had builded in front of my impromptu 
 bedroom. The sigh of the night winds, the plash 
 of the occasional rain, lulled me to sleep, and sheer 
 fatigue overcame all my nervous scruples. It was 
 long after daylight when I awoke, but I lost no 
 time in hastening away on the return trip. 
 
 Munching my slender rations as I strode along, 
 I marched with all the high pride of success in 
 my lightening heels. The topographical experi- 
 ence of the day before enabled me to skirt the 
 mountain sides at a reasonable distance above the 
 chasms along the river, and gradually rise to the 
 spinal ridge leading down to the V-shaped plateau 
 within the two rivers. 
 
 Covered Avith ashes from my tree-hollow bed, 
 weary, and yet triumphant, I dragged my tired 
 
42 AN AWKWARD MEETING 
 
 feet down along the ridge to the sawmills, arriv- 
 ing about two o'clock. There was no fatted calf 
 to kill, but my return prevented a search party. 
 The rifle line of signaling was soon set at work, 
 and, two days later, the " Castle Perilous " was 
 relieved by means of the train of flour-carrying 
 lumbermen. From that, till the end of the storm, 
 and the abating of the waters, the ordinary com- 
 forts of life were procured, and, in a month, the 
 floods left us, the stern struggle against financial 
 ruin supplanting the grim possibilities of starva- 
 tion. 
 
 My yellow-coated friend, the giant puma, was 
 discovered, in a decidedly damaged condition, 
 and very much the worse for wear, when the 
 waters receded, the carcass being entangled in a 
 drift some five miles below, w r here he gave me 
 decidedly the most awkward meeting of my life. 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
A LITTLE BOY OF THREE HAD BEEN LOST 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 In thirty years of varied experience, I do not 
 remember any portion of the " deserts wild and 
 antres vast," which I have roved over, as repug- 
 nant to me as the regions of Colon, Mosquito, 
 and Olancho, in Spanish Honduras. Six months 
 of the year eighteen hundred and ninety, wasted 
 in climbing the terrific spurs of the Carpamento 
 and Silaco Mountains in search of gold, have 
 cured me, for life, of the aura sacri fames. 
 
 The arid valleys between the mountain ranges 
 were glowing furnaces, and the gloomy tropical 
 forest between the Rio Negro and the lonely 
 Aguan was haunted with varying horrors. The 
 Atlantic coast of Spanish Honduras, from Puerta 
 Barrios to Cape Gracias a Dios presents a line of 
 steaming lagoons with a fringe of banana, cocoa- 
 nut, and pineapple plantations. Bold mountains 
 are barriers to the interior, and the lonely, silent 
 rivers are only traversed by the dug-out of the 
 barbarous natives. No wheeled vehicle can be 
 used for inland journeys ; the horse is almost use- 
 less, angl, diminutive but wonderfully reliable 
 mules are the only means of transport for man and 
 merchandise. 
 
46 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 Scattered along the coast are squalid towns — 
 old Truxillo and Omoa alone recall the days of 
 the Conquistadores, with their ruined Spanish 
 fortifications. There is no gun mounted to-day 
 on the superb old castle of Omoa, and the gi- 
 gantic iguana lizard comfortably nests in the few 
 old bronze cannon still pointing seaward at Truxillo. 
 It was upon the public square of this decayed 
 ante-colonial city that I rallied my party for a 
 voyage into the gloomy gorges of the Mangalile 
 Mountains. The fact that my illustrious compa- 
 triot William Walker had been shot there, with 
 hospitable promptness, was a prophecy of the 
 mingled reserve, aversion, and treachery with 
 which I found the whole people tainted. The 
 official half-caste Honduraneans, the Mestizos, the 
 degraded interior Indians, and the white refugees 
 of a dozen countries made up an unlovely human 
 show, in which there was no promise of any sur- 
 vival of the fittest. The coal-black Caribs alone 
 seemed in the main to be sober, civil, and reliable. 
 The most daring boatmen of the whole world, the 
 most adroit fishermen, and the masters of the cut- 
 ting and loading of all tropical fruits, this singular 
 people never go inland, and their farthest range 
 is limited by the length of a day's canoe journey 
 up and down the innumerable watery openings 
 into the tropical jungle of the great gloomy At- 
 lantic forests. The Carib's foot is always in touch 
 with the seashore. From his villages he goes out 
 boldly to reap the harvest of the fisheries, disdain- 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 47 
 
 ing cyclone and storm, fearless amid the raging 
 waves. Seated in a little canoe, dug out of a sin- 
 gle log, paddle in hand, the hardy Carib pilot will 
 board a thousand-ton steamer, laughingly, when 
 the bravest white man dares not lower a boat. 
 
 Strange people, guiltless of the traveler's blood, 
 bearing no weapons, they have mystic secrets of 
 their own, which none may gain for money. Snake- 
 charming, voudoo arts, charms and love-potions, 
 strange customs speaking of old Africa and the 
 Niger, are theirs, and they live at peace with all 
 along the eight hundred-mile coast. 
 
 Their houses are neat, their villages clean and 
 even prosperous looking, their stately coal-black 
 women are industrious and modest and always 
 clad in gleaming, spotless white. The Christian 
 cross is hung upon the women's necks, and, rich 
 in fish and poultry, the smaller animals, with store 
 of cassava bread, the housekeeping is far from 
 despicable. Honduras, stretching to the Pacific 
 Ocean, has but one port and a small strip of sea- 
 board on the west, and, only from Tegucigalpa, its 
 mountain capital, to the Pacific, a certain pros- 
 perity reigns. The great triangle facing the At- 
 lantic is, in the main, a gloomy and unfrequented 
 jungle. The Caribs penetrate but a few miles into 
 the interior on their banana-cutting forays, or in 
 search of a huge cedar tree, from a section of 
 which a splendid canoe, sometimes forty feet long, 
 is made from one log by burning out and trim- 
 ming. 
 
48 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 Returning with this easily gotten vessel, at the 
 seashore the hardy Carib builds on upper works, 
 masts, and rigs it, and often produces a vessel fit 
 to voyages as far as the Bahamas. 
 
 Leaving these quaint and worthy simple folk, 
 with two white companions, and several muleteers 
 and natives, I departed for the head waters of the 
 Aguan. The lazy, dreamy old city of Truxillo, 
 lying under the shadows of Congrehoy, was re- 
 pulsive with its squalid adobes, its dirty, frowsy 
 soldiers, its lurking vagabonds, its limp, insolent 
 half-caste women. When not stealing out in the 
 black manta to linger like dejected crows around 
 an old tumble-dowm church on the plaza, these 
 listless children of sloth w T ere idly swinging in the 
 hammock, or seated on a horse or ox skull, comb- 
 ing their stringy, raven hair. 
 
 In a climate of enervating tropical heat, varied 
 with terrific storms, with its social life punctuated 
 by occasional sweeping visitations of Yellow Jack 
 and recurrent tragedies, the men lazy, vicious, and 
 listless, the women without education, art, or occu- 
 pation, the old community slowly rots along to the 
 last limit of social decay. Everything seems to 
 have relaxed ; neither government, creed, faith, nor 
 even personal ambition lifts up the dull level of 
 Honduranean squalor. 
 
 Down from the plateau, where every ragged 
 tatterdemalion was a Don Luis or Don Sebastian, 
 where every bare-footed wearer of a single gar- 
 ment was Senora Mercedes, or Donna Isabel, our 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 49 
 
 lit! le cavalcade dragged away in the glaring sun, 
 pa,jt the prosperous Carib town, to enter, after a 
 journey on the beach of a half dozen miles, the 
 gloomy gorge, leading into the defiles of the great 
 mountain range, separating us from the vast inland 
 wilderness of the Aguan and Rio Negro Valleys 
 beyond. There were two or three steamers vis- 
 ible as I lost the blue sea from my sight. Steamers 
 from New Orleans and Baltimore and Mobile, 
 lying there till the hardy Caribs would assemble 
 at different landings along the coast enough cocoa- 
 nuts, half-ripe pineapples, and yet green bananas 
 to keep the doctors of a dozen Northern cities in 
 ecstasies for weeks, in the " near future." The sil- 
 ver half-dollars paid to the Caribs and the purchase 
 price of fruit furnish nearly all the money current 
 along the whole Mosquito coast. Hides, sarsapa- 
 rilla root and vine, deer and goat skins, being the 
 only output of Spanish Honduras, save mahogany 
 and logwood in decreasing quantities. I gazed 
 back at Hog Island, the first point where Columbus 
 sighted the main land of America, and muttered a 
 good-by as we left the sweltering beach. The 
 usual first day's mishaps had broken all our tem- 
 pers. Packs overturning, fractious mules, stupid 
 mozos, one cowardly servant deserting in fear of 
 the unknown terrors of a three-weeks' inland 
 march, and all the shaking down of a " pulling 
 out," made the three Americans grumpy. We 
 plunged into a dim defile and began to ascend the 
 scarped mountains leading to the interior Aguan, 
 
5° 
 
 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 Valley, and the path led along the trail of Cortez' 
 slaves. 
 
 The little mules hopped from step to step, cut 
 in the rocks, and after dizzying ourselves with 
 glances down into the sheer canyons, along which 
 we picked our way, we closed our eyes, held on 
 to the saddles, and let the mules guard their own 
 lives, as well as those of their riders. 
 
 Chill airs drew under the huge forest trees, and 
 as we were dripping from the solar broiling 
 of the long ride along the beach, manifold insects 
 of Honduranean strangeness settled upon the 
 exposed parts of our bodies, buzzing, biting, nip- 
 ping, burrowing, and stinging. We knew that 
 " all men were liars " as to the hundred varying 
 accounts of the three-hundred-mile forest route 
 we were to traverse, but, they all agreed in truth as 
 to the "insectivora" of the interior. Sandflies, 
 chigoes, garrapatos, mosquitoes, red ants, white 
 ants, and everything with legs, wings, and arms, 
 cheered us on our way. 
 
 The evening shades descended as we reached 
 the summit at Bella Vista, and had one last peep 
 of a distant sapphire streak. The three voyagers 
 on the golden quest had been initiated into the 
 delights of dragging the mules up the steeper 
 places, and crawling along, encumbered with 
 spurs, revolvers, bowie knives, clattering can- 
 teens, Winchester rifles, and all the impedimenta 
 of the fool's voyage into Wonderland. 
 
 I can recall now, with evident shame, my in- 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 51 
 
 ternal soliloquy as I began to see the delights in 
 store ahead. In three weeks, to cross nine ranges 
 of mountains, swim and ford a dozen rivers, and 
 have the horrors of a ten days' jungle trip, the 
 wiles of the wild Olancheros, and the possibilities 
 of throat-cutting by the Rio Negro and Patuca 
 Indians. All this loomed up suddenly, and only 
 the coward pride of an Americano kept my face 
 turned to the West. I should have turned back, 
 for, I shed my good boots, my temper, nearly all 
 my skin, my good money, and scattered my per- 
 sonal belongings in a wasteful, castaway manner 
 for three months, gladly giving or throwing away 
 the last, when I leaped aboard a little sloop on my 
 return, to sail out to the Carribean Islands, and 
 catch a fruit schooner destined to drop me at the 
 South Ferry, in the city of New York, the home 
 of every giddy pleasure. 
 
 My envy of the bare-legged mozos running 
 along, clad only in a degage shirt and rawhide 
 sandals, cigarette in mouth, and machete in hand, 
 was suddenly chilled as we were stopped in our 
 single file descent, by a particularly vicious look- 
 ing " fer de lance " snake about six feet long. I 
 was aware that these insidious ophidians amiably 
 took a yellow color in ripe banana bunches, a 
 brown shade on logs and leafy mold, a green one 
 among brandies and foliage, and were deadly in 
 their freely-offered poison. Only the Caribssecm 
 to have guarded the secret of an antidote to these 
 bites, and we had no Carib Indian with us. 
 
5 2 
 
 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 In the huddle, the frightened muleteers and 
 mozos allowed the three Americanos to practice 
 on the defiant "fer de lance" with three revol- 
 vers, a rifle, and a shotgun, and the vicious reptile 
 was twisting and squirming long after the brave 
 Honduraneans had clubbed the remains of him 
 soundly. A veteran plainsman — a Sioux- fighter — 
 had shot Mr. Fer de Lance into three or four 
 lengths. The city gentleman divided him again, 
 and I then, blew him into pieces about the con- 
 venient size of Frankfurters. 
 
 When we had urged our little cavalcade of 
 seven mules by his battleground, the woods were 
 vocal with all kinds of discordant shrieks. Ani- 
 mals, small and large, seemed to slip around in a 
 profusion suggesting the Wolfs Glen in " Der 
 Freischutz." Screaming parrots, yelling macaws, 
 the distant sounds of jackal, jaguar, peccary, and 
 wild turkey, mingled with the plaintive call of the 
 " trujillo " bird, whose strange cry recalled the 
 droning town we had left. 
 
 Hares, grouse, partridges, and fat-breasted 
 orioles abounded, and the chatter of a dozen 
 tribes of monkeys down by the streams wafted us 
 on our way. The mules stepped on little lazy 
 armadilloes rattling along in horny coats of mail, 
 and an assortment of lizards, from four inches to 
 four feet long, took note of our movements. The 
 camp that night was a funereal one. Coffee, some 
 cold provender, and the slinging of the little can- 
 vas hammocks tied on behind our saddles, were 
 
.:!!■: POOL OF DEATH 
 
 our only restorers, and then, each man fought his 
 own crop of attached insects, and tried to sleep in 
 the simoom breath of a tropical night. 
 
 Experience led me to be comfortable in the 
 little canvas trough later, and to regard bo< 
 and a belt with revolver and bowie knife, as mere 
 trifles in a night toilet. We all became used to 
 every kind of yell, shriek, and howl, the browning 
 cuticle at last ceased to pain us when the Hon- 
 duranean insect burrowed into the poison skin, 
 and a social and physical numbness prepared me 
 for the later delights of traveling one hundred 
 and twenty miles upon two raw eggs and three 
 half-roasted plantains as rations. 
 
 But lor the pipe and a few handfuls of tobacco, 
 the relator would have surely left his cadaver to 
 the peccaries, on a return five weeks later, alone, 
 save for two hostile would-be cutthroats, over the 
 yet unknown horrors of the Mangalile trail. 
 
 We had passed one little town, and it was a 
 week later that we found ourselves camping in the 
 heart of the vast malarial, gloomy wilderness of 
 the upper bend of the great Aguan river. We 
 were pretty well aware that nothing could in 
 crease the miseries of the opening week of a most 
 wasteful phase of all our lives, but, in the little in- 
 tervals of open ground, we could see rising afar 
 now the terrific battlements of the mountain 
 ranges we were doomed to drag our fever- 
 weakened bodies over, on a bootless errand. It 
 was no comfort to us to know that Cortez had lost 
 
54 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 three hundred of his bravest cavaliers in these 
 same terrific gorges, but, when our flatly mutinous 
 muleteers demanded rest, and the animals were 
 ready to break down, we camped in the heart of 
 the trackless forest which had entrapped us. 
 
 We had gone on beyond all signs of the lazy 
 Honduraneans and only a few squalid mountain 
 Indians passed us, in fear and trembling. The 
 sound of our guns alarmed them, for we made 
 free with the abundant game. The poor wretches 
 staggering along under the weight of eighty 
 pounds of twisted sarsaparilla roots were travel- 
 ing two hundred miles to the sea to barter it for 
 liquor, a little cloth, and a few trinkets. 
 
 In our temporary camp we remained several 
 days. The hammocks were slung to trees cleared 
 of all branches. A fire brightly burning frightened 
 away the dangerous animals at night, a dozen 
 smudges killed some of the insects, and we had 
 cleared the ground of scorpions, tarantulas, and 
 other poisonous vermin. Two or three circles of 
 horsehair lariats were stretched to prevent snakes 
 crossing the elastic barrier, and we rested in a 
 sullen inertia of ugly discontent. 
 
 Pouring rain on the march, terrible tropical 
 thunder-storms of exceptional violence, and the 
 murky miasmatic heat under the enormous trees 
 had hardened us to the amplitude of physical 
 suffering awaiting us. 
 
 Gigantic trees, three hundred feet high, towering 
 around us were the nests of clouds of glossy-black, 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 55 
 
 rose-beaked oriole toucans, with golden epaulettes. 
 At dawn, magnificent flights of macaws and flamin- 
 goes made the sky one mass of moving color. 
 Great monkeys lived high up in these giant trees, 
 while the gum trees and cedars, with the ma- 
 hogany and ceibatreeshad another monkey popu- 
 lation living a hundred feet below, with game 
 birds and squirrels as their mates. Huge roots 
 ran out as buttresses from the ceiba trees, and, 
 trailing from the branches of the lower foliage, 
 the tracery of tropical vine and flowering plants 
 was impenetrable. Ten feet away from the trail 
 we chopped out, a man was invisible. 
 
 The rarest orchids by thousands bloomed around 
 us, as parasites on the trunks of huge trees from 
 fifteen to twenty feet in diameter. 
 
 The secret of our muleteers' mutiny was found 
 soon to be a little hidden village of half-caste mes- 
 tizos hovering near a great pool in the forest 
 from which a slender rivulet not six inches deep 
 trinkled down to the morasses and swamps flooded 
 with rank black poisonous water from the over- 
 flowing windings and bends of the huge Aguan. 
 The men of this squalid little camp of indigenes 
 were absent hunting sarsaparilla, cutting logwood, 
 shooting jaguars, or collecting gorgeous birds' 
 wings, for the lovely daughters of Eve, in Paris, 
 London, and New York, and our muleteers made 
 free with our tobacco, panoche cake sugar, coffee, 
 and in fact, all stealable articles. This tribute was 
 used to insure them a welcome among the half- 
 
56 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 starved forest dwellers, and fandango and festa 
 went on, while we, the gringo greenhorns, were 
 hunting, quarreling or picking out a few samples 
 of the three or four hundred insects every one of 
 us carried around. 
 
 The great black pool was the most considerable 
 body of water seen in two or three days' march, 
 and morning and evening, deer, jaguars, droves 
 of peccary, and many uncouth animals boldly 
 emerged from the circling forest shades to slake 
 their thirst in its never-failing waters. 
 
 At the lower end of this pool, where the rivulet 
 trickled forth, a few heavy stones had been rolled 
 together, with here and there, a rough wooden plat- 
 form. To this place, the dozen or more women of 
 the little village would repair to wash their prim- 
 itive costumes. It was the one mark of social 
 civilization in the village of thatched palm huts, 
 where a mud bake-oven for cassava bread, a sin- 
 gle iron pot, a few chickens, and a few earthen 
 dishes, with a half-dozen knives, forks, and spoons, 
 made up the whole personal property. Even the 
 hammocks were twisted of the fibres of the forest 
 vines. 
 
 It was by a delegation of the ladies of this most 
 unfashionable summer resort that we were re- 
 quested to rid them of some unknown monster 
 which had devoured several of the children, left 
 playing and sprawling around the banks of the 
 Pool of Death, while the mothers were washing. 
 Even one old woman, who had lain down for a 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 57 
 
 siesta, had bodily disappeared. One native hunter 
 who was possessed of an old pot-metal shot gun 
 had vainly watched over a yelping puppy tied to 
 a stake near the pool of death. No jaguar, puma, 
 or wolf, no animal of known ferocity, was potted 
 by him. 
 
 We were inclined to think that this was a story 
 of our muleteers, who passed the days enjoying 
 roast monkey,. stewed iguana, and baked plantain, 
 with these simple villagers. 
 
 But, the howls of the women approaching our 
 camp in a body, touched us, when we found that a 
 little boy of three had been lost, in the daytime, 
 after being left playing on the bank of the myste- 
 rious pool. A long night's vigil of three hunters, 
 each with a " mozo," resulted in nothing save the 
 shooting of a stray jaguar, a couple of fat deer, 
 and the amusing adventure of the plainsman, who 
 was nodding at his post. In the dead hours of 
 the night, a couple of wolves came bounding down 
 to the bank, chasing a dark-colored animal almost 
 as large as a young ass. Plunging and wallowing 
 along through the dense underbrush, the mad- 
 dened animal came rushing on, and, pausing but 
 a moment on the bank to shake off its vulpine pur- 
 suers, plunged boldly into the dark waters of the 
 silent Pool of Death. 
 
 The startled plainsman had only time to roll 
 over one of the wolves with a Winchester bullet, 
 the other escaping, when he gazed out on the 
 star-lit surface of the Pool of Death, to mark the 
 
58 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 reappearance of the strange animal which had 
 sought relief in boldly hurling itself into the black 
 waters. 
 
 11 That's a queer sort of a jackass," mused the 
 plainsman. " Won't he ever come up ? I wonder 
 if he walks on the bottom of the lake? " With his 
 rifle cocked, and revolver ready, he awaited some 
 sign of the return of the frightened animal. " I 
 wonder if he has committed suicide ? " mused the 
 hardy American plainsman. "Jackasses that navi- 
 gate like this, would be valuable to Barnum." 
 
 And he suddenly drew back, rifle in hand, as 
 the waters parted near him, and the ungainly 
 animal tried feebly to mount the bank. 
 
 " By jove ! It's a huge tapir ! " suddenly re- 
 flected the rifleman, who had knocked over dozens 
 of bear, buffalo, elk, and black-tail deer, but had, 
 so far, never been vouchsafed a pop at Tapirus 
 Americanis. " I'll let him get up the bank and 
 save the wolves the trouble of killing him. I want 
 to see what he is like with his taper four toes in 
 front, and tapering off to three toes behind. I've 
 got him sure, now. He's very weak." 
 
 The plainsman was about to draw a bead, when, 
 with an unwilling struggle, the tapir was sud- 
 denly drawn back under the black water, the boil- 
 ing foam and bubbles indicating a terrible strug- 
 gle of some kind. 
 
 A careful search by daylight disclosed nothing 
 but the dead wolf to add to the night's bag of the 
 jaguar and the two fat deer. But, the irritated 
 
THE POOL OF DEATH 59 
 
 plainsman was determined to investigate the con- 
 tents of the Pool of Death. " Gentlemen," he 
 said, after the three men had taken a turn around 
 the Pool of Death, and killed monkeys and 
 iguanas enough for the men's larder for a couple 
 of days, " the inhabitant of that black hole stole 
 my tapir, and— he went where the missing picka- 
 ninnies and the venerable old lady went to. I pro- 
 pose to get even ! " 
 
 At noon, after carefully watching the pool all 
 the morning, the plainsman sounded the depths of 
 the pool by throwing in stones with cork buoys 
 tied to them with long strings. He found that 
 the deepest place was about twenty feet, and in 
 the middle, easily reachable by tossing any object 
 from the bank, about half way up the long side of 
 
 the pond. 
 
 The whole population of " Ciudad Perdida " 
 was gathered around the bank, and the two other 
 Americans were on hand with their guns ready 
 as the plainsmen lashed three full sticks of giant 
 powder together, and, carefully capping them, 
 cemented the fuses, cutting them about ten feet 
 
 long. 
 
 Attaching the projectile to a good-sized stone, 
 the plainsmen, with a few cautionary words, hurled 
 the explosive agent well out into the middle of the 
 black pool of death. 
 
 There was silence for twenty seconds, and then 
 a huge column of mud, water, drifted leaves, 
 sticks, and even a good sized log was thrown up 
 
6 THE POOL OF DEATH 
 
 fifty feet into the air. Huge boiling ripples of 
 blackened mud waves lapped the shores, and, with 
 exclamations of disappointment, the whole dwellers 
 in the " lost city," as well as the travelers, circu- 
 lated around the banks of the Pool of Death. 
 
 " It's a very strange thing," said the plainsman, 
 " who ever got my tapir has nailed him down, and 
 crawled into some hole. That triple explosion 
 would have killed an elephant ! " There was a shout 
 from a frightened mozo. 
 
 Drifting slowly down to the mouth of the little 
 rivulet was the body of a huge, loathsome alliga- 
 tor, the shallow waters dyed with its escaping 
 blood. Dragged out in triumph, the great sau- 
 rian was found to be bursted open for three feet 
 under its right side. A fusillade of rifle balls 
 ended its career, for the formidable tail was still 
 writhing in the death agonies. The grisly mon- 
 ster was nearly twenty feet in length. 
 
 " There ! " proudly cried the plainsman, " is the 
 fellow who was, slowly but surely, depopulating 
 " Ciudad Perdida ! ' " He proceeded to catechize 
 the frightened women, and found that, two sea- 
 sons before, the Aguan River had flooded the 
 whole forest. " He was left up here in shallow 
 water when the waters receded/' said the trium- 
 phant hunter, " and, craftily hiding, being made 
 desperate with hunger, he slyly watched for whom 
 he might devour. He got my tapir,— and— I got 
 him." 
 
 Followed by the blessings of the rejoicing 
 
1I1E PUUL OF DEATH 6l 
 
 women, the three Americans broke camp, and 
 toiled on toward the awful gorges of the Manga- 
 lile River. 
 
The Pirate of Williams Landing 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
I WAS SOON WORKING MY WAY DOWN THE COAST R^AD 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS 
 LANDING. 
 
 THERE was no period oi the war a more dismal 
 
 one for the loyal citizens of the Pacific coast than 
 
 the winter of u sixtv-tw..." The general revcr 
 to the Union arms had dispirited the supporters 
 of the Federal government, and the "coast" was 
 practically cut off from the loyal East < Oregon, 
 Washington, Nevada, and Arizona were thinly 
 populated. The Indians of the great plains 
 romped freely over the Northern Overland Mail 
 Route, Arizona was under the heel of Texan 
 raiders, and— there was no railroad in those days. 
 
 The population of California, then the great 
 treasure house of a tottering Federal Government, 
 was about evenly divided between the North and 
 South. With a wondrous sagacity. President 
 Lincoln only drew about fifteen thousand men 
 from California to reopen the northern overland 
 route, garrison the coast forts, and drive back 
 Sibley's raiders from Arizona. 
 
 And, all too late, the southern men of the Pacific 
 coast saw how an easy prey had slipped from then- 
 hands. The same tactics which grave over the 
 
66 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 Federal troops in Texas, under General Twiggs, 
 to the Confederacy, would have given the Rich- 
 mond government the army and navy supplies, 
 the Mare Island Navy Yard, the Benicia Arsenal, 
 the coast forts, and all the movable munitions of 
 war. It would have been easy to hold the mints 
 and gold mines, and to divert the treasure which 
 bolstered up the Lincoln government, into Jeff 
 Davis's hands via Acapulco, and Chihuahua. 
 
 The French, then in Mexico, would have gladly 
 aided the Southerners, and it would have taken 
 years to send out Union troops to regain California. 
 
 Two things saved California and the coast to the 
 Union. First, the leading Southerners were easy- 
 going landowners, politicians, and professional 
 men. They never believed the North would fight, 
 and were not as eager to raise a local storm as 
 they should have been, in their own interest. The 
 banks, telegraphs, mails, and business houses, with 
 the merchant shipping, were in the hands of loyal 
 Northern men, who, at once, became business 
 agents of the Washington Government. 
 
 When the tide of victory in " sixty-two" seemed 
 to have set toward the Southern banners, the 
 secessionists of the Pacific coast woke up, and 
 began secret operations. Numbers of their bold- 
 est and bravest hastened East to fight with Sidney 
 Johnston and Stonewall Jackson. 
 
 But, the weakness ol the iVmerican Union at 
 sea, was at once apparent in the easy depredations 
 of the Sumter, the Alabama, the Georgia, the Talla- 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 kassee, the Florida, the Chicamauga, and th i sub 
 quent adventures of the ram Stonewall, and th* 
 
 Shenandoah, which destroyed our Pacific whaling 
 
 fleet. 
 
 Had the Southern government sent early in the 
 war, a couple of good cruisers to the broad Pacific, 
 they would have terrorized California, wh< 
 heavy freights came around Cape Horn, ravaged 
 the fleet of Pacific Mail gold-carrying mail 
 steamers, and swept all American commerce from 
 the western ocean. There was nothing to prevent 
 this, as the safe homeward voyage of the t4 Shen- 
 andoah " from the Arctic, after the war, proved, 
 when she dodged a victorious navy of a thousand 
 
 vessels. 
 
 But, in the winter of u sixty-two," the two parties 
 in California began to crystallize into fierce little 
 knots. There were those vague, indefinable 
 rumors that "something was going to happen." 
 which indicated a tardy activity on the part of 
 the boldest men who ever drew sword in a civil 
 war. Why they did not act sooner will always 
 remain a puzzle to the historian. The real rea- 
 son probably was, that, with " Stonewall Jackson " 
 in the valley, and Lee, already laurel-crowned, 
 there was over-confidence at Richmond as to con- 
 quering an early peace. 
 
 Neither Grant, Sherman, Thomas, McPherson, 
 or Sheridan had fully blossomed out into acknowl- 
 edged heroes as yet, while the Southern laurel- 
 were in full bloom on many a brow. 
 
68 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 The Union men of California organized Union 
 Leagues, which secretly co-operated with the 
 civil and military authorities, and no one was 
 admitted unless under the scrutiny of men who 
 marked every action of the candidate. These 
 leagues were well supplied with money by the 
 business men. They had free use of the mails and 
 telegraph, and were in secret league with the 
 police and provost-marshals. They drilled and 
 had private neighborhood rallying plans ; they 
 had arms and munitions and could get more 
 freely. 
 
 On the other hand, the " Jeff Davis men " — the 
 Knights of the Golden Circle, and the so-called 
 " Copperheads " — dared not openly assemble. 
 They were forced to act like men under the ban, 
 for, an incautious "Hurrah for Jeff Davis," brought 
 the excited revolutionists very soon to Alcatraz 
 Island, engaged in wheeling rocks under the eyes 
 of a Yankee sentinel. 
 
 There was a brooding quiet, but much con- 
 cealed ugliness and sporadic " shooting scrapes," 
 usually settled the friction at the angry points of 
 touch. Every one Avent armed, the Union League 
 rooms were all guarded, and the slightest sus- 
 picious act on any Southern man's part caused 
 him to be pounced on. 
 
 It was too late to make the grand coup, but 
 not too late, to do something effective. A few 
 daring Southerners supplied money and others 
 brains, and young hot-heads were ready to make 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 69 
 
 the " break." But, the " break" had to be made 
 with due regard to the inexhaustible amount of 
 "rock work" ready at Alcatraz, and the growing 
 grip of the Federal authorities. 
 
 Secret service men were scattered all over the 
 coast. The revenue cutters watched Puget 
 Sound, the Columbia River, and the northern 
 California ports were filled with loyal, hardy lum- 
 bermen, and a chain of Union Leagues swept all 
 along to San Diego. 
 
 There were troops at Los Angeles and San 
 Diego. San Francisco was only guarded by cut- 
 ters and one or two refuse naval vessels, together 
 with a monitor, then in the bottom of the harbor! 
 
 But, the forts and arsenals were strongly held. 
 Only a lonely strip of coast from Pescadero, 
 down to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara 
 offered a hiding place to fit out a staunch little 
 privateer to capture one of the weak Pacific Mail 
 steamers. Taking one of these, then laying in 
 wait for another, three millions in gold, and two 
 great ships would reward a good boarding dash. 
 Mexico was at hand, but the ports there and at 
 Panama, were watched by our Consuls and the 
 secret service spies. The sole precaution taken 
 very late in the war was to put a Volunteer officer, 
 forty men, and one light gun on each of the great 
 treasure argosies. And, this " stable door " expe- 
 dient was brought about by two daring attempts 
 to begin a little privateering on the Pacific. 
 
 Public rumor had crystallized upon some such 
 
70 . THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 attempt, and also, an organized system of robbing 
 the great treasure carryalls of Wells, Fargo & Co., 
 who brought, in coaches and stages, the golden 
 bars in from the whole Pacific coast. There were 
 only two little strips of railroad on the Pacific 
 coast then, neither over thirty miles long. 
 
 A foolhardy young fellow, becoming intoxicated, 
 was caught in the interior, with a uniform of the 
 C. S. A., a commission as a lieutenant of the South- 
 ern army, and the stage and land treasure-raids 
 were rendered impossible. For, the whole plan 
 leaked out by the imprudence of this ardent young 
 pioneer of the sword. 
 
 He was hustled away somewhere, and indulged 
 in a long period of judicious retirement. 
 
 But, the naval operations were really creeping 
 along. There were several lonely little landings 
 between San Francisco and Monterey which really 
 offered a snug hiding-place for a privateer. Santa 
 Cruz and Monterey were open roadsteads, and 
 there were custom-houses and strong Union 
 Leagues at both places. Every vessel on the Pacific 
 coast was watched in its ownership, and transfers 
 were jealously guarded. 
 
 Above Santa Cruz, between it and Pescadero, 
 were two or three lonely landings, where only 
 lime in barrels and lumber, were shipped from the 
 forest hills of the towering coast range. And as 
 many as a dozen fleet schooners, some of them 
 of two or three hundred tons, plied to these 
 out-of-the-way spots, doing a thriving business in 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LAX DIM, 71 
 
 carrying material for the San Francisco market. 
 There were no custom-houses or officers at these 
 insignificant landings, and at one of them, several 
 very fine schooners were owned by the brother of 
 a man who became one of the most renowned of 
 the Southern privateer captains. 
 
 In that immediate region, a scattered population 
 of about a thousand, was quite " solidly secesh " — 
 to use the phrase of those days. And into this 
 region, few Union men ventured alone. Consta- 
 ble, sheriff, tax collector, and assessor of Abe Lin- 
 coln's new taxes gave it a very wide berth. 
 
 The audacious capture of the Pacific Mail 
 Steamers' liner Ariel by the Alabama, on Novem- 
 ber 18, 1862, in the Atlantic, showed how easily 
 a great weak mail steamer, loaded with non-com- 
 batants, would succumb. There were busy brains 
 pondering over this problem on the Santa Cruz 
 coast, and men who roundly cursed the captain of 
 the Alabama for taking an empty steamer bound 
 from New York down to Aspinwall, instead of the 
 gold-laden mate, which came up, two days later, 
 with two millions of gold aboard, on the same 
 route. 
 
 But, from the Santa Cruz coast of California, 
 the outgoing treasure-laden Pacific Mail steamers, 
 bound from San Francisco to Panama, could be 
 seen any fair day as they slanted down the coast, 
 shaving Monterey point close. And, an elaborated 
 plan was ready — the only thing was to get the 
 vessels and the guns. The men, a hundred hardy 
 
72 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 riflemen, whose boarding bravery would easily do 
 the trick, could be had in the disloyal legion re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 I was in those days a very ardent sportsman, a 
 hardy rider, and, from Santa Cruz as a central 
 point, had hunted and fished over the whole coast 
 range of the country. The easy freemasonry of 
 the chase and a policy of backsheesh as to sporting 
 gear and ammunition, made me hail fellow well 
 met with the good-humored Southern lads of even 
 this disgruntled region. I was an ardent young 
 " Union Leaguer," and being vicariously drilled as 
 a possible recruit in a Santa Cruz military com- 
 pany. At seventeen, I was able to handle a four- 
 teen-pound Harper's Ferry musket, with more or 
 less dexterity. 
 
 The only suspicious movement of the Southern- 
 ers near us had been the sudden disappearance 
 in the night during the winter of sixty-two, of a 
 very excellent thirty-two pounder which was a 
 trophy of the capture of Monterey by Commodore 
 Sloat. This gun was the pride of the citizens of 
 Santa Cruz, and was our local standby. In some 
 mysterious manner it disappeared, and as far as 
 this deponent knoweth has never turned up 
 since. The circumstance was a fortunate one, for 
 it put every Union man in the county upon his 
 mettle, and much neighborhood spying was the 
 result. 
 
 I enjoyed the close acquaintance of the Collector 
 of the Port, a fine young man, a prominent Union 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 73 
 
 Leaguer, and one who made a brave and gallant 
 officer in the field later. I was privately requested, 
 as a sort, of leader among the lads of the whole 
 region for fifty miles around, to watch every one 
 of my young Southern cronies for any possible 
 bragging as to where that gun went. 
 
 There was a shock-haired friend of mine, a 
 youth of eighteen, who lived near Williams Land- 
 ing, one of these lonely little ports about sixteen 
 miles north of Santa Cruz. He was of Southern 
 parentage and lived " up Williams Creek." We 
 had been greatly drawn to each other in sundry 
 mussel gathering raids, in trips shooting sea lions 
 and hair seals along the lonely coast. He had 
 taught me how to find store of great sea fish trapped 
 at low tide, in the jagged holes of the rocky bench. 
 We had " plastered " the ducks and curlew and 
 wild geese together. His people were land rich 
 and money poor, and on his visits to Santa Cruz, 
 he " struck me " when short of pocket money. I 
 regarded this good-natured oaf as the greatest 
 " all-round " man whom I had ever met. His 
 wood lore was equal to his open country work 
 and his beach-combing. An athlete and a child of 
 nature, " nothing fazed him," and so, when in the 
 early spring of sixty-three he gave me a rough in- 
 vitation to visit his ranch, I saddled up my horse. 
 
 I left my gun, for he confided to me, in return 
 for a lot of fishing gear, that he had struck the 
 greatest hole for trout that was known in the 
 whole coast range, and he had not given this 
 
74 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 momentous secret away. I was bent only on sport 
 as we rode along, and it was toward evening, when 
 we rode up to Williams Landing, a little port 
 which I had never seen. 
 
 Four miles above it on a considerable creek, was 
 this hospitable Arkansas youth's family head- 
 quarters. I stood and gazed in surprise at the 
 high rocky bluff nearly a hundred feet high, with 
 a great longitudinal fissure enabling the largest 
 schooner to lay within the rectangular chasm in 
 smooth, oily water. There was a conformation of 
 the coast which made this almost land-encircled 
 nook safe for schooners to lie at anchor, and I 
 noticed a splendid schooner lying buoyed out in 
 the open, there, while another, her tall topmasts 
 not reaching to the rocky bluffs, was moored in the 
 chasm with side lines. Two powerful steam 
 engines, with the very heaviest tackle, were load- 
 ing the vessel below with huge clumps of barreled 
 lime and great bunches of sawed lumber. The 
 gray, oily waves heaved the kelp outside, the sea 
 bird flew along at the level of our feet, and the 
 blue ocean stretched out, a sapphire zone, to where 
 we could see the great steamers pointing down 
 the coast for Panama. I watched the lime and 
 lumber coming down the ravines on a rough 
 wooden track train-way by gravity, and, admiring 
 the whole affair, politely declined to go down to 
 the schooner below in a cage. Far down, on the 
 rocky ledges of the chasm, where shelves had been 
 blasted out, I could see great masses of freight and 
 
TIIK PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 boxed machinery tor the dozen or more sawmills, 
 then engaged in ruining the magnificent, never-to- 
 be-replaced redwood forests. There were only a 
 few rough-looking workmen around. No one lived 
 
 there, except, in a couple of cabins, the operating 
 force who worked this enormous loading and un- 
 loading machinery. It was the only place where 
 a safe landing could be had and heavy material 
 handled in fifty miles. 
 
 For loneliness, it left nothing to be desired. We 
 rode away up the incense-breathing redwood 
 canyons, and, before the stars were out, our horses 
 were comfortably stabled, and I had been hospi- 
 tably received by the kindly old mother of my 
 friend. A great rambling old frontier farmhou 
 with lean-to's and extensions, was hidden in a 
 beautiful creek bottom, encircled with huge barns, 
 and evidence of much easily-gotten gear in flocks 
 and herds. For the lands of the clan were princely 
 in extent, bought from the old Spaniards for a 
 song. The two or three brothers and sisters ot 
 younger years avoided us, and I was treated with 
 the usual Southern hospitality due to a stranger 
 boy. It was the custom there for lads to ex- 
 change these informal hospitalities without let or 
 hindrance. 
 
 I was thinking of nothing but the famous trout 
 pool, and, not long after daybreak, we had been 
 regaled with bacon and eggs, coffee and biscuit, 
 and, saddling up, we ascended the wild glen » 
 cral miles. It was the time of life's ambrosial 
 
76 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 morning, and a wilder scene of beauty never met 
 my eyes than that lonely canyon on the Santa 
 Cruz hills. Quail whirred away before us with 
 stormy burst, the gray squirrel chattered in the 
 trees, the hare fled before us, and the big blue 
 pigeons hovered around all defiant of our innocent 
 fishing poles. 
 
 But, when we tied our horses behind a great 
 clump of laurel, and I was cautiously led to an 
 overhanging rock, I saw below me a great boil- 
 ing black pool, hollowed out by a perpendicular 
 waterfall dropping twenty feet over a ledge of 
 hard rock that the stream could not wear away. 
 The pool was some two hundred feet in diameter. 
 " They're in there, dead oodles of them," gasped 
 my friend. I was the monopolist of the excur- 
 sion, for I had paid in advance, and he was pledged 
 not to fish ! I can never forget the thrill with which 
 I saw a great trout rise, instanter, at my first cast. 
 I forgot all my surroundings for the next thirty 
 minutes, for I had landed nineteen superb brook 
 trout, weighing, when cleaned, twenty-seven 
 pounds. " Now, that's enough for once," ex- 
 claimed the " proprietor." " I don't want no one 
 ever to know, but you and I, what fish is in the 
 pool." 
 
 And, though excited and elated with the electric 
 dash of the splendid imprisoned fish, I was forced 
 to discontinue. The creek ran out of the boiling 
 pool in a thin shallow of low sandy beach, and the 
 beautiful captives there were fattened with store 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 77 
 
 of worm, and grub, and butterfly brought down 
 by the current. I never saw such a fishing pool 
 
 before, nor, this one since ! 
 
 As we slowly retraced our way to the ranch, 
 we laid out a quail and squirrel hunt, and I wa 
 tired and happy sportsman as we returned laden 
 with game after dark. 1 had packed my fish with 
 care in two saddle bags, with grass and cool 
 leaves, and I regretted the long foray of the day 
 which prevented me from riding home to Santa 
 Cruz. 
 
 The family had dined when wc returned, and 
 the Chinese cook set out the remains of the din- 
 ner for us without a word. We made a hearty 
 meal, and I was just finishing the evening toilet 
 of my horse, when one of the youngsters came 
 down and called my companion, who was attend- 
 ing to his own favorite animal. The heir of a 
 great estate, he came and went as he listed, igno- 
 rant of school, and growing up as wild as a young 
 Scythian. He came running back, and, saddling 
 his horse in a jiffy, cried: " I've got to go on a 
 message for the old man! It's fifteen miles to 
 Sayante, and it'll be long after midnight, when I 
 get back. You just go to my room and turn in." 
 
 I smoked a surreptitious pipe in the corral, and. 
 finally becoming lonely, wandered into the 
 house, and throwing off my clothes, went to sleep 
 in the youth's room. I was awakened in a couple 
 of hours by loud and earnest talking. I could 
 hear the shuffling of feet, the clinking 
 
78 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 and, to my astonishment, there seemed to be forty 
 or fifty men gathered in the great living rooms of 
 the ranch house. I crept to the door of my dark- 
 ened room, which was a little ajar, and saw that a 
 hardy band of frontiersmen were crowded into 
 the house. With a trembling hand, I closed the 
 little door tightly, and turned the button of the 
 simple fastening. Soon the bottle circulated, and 
 shouts and cries rose which told me that I was a 
 secret witness of a meeting of the Knights of the 
 Golden Circle. I examined the little room on the 
 first floor and found that there was a window 
 which I could slip out of, and friendly shrubbery 
 to cover me. I dared not move around, and so, I 
 lay quiet and heard the hidden story of the splen- 
 did schooner lying at the buoy outside. 
 
 There were sailors and men to be picked for her 
 from the fleet of the mill-owners. There were 
 people who were to come to take her out to sea, 
 and there was " heavy machinery " and " boxed 
 iron castings," which would be loaded by means 
 of the powerful hoisting machinery. I found out 
 soon where the stolen cannon had gone ! It was 
 hidden somewhere ready to be placed upon the 
 schooner. And, bit by bit, the whole outfit was 
 being got together for a heavy armament of the 
 schooner I had seen. The men were to secretly 
 assemble, and, when all was ready, the peaceful- 
 looking boat would stand out into the track of the 
 Pacific Mail steamers. A false deck cargo of light 
 lumber would conceal the gun. 
 
THE IURATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 79 
 
 And, with a reversed flag, the sign of distress, 
 the steamer would be halted, and, between board- 
 ing tactics and the guns, the gold shipment was to 
 be secured. Men were to be put aboard the out- 
 going steamer as steerage passengers who would 
 spring to arms and aid in the capture. 
 
 I might have heard more, but I crept into my 
 clothes, and dropping out of the window, found 
 my way down to the barn. In ten minutes, I was 
 stealing down the glen, for I had no trouble in 
 leaving the house surrounded with forty or fifty 
 horses tied to the shade trees. I had a very good 
 excuse for a lonely boy's idea of riding home, but, a 
 better one burned in my bosom. The moment the 
 Hen widened I rode off the road and soon was 
 working my w r ay down the coast road. No one at 
 the ranch knew whence I came, none whither I had 
 gone/Save the lad, who sagely concluded that I had 
 got tired and gone home. I was too stunned and 
 excited to take any unusual precautions save rid- 
 ing off the road. I had saved my precious catch of 
 trout, and my fishing gear was in the barn with 
 my saddle-bags. If my face had been seen or mv 
 name been known, I might have fared badly. But 
 the gathered delegates were all trusty men from 
 the canyons around, and none rode down the bleak 
 wind swept coast to Santa Cruz. 
 
 I arrived at home near daybreak, and it was not 
 long before two or three of the most prudent of 
 the Union League knew the strange story of my ex- 
 perience. The whole scheme was in embryo, the 
 
80 THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LANDING 
 
 scheme just hatching out. It happened that one 
 of the lime shippers, a man of great wealth and 
 vigor, was a pronounced Union man. To him, the 
 frustration of the scheme was intrusted. 
 
 It was not desirable to precipitate a local con- 
 flict. We feared the results of individual ven- 
 geance, and by a wise discretion, the Union League 
 smuggled a few good men into the employ of the 
 landing crew. One or two government detectives 
 watched all future shipments from San Francisco 
 to Williams Landing. There were several little 
 buildings run up at Williams Landing, where a 
 " store " suddenly blossomed out. There were 
 gradual changes in the command of the schooners 
 bringing freight, and every vessel had a detective 
 on board. There were no arrests of suspected 
 members of the unlawful gathering, but, that 
 branch of the u Knights " never flourished after- 
 ward ! 
 
 It was found out later that the conspirators be- 
 came alarmed at the control of the landing going 
 gradually out of their hands, and so, the plan was 
 substantially changed. The beautiful schooner 
 soon left the buoy outside the natural drydock. 
 Even the dull frontiersman could see that their 
 game had been mysteriously stopped. 
 
 And, bit by bit, some heavy packages were re- 
 turned to San Francisco consigned "to order." 
 All this was done under the keen eyes of 
 Federal officials. It was eight months after my 
 discovery that the expedition was really cap. 
 
THE PIRATE OF WILLIAMS LAND! 8l 
 
 tured at the wharves at San Francisco, where 
 the fine schooner was ostensibly being Loaded 
 with '* heavy machinery " for Mexico ! The 
 breaking of a tackle exposing some contraband of 
 war, and the pouncing down of the United States 
 detectives who had followed part of the goods 
 back, caused three very able Southern schemers to 
 spend some years in prison, after being tried for 
 piracy. The whole coast from Panama to Van- 
 couver was closely watched thereafter, and the 
 foolhardy attempt was not repeated during the war. 
 And, for many long years very few of the local 
 wiseacres knew that a boy's fishing trip led to the 
 u Pirate of Williams Landing " going out of busi- 
 ness ! 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
HE DIED FIGHTING LIKE A RAT 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN. 
 
 In the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, 
 there were few localities in the still unsettled west 
 more dangerous for residence than Pinal, Gila, and 
 Graham counties, Arizona. Situated on the 
 upper waters of the Gila River, they were con- 
 tinually traversed by parties of emigrants moving 
 along the old Southern Overland Road. 
 
 The whole trail from El Paso to Fort Yuma was 
 infested with deserters, disbanded guerrilla sol- 
 diers, Mexican horse thieves, and villains of every 
 description, for the war had left its fearful legacy 
 of utter demoralization. 
 
 There was not a single military post in the great 
 triangular plain of Southern Arizona, once in- 
 habited by a powerful and peaceful people. The 
 dwellers in the Casas Grandes have left an area of 
 a thousand square miles covered with fragments 
 of their beautiful pottery. Their irrigating 
 ditches, their mud-walled forts, their four-story 
 houses of sun-dried bricks, and all the vestiges of 
 a forgotten life, tell of a great vanished people who 
 were cornplanters and owners of vast herds of 
 sheep. It seems that neat cattle and the horse 
 came in later, with the Conquisadores. 
 
86 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 The Gila River, a priceless boon to the traveler, 
 winds from its source in the New Mexican moun- 
 tains, eight hundred miles to its junction with the 
 mighty Colorado at Fort Yuma. Its green banks 
 broke the awful monotony ol the burning, bare 
 rocks, gray, sandy wastes, cactus plains, and 
 chapparal groves, which swept from Point 
 Isabel, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, to San 
 Diego on the far shores of California. The arable 
 lands along the Gila, from three to twenty miles 
 wide, then afforded a home to the peaceful Pimas, 
 Papagoes, and Maricopas — the three friendly tribes 
 whose pride is that they have never seen the color 
 of a white man's blood. 
 
 But, hanging high over the valley dwellers, 
 from the peaks of the White Mountains and the 
 Black Hills, the baleful signal fires of the Apaches 
 glittered by night, giving warning of any arids 
 from the three strong army posts at Fort 
 McDowell, Camp Grant and Prescott. These 
 with Fort Yuma and Fort Mohave were the 
 central strongholds of the dispirited troops. A 
 series of isolated mountains breaking across the 
 three counties named gave an ample opportunity 
 for the murderous Apaches to steal over from 
 their interior fastnesses of Arizona to the Sierra 
 Madres of Sonora. These hiding places were 
 impregnable. Only the Apaches knew the hid- 
 den water holes. In the canyons of the Salt 
 River and Gila range, the red-handed hill dwell- 
 ers mustered, and watching for small trains, weak 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 87 
 
 escorts, and parties of half-armed emigrants, they 
 swooped down upon them, with fiendish atrocity. 
 The most valuable captured horses were run over 
 to Sonora and sold at half price, the easy-going 
 Mexicans selling these same Apaches cartridges 
 and guns. As on the upper Missouri, a guilty 
 profit-seeking left one-half of the white commu- 
 nity victims of the wiles of the other. Cattle and 
 sheep were driven, when captured, into the con- 
 cealed villages of the Apaches, the horses stolen 
 in Arizona and Sonora always being traded off. 
 
 The Apache marauders were essentially foot 
 Indians and adepts in following on after careless 
 travelers, always swooping down when the victory 
 was a foregone conclusion. Dodging the troops, 
 they made their raids before and behind the 
 soldiers, concealing themselves when hard pressed 
 with wonderful skill. I have seen twenty Indians 
 hide themselves in a circle of two hundred yards, 
 and, I was forced to give up, and call them out of 
 their wonderfully ingenious concealment. 
 
 An abandoned acequia, a trifling gully, sufficed 
 to hide at short notice a murderous band of twenty 
 to forty. In 1868, there was not a rail laid in Ari- 
 zona, nor, anything but an adobe to be seen from 
 Fort Yuma to Tucson. The respectable whites 
 on the Gila ended at Florence, and a few scattered 
 ranches on the upper Gila were tenanted by rene- 
 gades and castaways who had some mysterious 
 freemasonry binding them to all wrongdoers. 
 
 In those days, the man going through McDowell 
 
88 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 Canyon, the Picacho, or to Prescott, waited for 
 some passing escort or joined other well-armed 
 travelers. For, verily a man took his life in his 
 own hand. On one occasion, I camped with ten 
 men on the wild waste north of the Gila, and we 
 counted seventeen Indian fires blazing forth the 
 Apaches' stern defiance to the white man and his 
 menace to the Spaniards whom he has harried for 
 two hundred years ! " Hardly more than one- 
 half a man to a camp," said " Big Blair," my fron- 
 tier guide, laughing grimly. " Ten men and 
 seventeen Indian fires." I was too much busied 
 with certain bitter reflections on the policy of 
 sending soldiers out in knots, to fight Apaches in 
 droves, to appreciate Blair's wit ! 
 
 A continual nefarious traffic and crossing from 
 Arizona to Sonora for years had enriched many un- 
 scrupulous trading Mexicans. The Apaches dis- 
 dained chaffering and paid royally in captured 
 horses, wagons, trinkets, jewels, and money, for 
 the three things they craved — rum, cartridges, and 
 weapons. 
 
 But, it became apparent at last in the unerring 
 success of the Apaches' raids on the upper Gila, 
 that they were aided by keen-witted friends along 
 the lines of the Gila. Valuable horses stolen from 
 Sonora were distributed along the Gila, their 
 brands artfully altered ; government arms and 
 ammunition were found in the few Apache camps 
 raided, for the Indians, from their fastnesses, could 
 often watch the troops toiling on for days and 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 89 
 
 elude them with the greatest ease. But, several 
 well-planned descents of the troops signally failed 
 in the fall of '68, and a general feeling of indignation 
 arose against the treacherous Americans who would 
 aid the crudest murderers of the West. For, there 
 seemed to be a fiendish delight in the Apaches' 
 work of devastation. Whole trains of half-guarded 
 freight wagons had been tipped over into the can- 
 yons, the hamstrung mules following the wrecked 
 vehicles. 
 
 The good faith of the Pimos, Papagoes, and 
 Maricopas was stainless, for twice a year, they 
 gathered, and sweeping north of the Gila in par- 
 ties of two or three hundred, drove in the Apache 
 outposts, fighting some very creditable skirmishes. 
 The work could not be done from the stations 
 along the Gila, for the Apaches would not dare to 
 peaceably exchange their Sonora horses, Mexican 
 plunder, and the spoils of the American for cart- 
 ridges, weapons, and rum. There was an un- 
 written code of death to the man who sold these 
 things to Indians. The county officials and army 
 officers decided that there must be a meeting place 
 for these exchanges, or, that some of the ranches 
 of the upper Gila were tenanted by renegades, 
 who made the Apaches' work effective. And yet, 
 with a great deal of quiet scouting, no traces were 
 discovered of the Apaches' secret friends. 
 
 In a few months, the plunder of ingoing and out- 
 coming trains in the vicinity of the junction of the 
 San Pedro and Gila became alarming. Though 
 
90 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 some trains would move south between Desert 
 Peak and the Santa Catalina Range, others follow 
 the San Pedro, and yet others, linger along in sight 
 of the green oasis of the Gila, the record of re- 
 lentless murder and successful surprise was an 
 astonishing one. 
 
 It soon became a self-evident truth that the 
 Apaches were skillfully handled and dodged across 
 the desert, from the Mexican to the American 
 side, and were directed with a foreknowledge of 
 the possible plunder. Only the great trains of 
 twenty prairie schooners hauling the goods for 
 Tucson, Arizona's largest city, from the head of 
 steam navigation at Fort Yuma, were left un- 
 attacked. Each wagon, with four well-armed men, 
 was a moving fortification. The army escorts, in 
 parties of twenty, were safe, for the breechloader 
 was too much then for the Apaches' old guns. 
 Like all American Indians, the Apaches were ab- 
 solutely destitute of mechanical ability, being un- 
 able to repair the slightest defect in a gun or its 
 mechanism. There were no bands of hostile Mexi- 
 cans settled upon the upper Gila, and the discov- 
 ery of some arms taken from dead Apaches, which 
 had been neatly repaired, proved at last that the 
 hated, shock-headed, stunted murderers had secret 
 friends in the settlements near by. 
 
 1 had pondered long over this situation of affairs 
 and made up my mind that the clearing house of 
 this frontier villainy, the secret headquarters of the 
 organized raids, was near the junction of the San 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 9 1 
 
 Pedro and Gila. There were six ranges of moun- 
 tains on the south for observation posts and hiding 
 places, and, a fan-like arrangement of hills and 
 gullys north of the river leading into Apachedom, 
 where King Cochise reigned supreme. 
 
 And so, when I was sent on a quest as far as San 
 Carlos and Mount Trumbull, I determined to keep 
 my eyes and ears open. I had a sergeant and ten 
 reliable cavalry men, and I had promised the men 
 a handsome reward for any discovery of note. 
 Especially in the little stations along the lonely 
 route, I bade them be on the lookout for men 
 trying to buy their carbines or ammunition or the 
 government revolvers. I made up my mind that 
 if I could trap the illicit traders, I might find 
 the much desired missing link. And, with three 
 friendly Indians, I visited every ranch on the Gila 
 from Parker's Peak to San Carlos. 
 
 We had stopped at a squalid little clump of 
 jacales near the junction of the San Pedro, and 
 carefully made our camp for the night. To each 
 man, his horse and arms represented his life, and 
 the four pack mules loaded with rations repre- 
 sented the Delmonico part of Arizona army life, 
 bacon, coffee, and hard tack. There were two or 
 three frowsy Mexican women lounging around, 
 and I narrowly examined the whole " outfit," as 
 we chaffered for chickens and eggs. A few 
 thatched huts, a couple of iron pots, a bit of corn 
 land, and a scratchy selection of the smaller ani- 
 mals were the entire visible wealth of the colon v. 
 
92 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 One or two Indian women, a sick Mexican, and a 
 couple of Papagoes, playing cards on a horse 
 blanket, made up the personnel. 
 
 With a sense of the menacing nearness of the 
 Tortilla Mountains, I posted a guard of two men, 
 to be relieved every two hours, over the horses 
 and mules, which were hobbled and loosely tied 
 with long picket ropes. I divided the labors with 
 the Sergeant of inspecting the camp every two 
 hours, for the absence of men seemed to be a sus- 
 picious feature of the little settlement. 
 
 It was four o'clock in the morning, when the 
 sentinel whom I had just changed, brought his gun 
 down to an order, and whispered, " Lieutenant, I 
 wish to speak to you, privately." We wandered 
 away, out of earshot, and my steady old soldier, 
 Sidney, gave me the first clue of importance as to 
 the vicinity of the evil-minded league. I had no 
 fatih in the light cavalry carbine, and so, had armed 
 my eleven men with the reliable old long Spring- 
 field infantry gun, good to-day to kill a man every 
 time, at a thousand yards. 
 
 " I was walkin' post, Lieutenant, when one of the 
 men, hanging around here, slipped up and offered 
 me some whisky. Time was when it would have 
 been a temptation! I couldn't see the fellow's 
 face, but he had no hat on, and bushy hair, and 
 he was rigged out in Mexican style. Then, he ups 
 and offers to buy my gun and cartridges. I would 
 have called the Sergeant, but, I remembered what 
 you told me, and, so I jollied him on, a bit. ' You're 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 93 
 
 going on up country toward Dragoon Springs?' 
 he said, ' and, of course, the Lieutenant will follow 
 the Gila back again. If you'll fix it w r hen you 
 stop over here, so that we can get five or six of 
 the big army rifles, and all the cartridges you can 
 steal, I'll give you a hundred dollars a gun, in 
 greenbacks, and a dollar a cartridge.' 
 
 " I led him on a bit, and he agreed it wouldn't 
 do to steal the guns on the trip up. 'No! The 
 Lieutenant is a fighting man. He would tie up 
 every man in sight, till the missing rifles were 
 produced. But, on the way home, I can fix it so 
 as to give you the money for the whole eleven.' ' 
 
 " Do you live at this ranch?" said I, and then 
 he said, pointing to a little island in the Gila, 
 1 Come over there at daybreak, and I'll talk things 
 over with you. I'll give you twenty bottles of 
 whisky for twenty cartridges. We are short of 
 the government ammunition, and we don't kill 
 soldiers enough, to keep us going.' ' 
 
 The stout sentinel paused, " Now, what's my 
 tip, Sir?" I thought over the situation briefly. 
 " I am determined to probe this matter, Sidney," 
 said I ; " Come to my tent at daybreak. I will 
 give you twenty fresh metallic rifle cartridges. 
 Let Maxon, your chum, follow you over there at 
 daybreak, ready with his gun and belt. Sell this 
 fellow the cartridges for the twenty bottles of 
 whisky, and, if he really offers the hundred dol- 
 lars in good currency, let him have Maxon's gun ! 
 Be sure and keep the number on the gun. It may 
 
94 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 turn up in a strange place jet. Get all the points 
 on what kind of a lair this fellow has. He speaks 
 good English ? " 
 
 "Just as clear as the Regimental Adjutant," 
 laughed Sidney. 
 
 " All right, my man ! I'll give you an extra re- 
 volver, and don't either of you stir a foot further 
 than the place where he meets you. And, size 
 him up for good ! " 
 
 I turned in, thinking over the strange occurrence, 
 and at daybreak, lazily gave the faithful soldier 
 two packs of the cartridges almost priceless then 
 in Arizona. Freight at fifteen cents a pound did 
 not cheapen Uncle Sam's powder and lead. The 
 camp was struck and the horses saddled, when 
 Sidney and Maxon returned. 
 
 I heard their brief report, " All right, Sir ; " and 
 Sidney handed me five twenty-dollar bills. "That's 
 the price of the gun, Sir, we buried the whisky 
 down at the river bank ! " 
 
 " Get your breakfast, men, and I'll send the 
 Sergeant with you to bring the whisky in. We 
 will serve it out on the march in regular grog 
 rations." 
 
 I was careful to show no uneasiness, for I knew 
 the loafing women were perhaps, trained spies, 
 and I strolled away from the camp and examined 
 the five bills. They were bright and new, and yet 
 on one of them, were several spots of unmistak- 
 able blood. 
 
 The murder of a mine paymaster on the Apache 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 95 
 
 Pass road two months before, with fourteen thou- 
 sand dollars in currency, flashed upon my mind. 
 There w r ere no banks in Arizona then, and the 
 quartermaster's cash and Government paymaster's 
 funds made up most of the circulation. I remem- 
 bered that that sum had been turned over by the 
 Tucson quartermaster's agent, in fresh funds, in 
 return for the company's draft on the Sub-Treasury 
 at San Francisco. " I wonder," I began, as I 
 spurred my good old dragoon horse " Stonewall " 
 away, and called for Maxon and Sidney to take 
 the advance, " I wonder, if I have struck the nest 
 of ' white traitors ! ' " 
 
 Riding out in the advance, I listened to Sidney's 
 story, " The fellow is an American, sure enough, 
 though he w r ears no hat and his hair is as bushy 
 as an Apache's. A Mexican shirt, a pair of hide 
 trousers, soldier's shoes and a broad buckskin 
 band around his middle, is his entire rig. 
 
 " He's got a whole lot of whisky cached over 
 there in the sand, and he has built a little hut. I 
 don't know what he wants so many guns for ! He 
 had a dozen old guns lying around there, and he 
 has an anvil, a vice, a fiddle drill, and a few odd 
 tools. And he's a rare, shy bird, for he wouldn't 
 come over the river with us, but sent an Injun 
 woman down to the river to show us the ford. 
 He had a whole lot of bills. The Injun woman 
 looks like an Apache, too, blame me, if she don't. 
 He jabbered to her in fine shape." 
 
 I started at the name u Apache," for, in half a 
 
96 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 day, that squaw could rouse any one of a dozen 
 hostile camps in the big bend of the Gila. 
 
 " And what did he propose ? " I queried. 
 
 " He wouldn't talk to Maxon, but he offered to 
 deposit a hundred dollars a gun, cash, if I could help 
 the women at this station steal all the guns when 
 we come back. ' I must have those guns/ he said, 
 * and sooner than lose them, I'll double the money. 
 You fix it so the command will stay a few days at the 
 ranch, on your return,' he said. ' Some of the men 
 can play off sick — " lame old soldier," and, all that.^ 
 
 I did not care to excite Sidney's suspicions of 
 my ultimate object, but, I carefully recorded the 
 number of the gun, 19142, bearing the govern- 
 ment eagle and the mark, " Springfield, Mass." 
 
 I determined, during the march to San Carlos, 
 to ask the nearest responsible officer to send down 
 one or two keen frontiersmen, and a secret de- 
 tachment to watch the suspicious rancho. The 
 exorbitant prices to be paid, indicated to me a 
 desire of some nefarious parties to get hold of a 
 dozen of the invincible, wicked, long infantry guns. 
 
 Two days after leaving San Pedro, I met a 
 pretty strong detachment of private prospectors, 
 on their way back to San Diego. They were 
 mostly Southern men, and had served in the 
 war, whose echoes were hardly settled. Well- 
 mounted, well-armed, and careless in their daring, 
 they straggled along in knots of two and three, 
 with no attempt at any precautions. A couple 
 of light wagons contained their commissary 
 
THE WHITE INDIAN 97 
 
 stores, and the hardy Texans and Missourians 
 slept al fresco. 
 
 We camped not very far from each other, and I 
 rode over in the starlight with a couple of men, to 
 warn the commander of the suspicious community 
 on the San Pedro. I told the Major all that was 
 prudent (there is always a Major where there are 
 three Southern men), and he laughed gayly. 
 
 " We will give them a healthy wrassle," he 
 cried. " There's only one thing with Injuns : 
 Never let 'em get high ground, and my men can 
 fight on the individual plan. But, I'm obliged, 
 all the same." 
 
 I finally persuaded the Major to pass by the 
 San Pedro hovels and camp beyond, in the open. 
 " Your splendid stock is a temptation." And, as 
 my command pressed on to San Carlos, I soon 
 forgot my rollicking Southern friends. 
 
 I had passed a dozen trains of the dejected-look- 
 ing Southern emigrants who wander across the 
 continent from Arkansas to San Bernardino, in a 
 fitful restlessness. The patient jaded women, the 
 passive oxen, the frowsy children, the bushy- 
 bearded men, rifle on shoulder, I well knew the 
 type, but I served as volunteer doctor, news- 
 monger, topographer, relief agent, and general 
 " desert angel " to these shiftless ones w r ho had left 
 one " pretty pore country " to find another, and 
 were now wandering along to Texas, where land 
 was a drug. The cheerful Apache reminder of a 
 burned wagon train and scattered human bones 
 
98 THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 enlivened my route and, in one place, traced with 
 burnt sticks and blood upon the shining rocks, 
 were hideous insults to the bravery of the whites. 
 
 Sudden orders at San Carlos sent me whirling 
 back down the Gila, traveling as the crow flies, 
 and cutting off all the bends in the road. Half rest 
 and double marching made it a careworn squad 
 which rattled into Florence, and I was without 
 news of the river for a fortnight. The spectacle 
 of my friend, the southern Major, seated in front 
 of the "Robert E. Lee House," recalled me to the 
 intrigues of the San Pedro scoundrel. The 
 Major's right arm was scientifically swung in 
 bloody bandages, and he hesitated not to hail me 
 with the time-honored invitation, " Hello, Lieuten- 
 ant! Come and have a drink." I dismounted, 
 and was soon the recipient of many professions of 
 his undying gratitude. 
 
 While the Sergeant camped the command, I 
 listened to the bronzed wanderer's story. " I put 
 it up you were blowing a little about that corner 
 up there on the river, but, somehow, I knew you 
 would have no real interest in giving us a fill. 
 And so, I minded your advice and passed on by 
 there and camped, only sending a couple of men 
 down to buy some milk, eggs, and chickens. I 
 kept a running guard over the camp and hitched 
 the mules with both chains and halters. In the 
 morning, I found a regular trail beaten in the 
 chapparral all around us, but we had four men on 
 guard, and there was no chance for a stampede. 
 
THE Will I E INDIAN 99 
 
 "Then, when we pulled out toward FloreiK 
 gave every man his orders. About ten o'clo< k, w e 
 
 came to a long ravine with some gullies just cal- 
 culated to hide a bunch of Injuns in each. I sent 
 a couple of men on, into the pass, and we threw 
 out a couple more flankers on the hills. My two 
 poor men were just clearing the pass when a cloud 
 of Apaches rose up all around us. We made one 
 wild dash for high ground, and then spread to 
 fight them, for they expected to see us huddle up 
 below. 
 
 " It was the hottest little fight you want to see, 
 and yet, in half an hour, we had them whipped ! 
 They scrambled away in the rocks, but, we had 
 three dead men and two severely wounded. 
 
 " They had followed on and passed us in the 
 night, and laid for us. There was one fellow be- 
 hind some rocks on a low mound, who led them 
 on, and he had one of your big army guns. We 
 got him cut off, after he had killed two of our 
 people, and I then took a hand, myself, and 
 stationed three men to keep alternately firing at 
 him, as he tried to play snake, and wiggle out of 
 range. Just before I thought he was laid out, he 
 bored me through the forearm with an ounce 
 bullet, and I then sent the boys over to strip him. 
 He laid still till they were on the knoll and then. 
 began to fire a revolver at the astonished men. 
 He died fighting like a rat, and cursing in good 
 round English. He was all got up in full Apache 
 rig, and, Injun color, but, when we cut the broad 
 
IOO THE WHITE INDIAN 
 
 band of buckskin off him, his body was white as 
 snow. He was the head devil of the outfit — a 
 white Apache — too. The boys just riddled him 
 with bullets ! " 
 
 I was astounded, but I at once demanded to see 
 the gun the dead outlaw had borne. There was 
 the tell-tale number 19142 on the barrel. " That 
 place should be cleaned out," I sternly said. 
 
 " My dear boy," cried the wounded Major, " the 
 boys went up and burned the whole shebang. 
 They did not leave a stake standing. They found 
 any amount of plunder hidden on the island which 
 has been recognized as stolen in Apache raids. 
 There was a good round sum of money, and, 
 worse and more of it, there were papers and bills 
 found in his den addressed ' Charles Carter, Fron- 
 teras, Mexico/ all for guns, ammunition, and 
 whisky. We took the trouble to bring this chap's 
 head along,- and it's in the saloon there, in a big jar 
 of his own whisky. One or two Arizona men here 
 recognize him as a man they have seen dealing in 
 splendid horses at Fronteras, Magdalena, and 
 Hermosillo. He has been the head sneak for 
 these fellows here, no doubt, and, with the women, 
 piped off travelers and planned the attacks." 
 
 I led Sidney into the saloon and showed the 
 gaping soldier the dead renegade's head! " Is 
 that the man who bought your gun ? " He 
 nodded gravely. " Take it back now," I said. 
 "The Apaches will need another general ad- 
 vance agent ! " 
 
SNOWED IN 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE. 
 
t a 
 
 • » r 
 t • 
 
 :..'.:•'■.■ 
 
 GIVE IT TO HIM 
 
SNOWED IN. 
 
 I WAS remarkably light-hearted on the twentieth 
 of November, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, as 
 I mounted my horse to leave Round Valley, Men- 
 docino County, California. The train of my fol- 
 lowers was a reproduction of Falstaff's army! 
 " Look out for these people, they're an ornery lot 
 —that's what they are," grumbled the assistant 
 agent at the Round Valley Indian Reservation. 
 The white hangers-on of the Reservation were 
 grinning in a secret delight, as my charger was led 
 
 forth. 
 
 As an Engineer Officer and Aide-de-camp of the 
 commanding general of the military division of 
 the Pacific, I had been sent up to Round Valley 
 to lay off an extensive reservation for the five or 
 six thousand Indians huddled into beautiful Round 
 
 Valley. 
 
 Thirty by fifty miles in its elliptical dimensions, 
 it is well watered and surrounded with a first and 
 second battlement of hills and mountains, sweeping 
 away to the east toward the magnificent peaks of 
 the Sierras forming the watershed of the Sacra- 
 mento River. t 
 
 Eel River adroitly running around it, with the 
 
104 SNOWED IN 
 
 encircling mountains, made either route of de- 
 parture sufficiently dangerous. The trail from 
 Ukiah, which I used in entering the valley, was a 
 " rocky road to Dublin," and my theodolites, 
 levels, and engineering paraphernalia had suffered 
 from a succession of mishaps. I had passed a 
 gorge where the remains of a cottage piano lay, a 
 thousand feet below, still strapped to the remains 
 of two army mules who stubbornly essayed to go 
 different ways, and shared a common fate. 
 
 Five months among the squatters of Round 
 Valley had persuaded me of the utter villainy of 
 the frontier brutes encroaching upon the vanishing 
 redmen. I could get no honest counsels from 
 any of them ! 
 
 The army post at Camp Wright was governed 
 by a few infantry officers who delighted in guying 
 a tenderfoot staff officer, and my " blanket order " 
 for supplies and assistance might as well have been 
 " writ in water," like Keat's epitaph. When all 
 of these people painted to me the horrors of the 
 Cahto trail, leading fifty miles northwest, I in- 
 stantly decided to leave the valley by that route. 
 The air was crisp and cold, the hunter's hallo and 
 the woodman's ax rang thin and clear, and blankets 
 and hot toddy were at a premium. 
 
 My work was all done. I had laid off lines which 
 doubled the lands of the hill tribes, giving them 
 ample woodland, hunting and fishing grounds, and 
 an area to gather the sweet acorns for their meal. 
 The deer and bear of the forests, the swarming 
 
SNOWED IN 
 
 I0 5 
 
 salmon and trout of the river, the woodland run 
 for their cattle an i mast bearing oak forests for 
 their pigs, were prime necessities to the Indians. 
 
 As I gazed around at the five hundred wick-i- 
 ups with the crowding throngs of restless-eyed 
 copper-hued savages, I felt an honest pride in tak- 
 ing leave of my aboriginal wards. The great 
 general who fought the battle of Nashville had 
 bidden me roll back the lines of the thieving 
 squatters and leave to the plundered Indians room 
 enough on their own land to live in peace, in their 
 own way. I had tried to do my duty. I felt, as I 
 shook hands with the Indian agent and the principal 
 chiefs, that I had done so. I had taken a dozen 
 chiefs of the Wyelackies, Pitt Rivers, Diggers, 
 Snakes, and Modocs, around the lines, which I left 
 doubly blazed in the forests, and showed them the 
 fifty corner posts marking the angles of their ter- 
 ritory. 
 
 This policy of General George H. Thomas in 
 separating the spoiler and the spoiled was a wise 
 one, and it kept peace for twenty years in Round 
 Valley, until disease and rum have obliterated the 
 tribes with whom I spent an exciting five months. 
 The contrary policy, later, brought on the Modoc 
 war, and Joseph's war in the lapse of a few years. 
 These were wars as creditable to the Indians as 
 Thermopylae's battle was to the Greeks ! The 
 costly tribute of the blood of General Canby and 
 his gallant officers, the battle of the Clearwater 
 and the millions uselessly spent on the Modoc and 
 
106 SNOWED IN 
 
 Joseph campaigns, were the logical result of the 
 brutal encroachments of the whites. 
 
 I realized that I left hardly a white friend in 
 Round Valley as I dispatched my train, with all my 
 baggage, engineering implements, and three days' 
 rations. A dozen notable Indians, half of them 
 armed with axes, two or three mule-drivers, and 
 " Tuttle," the head Reservation packer, were my 
 attendants. 
 
 " Are you armed ? " said the retired army Cap- 
 tain, who was the local Indian agent. I smiled and 
 pointed to Tuttle's revolver, as that bronze-faced 
 youth sat gracefully upright on a wild broncho, 
 then trying to scatter him over an acre of ground. 
 " You need an escort ! " sternly said the Captain, 
 as he sent a man galloping on in advance to Camp 
 Wright. 
 
 The last good-by was said, and I lightly vaulted 
 upon my horse. At twenty-three, I considered 
 myself a rough rider, and my departure from the 
 Round Valley Indian Reservation taxed all the 
 powers of a blended Californian and West Point 
 riding experience. We were a half-mile away 
 from the Reservation when the thin-breasted, wall- 
 eyed, sorrel demon, from sheer exhaustion, allowed 
 Tuttle to rein up near me. The frontier youth 
 had lost his hat in the race ; his gay-colored 
 neckerchief shone saucily out over his blue riding 
 jerkin, and he laughed heartily as he said : " Lieu- 
 tenant ! That's the Hoopa mare that they have sent 
 over for you ! The meanest piece of horseflesh 
 
SNOWED IN 
 
 I0 7 
 
 that I ever mounted, and I've been a vaqucro since 
 boyhood. They always send a new officer some- 
 thing calculated to break his neck ! " 
 
 I grimly appreciated the little brotherly joke 
 and determined to ride that Hoopa mare around 
 the line of officers' quarters as I left the fort, after 
 'saying officially farewell, so as to show the ladies 
 of Camp Wright that I appreciated the joke. 
 
 At the cross roads, half way to Camp Wright, 
 several loaferly hangers-on at the one valley store 
 cheered me with merry predictions. While one 
 said, " Lootenant, the river is up ! You'll have to 
 swim the Cahto crossing. The mail-rider was 
 drowned there three days ago ! " — another, gazing 
 at the mackerel sky, lazily drawled, " You'll get 
 snow enough on the big divide ! Chances are, 
 you'll not make the trip ! " I gladly rode away 
 after Tuttle had bought his tobacco and a few 
 knick knacks, and I noticed that he rode close 
 behind me, until we were well out of rifle shot. 
 We had passed and repassed our train once or 
 twice. I groaned as I saw the cherished prop- 
 erty of the Corps of Engineers gyrating around 
 in that graceful figure known as the " Blazing 
 Star," but, my work was done, the sketch, map, 
 and the survey notes, later approved by the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, were in my bosom, and 
 so, I rode happily along with both eyes fixed 
 upon the Hoopa mare's ears. I delighted in 
 giving that fiend all the riding she needed 
 before we reached the beautiful post of Camp 
 
Io8 SNOWED IN 
 
 Wright, a memorial to General Tom Jordan, 
 who reluctantly left the hunter's paradise he had 
 built, to flourish as Chief of Staff to Beauregard, 
 at Bull Run. 
 
 "Ye're goin' to get some soldiers here, are ye 
 not ? " thoughtfully said Tuttle, as we neared the 
 camp. 
 
 " I believe so !" I carelessly replied. 
 
 " Wall ! I hope ye will, Lootenant ! " shyly said 
 young Tuttle. " I ain't afeard of no man, but 
 them scrubs back there, allowed as some of them 
 might follow you, and put a ball through you for 
 what ye've done for the Injuns. Ye're mighty on- 
 popular here. Ef I only had my Winchester," he 
 said, with a vain regret. There was no mistaking 
 his sincerity ! 
 
 I recalled, with indignation, a base attempt to 
 bully me, by underhand suggestion, on my begin- 
 ning my work. I had mapped all the pretended 
 claims, and at one of my camps a committee of 
 three were ushered out at the muzzle of a heavy 
 rifle for certain insulting proposals. I knew that 
 stages had been robbed on the trail, an army pay- 
 master trapped and left for dead, and, when I found 
 four infantrymen equipped with their heavy 
 Springfields and a double allowance of ammuni- 
 tion, I understood the agent's foresight. It was 
 only on my return to San Francisco, three hun- 
 dred miles away, that I learned of a secret plan to 
 murder me and destroy my survey notes. Even 
 that desperate move would only have postponed 
 
SNOWED IN 109 
 
 the dispossessing of the valley squatter rogues for 
 some years. 
 
 An extra mule, with the rations for the four men 
 for a week, was added to my train, and, after a 
 delay of an hour, my little command was hidden 
 from sight in the rolling hills to the west of the 
 fort! Short ceremony I made of the adieux, as 
 between the lurking murderers and the courtesy 
 of the Hoopa mare, I left nothing behind me to 
 increase " the sweet sorrow of parting ! " A 
 friendly lieutenant of infantry had handed me his 
 belt and army six-shooter, without a word of ex- 
 planation. " You can send it back by Corporal 
 Yeackle!" he remarked, and, I understood the 
 significant pressure of his hand ! The one in dan- 
 ger is always left to stumble along and find out 
 the terrors of the road for himself! 
 
 On our western pathway of fifty miles were 
 several old abandoned cabins ; there was a mail 
 station at Eel River with a rope ferry practicable 
 when the river was not raging, and one steep range 
 of high hills, backed by lofty mountains on either 
 side of Eel River, lay between me and Cahto, 
 where, by stage, I could descend the beautiful coast 
 valleys, and reach headquarters at San Francisco 
 from Petaluma. 
 
 The Indians trotted along silently by the train, 
 the woods rang with the staccato remarks of m y 
 mule packers, the four soldiers dragged along 
 with the ambitionless stride of men who serve 
 others in a perfunctory way, and, as the Hoopa 
 
HO SNOWED IN 
 
 mare postponed her deviltry until she had regained 
 some strength, the simple frontiersman, Tuttle, 
 entertained me with crisp tales of border feuds, 
 family vendettas and Indian killing, both amateur 
 and professional. The sun sloped to the west in 
 the magnificent forests, the night-breeze swept 
 down from the purple hills, and far to the north, 
 gorgeous rose and gold and crimson colors played 
 upon the majestic snowy summits of the pathless 
 Sierras. 
 
 Magnificent pines surrounded us, with gnarled 
 firs, great full bosomed oaks, splendid red gleam- 
 ing madronas, and acorn berry and wild plum 
 were tempting the deer and bear. Great flights 
 of quail, bevies of grouse, and chattering squirrels 
 were aroused by our march. 
 
 It was sundown when Tuttle galloped ahead to 
 a deserted cabin hard by a gurgling spring. The 
 whole tired cavalcade drew up around the welcome 
 shelter. There were several pretty oak openings 
 near us, andTuttle's foot was hardly on the ground 
 before " Captain Jim," the Wylackie chief, pointed 
 to a superb buck, eyeing us, not three hundred 
 yards away. Seizing the Corporal's rifle, Tuttle 
 sped away to get a broadside view. The ringing 
 crack of his rifle called the Indians, and, ten 
 minutes later, the buck was hanging from the poles 
 of the thatched porch ! 
 
 It was an ideal camp that night! The ruddy 
 fire, the good cheer, fresh venison, army pork and 
 tinned potatoes, coffee ad libitum, and pipe a dis- 
 
SNOWED IN III 
 
 cretionput me in a good humor. The moon drifted 
 over the battlements of the Sierras, and the sigh- 
 ing voices of the night recalled old days to me! 
 
 I had made Tuttle my second in command. I 
 ordered the Corporal to stack the arms in a little 
 shed ° lean-to," where my blankets were laid down, 
 and the poor soldiers, before a fire blazing in the 
 old fireplace, squatted on the floor, played that 
 army game of poker which never ends. I have 
 seen soldiers without Bibles, but I never saw one 
 without " a deck of cards." Professional etiquette 
 prevented me associating with the fat German, 
 Corporal Yeackle, the long-legged, saucer-eyed, 
 Irish giant, " Mulholland," the mean-faced, ferret- 
 eyed, renegade-looking American, " Brown," and 
 soldier No. 4 — Riley — a hardened Irish soldier of 
 the type," manufactured to order," for the regular 
 army. 
 
 Tuttle was busied with his muleteers and the 
 animals, and so, I passed an informal evening with 
 the Indians, who were squatted around three 
 fires in front of the cabin devouring the buck in 
 short order. " Captain Jim," " Bismarck," " Three 
 Star," "Old Tom," "Horace Greeley, "Sweet- 
 bread," "Running Rat," and "Big Pappoose " 
 were the fanciful names of several of the gang 
 representing three tribes, and of the other sullen, 
 low-browed red men, two were destined to achieve 
 a military fame — and — one to die on the gal- 
 lows for killing an officer. It suddenly occurred 
 to me that I would have Tuttle watch these un- 
 
112 SNOWED IN 
 
 couth redmen, for, I fancied I saw a black bottle ! 
 They had no arms, but I found that the kindly 
 Indian Agent had given them five dollars each to 
 insure their fidelity to my comfort as far as Cahto. 
 
 With a word of caution to Tuttle, and a hint to 
 the Corporal about the arms, I " laid my brows 
 upon the drifted leaves and dreamed." I was 
 almost case-hardened with six years of athletics 
 and the last five months in these wild hills as any 
 of the Indians, but, before morning I rolled over 
 and over to avoid a penetrating cold which froze 
 my very marrow. The first streakings of dawn 
 found us all astir, and, to my dismay, there was 
 six inches of snow on the ground, and the long, 
 soft, feathery flakes were dropping incessantly and 
 as thick as flocks of cotton wool. 
 
 The breakfast was hastened in a gloomy silence. 
 The Indians divided the remains of the deer's car- 
 cass, and when all the animals were brought up and 
 packed, I saw Tuttle gazing at me with an air of 
 concern. "What is it, Lieutenant?" he said, 
 "Forward? There will be heavy snow on the 
 divide. There are men who would turn back at 
 once to Camp Wright. You might leave all this 
 stuff and push on with me and one mule. We 
 could surely force our way through to Cahto." 
 
 " Tuttle," I said, gravely, " I must reach San 
 Francisco. I must finish this map, and get the 
 President's proclamation out as soon as possible." 
 
 "Well, if ye've drawed yerbead, here goes! " 
 
 I feared to face his honest, inquiring eyes. I 
 
SNOWED IN 
 
 ".5 
 
 knew that he was not sullen, and a braver man 
 never drew breath. We were the last to leave the 
 cabin, and the unwilling animals, the slouchy 
 soldiers, the apathetic Indians, all staggered up 
 trail, to where the open rocky knolls, the dim ra- 
 vines, and precipitous ascents, to the top of the 
 Eel River divide, made our journey a dismal one. 
 
 The snow blew in our faces and soon blinded us. 
 I managed to keep a pipe lighted, the trail became 
 slippery, and the snow deeper and deeper. We 
 passed three great black bears rolling over each 
 other in the snow, and no one had curiosity 
 enough for a shot. The forest was gloomy, the 
 winds cut us sharply, and our spirits fell with the 
 thermometer. Four hours of floundering along, 
 with several of the animals down at one time, 
 at last, exhausted the energies of the whole com- 
 mand. It was not four o'clock when we entered 
 a canyon by a creek leading to the last incline of 
 the Eel River divide. A great oak forest showed 
 the girdled trees of the tan-bark scalper, and a 
 cabin invited us to its welcome shelter. It was 
 strongly built and seemed to be a sort, of Hospice 
 de Saint Bernard station, though untenanted. 
 There was a little room with a rude bunk, and 
 some scattered straw and leaves. When the 
 property was all under cover, the animals fed with 
 grain and sheltered, and fire and food had relieved 
 us, I watched Tuttle, silent and dispirited, seated 
 before the fire drying his neckerchief. 
 
 I began to realize my mistake, and I ruefully 
 
114 SNOWED IN 
 
 watched the falling snow, now eighteen inches 
 deep. The Indians were huddled on one side of 
 the open cabin, my soldiers on the other, and the 
 arms were stowed away in my little den. Only 
 Tuttle and I had revolvers. The young frontiers- 
 man understood the silent question of my eyes ! 
 
 " It's a mighty hard game cut out for us here. 
 I tell you what, Lieutenant, I've got to ride back 
 to the reservation to-night. I can make it by ten 
 o'clock. Your animals are plumb beat out. The 
 grain will gone to-morrow. The food next day ! 
 I'll take a letter to the agent. He can send a 
 dozen men up, each with two animals. You've 
 got to stop here. I'll bring you grub and grain. 
 Then we will pick out the best mules, and take a 
 half dozen goo.d men. We can force you over to 
 Eel River, once across, you can get to Cahto, and 
 your stuff must stay here till spring — and then the 
 quartermaster send it down. This trail will be 
 closed in a week, for the whole winter." 
 
 A half hour's argument could not change his 
 resolution. " I'm bound to see you through ! " he 
 cried, " and, I'll be back here the second day and 
 push you on." In ten minutes, my two official 
 appeals were penciled off, and I grasped the 
 brave fellow's hand with gratitude, as he faced 
 the blinding snowstorm, and sped away alone, 
 down the trail. He had all my cigars and a trusty 
 leather jacket, the companion of many a hunting 
 foray. 
 
 Feeling the need of discipline, I called the four 
 
SNOWED IN 
 
 "5 
 
 soldiers aside, and, instructing the Corporal in 
 
 their presence, I gave them the m id ord 
 
 about the animals, and the treatment of the In- 
 dians, as well as the care of our slender stock of 
 food. My evening toilet was made, when my 
 boots were drawn off, and I slept the sleep of - 
 haustion and disgust. I was baffled at every turn, 
 and caught on the hither side of Eel River, in per- 
 haps the closing storm of the year! 
 
 It seemed to me that I could hear in my uneasy 
 dreams, the clatter of tin cups, the rattle of money, 
 and the sound of dispute, but I awoke late to find 
 the snow nearly three feet thick, and the storm 
 still continuing though the wind had gone down. 
 I breakfasted, through the attentions of Corporal 
 Yeackle, and set myself about inspecting the ani- 
 mals, seeing them fed with the last of the grain, 
 and sheltered as far as we could devise means. 
 The store of provisions was carefully examined 
 Two days at most, would be the spinning out of 
 the slender store. I laid out every possible occu- 
 pation for my time, and at last, as the long after- 
 noon was closing, I was reduced to poring over a 
 battered copy of Shakespeare, the " stand-by " of 
 years of travel. I was obliged to decline Captain 
 Jim's application for the loan of one of the soldier's 
 guns. u Plenty deer stand around in snow, now,'' 
 he said, " Got him foot wet." I diplomatically 
 answered " To-morrow ! " I knew that Tuttle 
 would be back with me, or at least near, for a sin- 
 gular lack of cordiality seemed to hav \ n 
 
Il6 SNOWED IN 
 
 up between my body guard and the Indians! 
 
 I carefully inspected my camp, verified the 
 safety of the rations and the presence in my room 
 of all the weapons, and lay down to sleep that 
 night after the longest day of my life. White and 
 gray, cold and cheerless, the external scene was 
 made more gloomy by night's black shadows. 
 
 The two groups of my followers were playing 
 cards by the firelight when I gave the Corporal 
 his last orders. We had heaped up all the dry 
 wood near for fuel, and I feared an accidental fire, 
 which might cost all our lives. One of the soldiers 
 was stationed on guard, but, unarmed, with orders 
 to arouse a mate, every two hours for relief. 
 
 In the midnight hours, I was aware that the 
 two groups were still playing cards, an amuse- 
 ment at which the Indians are the equal of any 
 Mississippi River gambler. I did not care to for- 
 bid the apparently harmless game, as the men 
 were without comfort and had a hard siege before 
 them. Suddenly, the heavy bang of a Spring- 
 field rifle brought me to my feet, with my re- 
 volver in hand ! 
 
 As I sprang out of the little side room, I could 
 see the Corporal and the two Irishmen strug- 
 gling with Private Brown, who still clung to a 
 rifle, from whose muzzle, the smoke was pouring. 
 There was not an Indian in the room! The three 
 muleteers had crawled out of their corner. 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this ! " I cried, as 
 clapping my revolver to Brown's head, I bade 
 
SNUWED IN 
 
 "7 
 
 him give up the gun. " It was all an accident," 
 the man grumbled, and looking him squarely in 
 the face, I saw that he was undeniably drunk ! 
 Then, I ordered the Corporal and the other two 
 soldiers to tie up the man, which they did most un- 
 willingly. I could see that there was something 
 hidden from me, but, in ten minutes all was quiek < 1 . 
 Taking the best of the muleteers, I gave him 
 the rifle, and searching the four soldiers for car- 
 tridges, gave the civilian orders to shoot any one 
 trying to touch the arms or ammunition. And 
 then, I sent the other two mule-drivers out to find 
 and placate the frightened Indians. They trudged 
 about in the storm for ten minutes, and I saw dis- 
 aster in their eyes as they returned covered with 
 snow. " The Indians have cut the lariats of all the 
 animals and cleared out upon them, riding bare- 
 back." I needed no further blow to dampen my 
 spirits. The worst had befallen ! 
 
 Alternating with the three mule-drivers, I 
 guarded the arms and rations until daylight, keep- 
 ing the four soldiers under close arrest. The 
 truth leaked out before my morning coffee had 
 restored my good humor. An all-round game of 
 poker in which the Indians produced the secreted 
 liquor, bought at the cross-roads, led to a quarrel 
 of sudden violence. Brown, emboldened by 
 drink, detected in cheating, snatched up the stakes, 
 and, springing to a corner, fired the gun of the 
 guard point blank at the Indians in his drunken 
 recklessness. And, the poor fellows had cleared 
 out, in terror ! 
 
Il8 SNOWED IN 
 
 None of the soldiers would tell on their mates, 
 and I transferred my affections to the mule-driv- 
 ers, now by no means glad of the unfaithful escort. 
 
 The long day crawled away, and, no Tuttle ! 
 No sound of relief, no help. One bright ray of 
 hope illumined my winter skies. It had stopped 
 snowing. We four men (in good repute) guarded 
 the sullen soldiers, and the evening after the flight 
 of the Indians passed most gloomily. We all knew 
 they would take their own side trails back to the 
 Reservation, where all the animals belonged, save 
 the Hoopa mare, which they had scorned to 
 steal. She was a bright star of the War Depart- 
 ment. Nothing was left of " Mr. Lo," save the 
 scattered bones of the deer and a few fragments 
 of the carcass lying around their fires in front of 
 the open door of the cabin. 
 
 I was sleeping at three o'clock, and dreaming 
 of Tuttle's relief train when a hand on my arm 
 wakened me. It was the muleteer on guard, 
 "Big Andy." 
 
 " See here, Lieutenant/' he whispered, " there's 
 a thundering big grizzly, hanging around the 
 door. He has found the remains of the deer ! " In 
 grim silence, we loaded the four heavy Springfield 
 rifles, and the Corporal grasped a burning brand 
 from the fire. I gave him my revolver, and with 
 orders for only two to fire at a time, we crawled to 
 the door. The three mule-drivers and myself 
 were the gunners, and the men stood ready to hand 
 us cartridges. 
 
SN< ' .'. i u i.\ i in 
 
 When the burning brand was whirled, the great 
 
 marauder ran away twenty yards and stopped, 
 growling and digging up the snow! "Now," I 
 cried, " Give it to him!" Two one-ounce balls 
 tore through him, and, as he turned, with a roar, 
 he met a second discharge ! 
 
 In the excitement, we fired alternately till a dozen 
 balls had laid him out. But, no one ventui 
 near him, till daylight brought us Tuttle and a 
 dozen selected men. The sun was shining brightly 
 when he rode up. I selected four men and eight 
 horses. Before noon, Tuttle and I had crossed the 
 Eel River divide and the soldiers were trudging 
 homeward. To our inexpressible delight, after 
 a descent of fifteen miles, the scow-boat ferry was 
 found to be in running order. Even my precious 
 instruments were landed on the other side of the 
 Eel River without damage, and, leaving two men 
 to come on with them, after a night spent in the 
 ferry hut, the young frontiersman selected for me 
 the best horse, and mounted the next best himself. 
 Well provided with supplies in our saddle pouches, 
 we rode along through the darkling forest, as one 
 who fears the avenger of blood ! The great storm 
 had whirled around, and the two days of sunshine 
 gave us the time needed to reach the hamlet of 
 Cahto. All unmindful of past fatigue, I crawled 
 into the body of a Concord coach, about to st?-' 
 in half an hour. My precious trust was safe : I 
 could rest further on. " The soldiers and tin- In 
 dians?" said Tuttle, "Let than settle it among tk 
 
120 SNOWED IN 
 
 selves ! " I gayly cried, as I left the loyal fellow 
 there on guard, with my gold watch in his hand 
 as a parting gift. I received from Tuttle the bear 
 skin tanned nicely, six months later, as a memorial 
 of being " Snowed In." 
 
WITH THE CARIBS OFF 
 RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
THE RETURN TO TRUXILLO 
 
WITH THE CARIBS OFF 
 RUATAN ISLAND. 
 
 There are moments in life when the burden 
 of existence becomes unbearable. I appreciated 
 this fact on the fifth of June, eighteen hundred 
 and ninety, when I rode into Truxillo, Spanish 
 Honduras, on the seventeenth day of lonely travel 
 returning from a bootless quest for gold and the 
 gloomy gorges of the Mangalile River. 
 ' I had looked forward, with a secret triumph, to 
 hastening along the sea-beach after emerging from 
 the last horrible canyon, and buying my steamer 
 ticket for New Orleans, Mobile, or Baltimore. 1 
 knew that I had thrown away six months, several 
 thousands of dollars, and my health, in a fruit 1 
 chase for fool's gold. Of the valuable outfit, nothing 
 remained but a superb double gun, a Lone Star 
 frontier revolver, a few cartridges, and, a very few 
 available dollars. Besides, the thieves and 
 jaguars— more deadly than the /Vr de lance or the 
 machetes of the " ladrones "—there was a grim 
 enemy now stalking abroad upon the steaming 
 plains of Yoro, the arid logwood wastes of 
 Olancho, and the beautiful impenetrable jungles < »t 
 
124 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 the Colon morasses of the Aguan. It was the 
 dreaded Yellow Jack ! 
 
 I was busied with watching two scoundrels 
 plotting my death, but, I could not ignore the fact 
 on awaking, after a night spent in a hut at Jocon, 
 that five out of nine women huddled around the 
 little hacienda had died in the night of yellow 
 fever. 
 
 There was but one precaution for me : to boil 
 all the water I drank on the march, and, to follow 
 up taking the quinine, of which I had used five 
 ounces in four months. 
 
 No happier man ever rode across the plaza 
 d'armas of Truxillo than the writer, as he swung 
 himself down from the little mule which had 
 brought him over seven ranges of mountains, three 
 hundred miles out of the wilderness. The clang 
 of the cracked bells in the old Catholic church, 
 the passing of several squads of brown-skinned 
 men and black-draped women following rude biers, 
 told me that Yellow Jack had resumed his saffron 
 crown of death ! Mine host, Juan Crespo, gazed 
 blankly at a six-footer, who weighed one hundred 
 and thirty pounds instead of his normal two hun- 
 dred and nine. My hair waved freely above the 
 crownless felt hat, a pair of old boot-tops protected 
 my legs, and a long Russian towel, hung diagonally 
 like an army blanket, was swung around my neck as 
 an aid in crushing the hundred-winged and thou- 
 sand-legged insects. The revolver belt was per- 
 haps my identification, for, no Honduranean was 
 
WITH THE CAR1BS OFF RUATAN ISLAND I 25 
 
 burned a redder brown than the New Yorker who 
 had faced one hundred and ten in the sun for 
 months. 
 
 When Crespo, the Boniface, at last recognized 
 his whilom guest, the Americanized Cuban 
 laughed. "You know what the Mangalile trail is 
 now, mi amtgo" I tossed my belt and six-shooter, 
 in a corner, delivered over my mule to his keeper, 
 and hastened away across the square to the office 
 of the New Orleans steamers. There were three 
 fruit steamers swinging idly at their buoys on the 
 crystal blue flood of Truxillo Bay, where far be- 
 low the sponges, coral, and the flower garden of 
 the sea could be descried fifty fathoms deep. 
 
 I had a treasured store of a hundred or more 
 Central American silver dollars, and, when I 
 dashed into the Oteri steamship office, the lazy 
 clerk puffed his cigarito, pushed back my bag of 
 dollars, and, silently pointed to an official adver- 
 tisement. My heart froze within me as I read the 
 ominous lines. 
 
 No passenger tickets to the United States of 
 America sold until November 1, 1890. 
 
 Yellow fever quarantine exists at all American 
 ports. S. Oteri & Co., June 1, 1890. 
 
 When I demanded of the clerk what steps I 
 should take to get out of the country, he grinned. 
 "Pues, sefwr, quien sabe ! You might get over to 
 Belize, but, they are dying like sheep over there. 
 
126 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 and you would be tied up there till November first. 
 Better stay here in Truxillo." I grasped my sack 
 of dollars, and, after visiting the offices of the 
 Mobile and Baltimore steamers, as well as the 
 opposition " Menchaca " line, I gave up my quest 
 in despair. I had offered a certified draft for five 
 hundred dollars, a two hundred dollar gold 
 watch, and my sixty -pound sterling London gun for 
 a forty-dollar passage to Mobile. In desperation, I 
 even offered to be mustered with the ship's crew, 
 so as to leave the flaming fiery fever furnace. But 
 all in vain! The keen-eyed Honduranean officials 
 were out for " backsheesh," and the placing of one 
 unauthorized person on the ship's papers would 
 have forfeited both steamer and cargo. The 
 American Boards of Health personally mustered 
 the ship's people, and, even the dead, were care- 
 fully accounted for. This was a delightful phase 
 of Honduranean life, and, late that night, I re- 
 volved every plan of escape with Juan Crespo. 
 
 I knew that I never would live to make the four 
 weeks overland trip to Amapala on the Pacific, 
 but, from Mangalile, in the Campamento moun- 
 tains, I could have easily escaped to the West, 
 had I known of the blockade. It was impossible 
 to reach either Colon or Nicaragua, and the cheer- 
 ful intelligence that the British Governor of 
 Belize, his bride, secretary and leading officer, 
 were all dead within a week, summarily disposed 
 of the Belize plan ! 
 
 I wandered around the decayed old town for 
 
WITH THE C A RIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 several days in a stupor. I was just five 'lavs too 
 late to leave the land of plantains and picaron 
 My wife was contemplating a return from Europe, 
 
 and important affairs claimed me in New York- 
 city. The mysterious hidden gold-mine bubble 
 had bursted, and, with a shudder, 1 recalled the 
 horror-haunted tropical forest which I had lived 
 in for six weeks. One especially devilish race of 
 birds seemed to enjoy lingering in the foliage till 
 aroused by the mule's feet, and, then, with an un- 
 earthly scream, to glide out, brushing one's face 
 with unclean wings. 
 
 I had heard the Apache yell and the war-cry of 
 the Sioux, but, nothing ever shook my nerve as 
 much as this devil bird! The morning and even- 
 ing clatter of the jungle had worn my patience to 
 a thread, and, in the graceful forest vistas where 
 the Espiritu Santo flower bloomed, where every 
 wealth of orchid and the gorgeous colored flowers 
 of kings tempted the eye, there was only disease, 
 miasma, lurking death from venomous reptiles, 
 the hungry tigers, and the low-browed assassin. 
 
 Only the telegraph was open lor communication, 
 for the steamers were to be withdrawn and the 
 poor consolation of letters was denied inc. It 
 roused every drop of my blood to throbbing en- 
 ergy when I saw two men of note die on the side- 
 walk, having been thrust out by the terrified in- 
 mates of a cheap posada. 
 
 Finding one poor, dejected American in the five 
 thousand dwellers under Congrehoy Peak. I fur- 
 
128 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 tively conferred with him. He was a forlorn hope, 
 watching a quarter of a million dollars' worth of 
 steamboats and dredges thrown away in a vague, 
 feeble attempt to open the mighty Aguan's navi- 
 gation for two hundred miles. 
 
 " There is but one chance, Colonel," said the 
 sad-eyed waif of fortune. " The American Consul 
 comes over from Ruatan Island, with his sloop 
 now and then. There is Utilla, Bonaca, and Rua- 
 tan, the Bay Islands. They are sea-swept and 
 healthy, and, you may get to Cuba or Jamaica from 
 Ruatan. Keep your own counsel! If Consul 
 Burchard comes, just plant yourself aboard, and, 
 it may save your life." It was good advice, and I 
 haunted the old barbican of the Spanish fort. I 
 gazed out on the glassy blue, beyond Hog Island, 
 for the one white sail. The splendid old council 
 hall of the Conquistadores, Carib town, the 
 prisons, fort, and cuartels, I duly examined, and 
 gave no sign of my attempted evasion. 
 
 Whether death scorned me, or I was quinine 
 poisoned, I cannot say, but I was awakened one 
 morning by my American friend to say that the 
 Ruatan sloop was in. Half an hour later, I saw 
 my trunk thrown on the deck of the ten-ton sloop 
 and I sprang aboard the Dart as boldly as a board- 
 ing pirate. A few letters of hitherto useless 
 recommendation " squared me " with the some- 
 what disgruntled Consul, and, two days later, I 
 landed at Coxen's Hole Harbor, in the fairy Rua- 
 tan Island. Ten beef cattle in the hold, a dozen 
 
WITH THE CAR1BS OFF RUATAN [SLA] 
 
 half-breed women and children, and the Con ill's 
 family relegated me to sleeping on deck, firmly 
 
 lashed to the rigging, as we were becalmed a 
 whole day on a sea which roasted us like a burn- 
 ing glass. 
 
 Jerked beef roasted to a crisp, baked plantains, 
 and mud coffee were the creature comforts of the 
 Dart, but, I could not criticise my fare as the paci- 
 fied Consul scorned any remuneration for the fifty- 
 mile trip. 
 
 My heart leaped up at seeing the beautiful, neat 
 villages of the three islands settled by Lord St. 
 Vincent's Scotch colonists a hundred years ago. 
 Daring boatmen, splendid w r oodsmen, these half- 
 breed covenanters, speaking Spanish with a 
 Scotch burr, cling to the kirk and school-house, 
 and have the only prosperous Christian homes that 
 I have ever seen in the American tropics. Thrift 
 and success seem to follow these Castilian " Saw- 
 neys"; their fruit plantations are models; their 
 white cottages, with cool, green blinds are palatial, 
 compared with the Honduranean adobes. 
 
 And, the men and women seem to be able to 
 keep clothes upon their sturdy forms, an impossi- 
 ble luxury for the slouchy Dons and Donnas. 
 
 When the Dart glided into the beautiful old land- 
 locked pirate harbor of Coxen's Hole, I scoured 
 the pretty village in search of news of a passing 
 schooner. There were passing trading brigs, t»». .. 
 knocking around the Windward Islands. 1 deter- 
 mined to get out of Honduranean waters, by li<><>k 
 
130 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 or crook, though the three bay islands are really 
 under a secret British protectorate from Belize. 
 
 It was at the cuartel of the Honduranean Gen- 
 eral in nominal command, that I learned an Ameri- 
 can fruit schooner was loading at French Harbor, 
 twelve or fifteen miles away. Beautiful Ruatan, 
 forty miles long and ten miles broad, is a fairy 
 island of Monte Cristo. Far up on its purple peaks 
 the Martello towers of the old buccaneers still 
 overlook the sapphire ocean paradise. 
 
 The fear that the New York bound schooner 
 might leave me, caused me to hunt instantly for the 
 first two Carib boatmen, who, (for a decent bribe) 
 would take me and my trunk, at once, along the 
 south shore of Ruatan to French Harbor. A few 
 cigars, and a couple of pounds of smoking tobacco, 
 were my sole purchases, and the interpreter who 
 hired my two Caribs, made all clear to them. 
 They had only a bunch of green plantains, a jar 
 of water, and some papelitos, as supplies. 
 
 An old cat-boat about twenty feet long was my 
 means of conveyance, and the glaring sun and 
 tropical rain had opened the decks and rotted half 
 the cordage. But, headlong in my hurry, I never 
 realized that I trusted myself, unarmed, with two 
 men only speaking the Carib jargon, and who eyed 
 my golden watch and bag of dollars with consider- 
 able curiosity. I had sold both my pistol and 
 gun, and, I was both worn and weak ! 
 
 We glided along under a freshening breeze, 
 running out of the almost land-locked harbor 
 
WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 131 
 
 where Lafitte often hid his vessels, to feel the full 
 sweep of a rising gale. The beautiful Carribean 
 is famous for its sudden circular storms which 
 have overturned many a stout gunboat and even 
 stanch steamers. But, lying spread out in the 
 cockpit, I watched the alert Caribs nursing their 
 corn-shuck cigarettes, as we rounded a point and 
 tore along, racing madly away to French Harbor. 
 The beautiful plantations glided by, with their man- 
 go groves growing down into the water and form- 
 ing pretty still lagoons along the sculptured shore. 
 Another hour would have made us all safe, but 
 the sudden gale increased in its fury, and I felt 
 my heart sink as I saw the helmsman toss over a 
 double sheet, which was soon reeved on the boom 
 of the mainsail. The skies darkened, the storm 
 king showered down his wrath upon us, and when 
 not busied with bailing, I was tightly holding on 
 to the combings to prevent my weakened form 
 from being tossed bodily out of the boat! 
 
 The old catboat sullenly plunged into the 
 heavy head seas, and to my dismay, I saw that the 
 seams were opening. Two calabashes were soon 
 at work in bailing, while the tempest grew awful 
 in its volume. I was drenched to the skin and 
 faint with hunger. My utmost faith in Carib fear- 
 lessness was tried as we rounded the last point 
 from whence we could see French Harbor, five 
 miles away. Alas ! there was no schooner visible, 
 and, T failed to understand the jargon ot my two 
 boatmen. 
 
132 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 I had determined to show no fear " on general 
 principles," but, 1 was relieved when the anxious 
 crew dropped the mainsail sprit, making the sail 
 only half its size, and the one man of all work 
 essayed later to double-reef it. 
 
 The rickety old boat was plunging madly along 
 when suddenly both the double sheets pulled out 
 of the fastenings and the sail flew wildly out, all 
 control of the sail being lost. The boat was half 
 full of water as the utility man cut the rotten 
 ropes holding up the mainsail, and, down it came 
 with a run! One more wave shipped, and we 
 would all be food for the trailing sharks, as we 
 wallowed in the trough of the sea. 
 
 But, my admiral Carib threw the tiller hard up, 
 and giving me my orders, sprang to aid his fel- 
 low to clear away the wreck. I clung to the stern 
 combings blinded with the spray, and gazed rue- 
 fully around. The cat-like activity of the two 
 Caribs had astonished me, and I gazed in wonder 
 as the helmsman steered the boat directly for the 
 shore, eight hundred yards away! There were 
 frightful rollers and breakers lashing the shores 
 now, and my voice in protest rose above the howl- 
 ing of the storm ! 
 
 But, the two Caribs only pointed to the half 
 waterlogged boat, already well down at the head, 
 and, while one clung to the repaired mainsail 
 sheets, the other's two bronzed arms held the tiller 
 with an iron grip. 
 
 I closed my eyes as we rose on the crest of a 
 
WITH THE CARIBS OFF KUATAN ISLAM) 133 
 
 gigantic wave and trembled a moment, on its curl- 
 ing foam, then we shot into the unvexed 
 smoothness of a mango grove lagoon ! The helms- 
 man had taken the boat in through an opening not 
 forty feet wide, and my heart's blood receded with 
 the sudden shock of the neck-or-nothing dash ! 
 
 It was approaching sundown, and I ruefully 
 gazed upon the green bunch of plantains and the 
 jar of water. My zinc-covered trunk had partly 
 resisted the floods. I was in a quandary, for the 
 storm outside of the natural breakwater of trees 
 was even fiercer in its intensity. 
 
 No means of reaching the shore seemed possible. 
 I was willing to foot the four miles to French 
 Harbor, but, one of the Carib navigators dissuaded 
 me from trying to swim ashore. He threw over 
 a piece of cassava bread, and the serrated back of 
 a huge alligator rose up circling around it, while 
 later, a yellow-bellied, basking shark made a futile 
 dash at it ! 
 
 My attempts at conversation were all absolute 
 failures, and I gnashed my teeth at the idea of the 
 only New York bound vessel probably for five 
 months, sailing away and leaving me an indignant 
 Enoch Arden, upon Ruatan ! It was impossible to 
 get the twenty-foot catboat near to the shore. 
 The mango groves were dense and impossible of 
 passage. Just as the darkness closed down, a 
 lantern's twinkle gleamed out on the road along 
 the shore. I hailed in English and Spanish, and 
 to my inexpressible joy was answered by a boy 
 speaking very good English. 
 
134 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 In ten minutes, I had explained our predicament, 
 and, with the promise of a handsome reward, in- 
 duced him to go to the nearest house and bring 
 out a Carib dugout through a little channel cut 
 for the parties of fishermen operating in the la- 
 goon. 
 
 I never knew the magic power of money before ! 
 A frantic joy reigned in my bosom when I reached 
 the strand, and before a wagon was procured, the 
 Carib admiral had paddled my trunk ashore, a 
 marvel of balancing, in the ten-foot canoe. The 
 New York schooner was still at French Harbor, 
 and, as I rolled along the road, I realized the 
 kindly efforts of my Caribs to tell me that she had 
 been warped into the beautiful circular pool where 
 the bloodthirsty Lolonois once hid away his free- 
 booters. 
 
 The wild storm which had so nearly wrecked 
 " Caesar and all his fortunes," had made it impos- 
 sible for the beautiful yacht-built fruit schooner, 
 Margaretta L. Smith, of Kennebunk, Maine, to 
 work out and gain an offing. Her cargo of 
 200,000 cocoanuts, 10,000 pineapples, and 8,000 
 bunches of bananas was all on board. 
 
 I had given my two daring Caribs five dollars 
 extra, and they contentedly had been paddled out 
 to the disabled catboat after grateful adieux. 
 Said my young guide: "With that bunch of 
 plantains and jar of water, they will pass a happy 
 week in the mango grove. They have a fish-line, 
 and, with a fire built in an earthen pot, they will 
 
WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 135 
 
 broil their fish. And when I told him what I had 
 paid them, he declared they had earned a good 
 three months' wages! 
 
 It was midnight before I stood upon the deck oi 
 the dainty Yankee sea skimmer, and I had thrown 
 all care to the winds, as I helped the youth get my 
 trunk out of the boat at French Harbor. A deck- 
 hand gruffly informed me that the captain and 
 mate were both asleep, and " not to be disturbed." 
 
 I took the hint and contemplated the stars for 
 some hours that night, as I lay stretched out upon 
 an old sail, and wondering over the conspiracy of 
 yellow fever, quarantine, and father Neptum/> 
 rage, which seemed destined to keep me a house- 
 less wanderer, in the deadly domains of Hon- 
 duras. 
 
 " But, I am all right now !" I cheerfully cried, 
 as I sprang up when the crew turned out to wash 
 decks at daybreak. 
 
 The burly Captain eyed me with some astonish- 
 ment, as he rudely demanded, " What right had 
 you to put your trunk aboard this vessel? Sin 
 carries no passengers! No, sir! Not for all 
 your bag of dollars!" he began. "We may be 
 quarantined at New York and lose this wholi 
 cargo, simply on your account! You come from 
 the mainland of Honduras, and, your presence 
 on our schooner, would ruin the whole lot of us." 
 No argument would move him ! 
 
 And, although he gave me a good breakfast, the 
 blunt sailor would not yield. "I am sorry for 
 
136 WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUATAN ISLAND 
 
 you," he said, at length, doubtfully. " See here ! 
 There is the cottage of Mr. Armstrong, the man 
 who owns both vessel and cargo ! Go up and make 
 your play on him ! I hate to leave a Christian 
 gentleman to die of yellow jack ! Armstrong's 
 a pretty good sort, too." 
 
 In an hour, I had gone over the whole subject 
 with the middle-aged Scotch planter. " The fact 
 is, they won't let you land at New York," he said. 
 " Even if I were to take you up there, you are in 
 for it! I am sorry." And, even the pleadings of 
 the planter's gentle-faced wife were of no avail. 
 
 " I will jump off the schooner on the first tug 
 outside of New York Harbor ! " I cried, in des- 
 peration. 
 
 " They would only land you at the Barge Office, 
 and you would be sent back to the mainland of 
 Honduras. You can stay with me as long as you 
 wish, — as my guest here ; it won't cost you a 
 cent ! " he cried. " But, I dare not risk the 
 schooner and cargo ! " 
 
 I then lost my temper a bit, and, after dilating 
 upon the general horrors of the all-round death 
 trap, I flatly planked down before the frightened 
 shipowner, a personal letter from General 
 William Tecumseh Sherman to the President of 
 Honduras. " If I ever get back to civilization, I 
 shall tell General Sherman what a welcome I re- 
 ceived down here." The planter's eyes were very 
 widely open, as he gingerly fingered the kindly 
 letter. 
 
WITH THE CARIBS OFF RUM AN ISLAND l \1 
 
 "Did General Sherman write that himself?" be 
 timidly demanded. 
 
 " Every line of it!" I said. " By the way, I have 
 another letter from the General here, and 1*11 give 
 you that one ! " 
 
 Springing to his feet the planter Cried loudly : 
 "A friend of General Sherman can have anything 
 I've got ! You just step into the store and pay 
 thirty pesos in silver, and, you shall haye the best 
 the schooner will afford. She sails the moment 
 we can get her out of the harbor — for bananas, 
 pines, and cocoanuts are perishable things." I 
 thanked God for the enthusiast's singular change 
 of heart. 
 
 1 flew to the trading store of the planter, and 
 pouched my paid passage ticket to New York 
 City with great glee. The mere scratch of the 
 dear old hero's pen had opened a gate for me 
 which no money or urging would unloose! The 
 sun was dancing gayly on the smooth waters as 
 our crew kedged and w r arped the schooner out 
 over the bar at French Harbor. It was a fairy- 
 land that I left, and a fairy-sea that bore me on, as 
 I watched the warm-hearted Armstrong waving 
 the Sherman letter in triumph on the little pier. 
 The great white sails, a full racing set, went up 
 one by one, and then, the graceful runaway danced 
 along over the curling waves. "All's well that 
 ends well," I mused, as I stuffed my pipe, and 
 gazed back upon the vanishing domains ot Don 
 Luis Bogran. 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
HE NOW FIRED HIS PISTOL INTO THE BRUTE'S EAR 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER. 
 
 The expression " Fighting the Tiger " is one 
 capable of considerable latitude of interpretation. 
 In New York City, it may be construed as a pray- 
 erful contest of a political nature against the se- 
 ductive Tammany Tiger, in general American 
 sporting parlance, it often refers to a contest for 
 the smiles of fortune over green cloth against the 
 illusory chances of beating a well-organized bank- 
 ing game. 
 
 In India, it now refers to a judiciously conducted 
 " society function," where, with the aid of ele- 
 phants, scores of beaters, and the support of many 
 cross-fire rifles of heaviest caliber, the aroused 
 " felis tigris," making a desperate charge out of 
 his jungle is dispatched " secundum artem," even 
 under the approving eyes of beauty. Fire, bells, 
 blowing of horns, and a horrid din, cause the panic- 
 stricken animal to steal out at last against pitiable 
 odds. Nothing is to be said against the superb 
 individual prowess of the officers of the old East 
 India Army, but, modern art has changed the con- 
 ditions of the contest in Hindostan. 
 
 It is far different with the Chinese, Corean, and 
 Siberian haunts of the great feline. In China and 
 
142 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 Corea, the tiger does pretty much as he pleases — 
 traps and poison being the most effectual methods 
 of conquering him. 
 
 There awaits the sportsmen of the world the 
 most magnificent opening of " happy hunting 
 grounds" for the individual "fighter," when the 
 Trans-Siberian Railway is finished. 
 
 The tiger roves over the whole Asian world, 
 never passing far west of a line drawn from the 
 Indus to the Caspian Sea. 
 
 The regions of Amoor, Trans-Baikal, Manchu- 
 ria, Primorsk, and Kirin, in Pacific Siberia, and, 
 Mongolia and Gobi in Northern China, are infested 
 by the most ferocious tigers known to man. 
 
 In the Russian regions, now under a slow politi- 
 cal development, the hardy English sportsmen 
 will for many years be practically excluded by the 
 aversion to granting passports for Englishmen to 
 unnecessarily travel in the Czar's wildest domains. 
 Russia and England are fighting a silent duel for 
 the political control of the home of the tiger — all 
 of Asia — with the chances in favor of the Czar 
 dominating China and controlling Asia. 
 
 In no country of the world has Siberia a parallel. 
 Its gold, platinum, and gems, its superb forests, its 
 mines of coal and the useful metals, its fisheries and 
 abundance of game, its agricultural and pomolog- 
 ical resources ; all these are wonderful, but, the 
 greatest curiosity of its marvelous natural wealth 
 is the sweep of the entombed tropical mammoths, 
 whose cadavers are even yet preserved by nature's 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER 143 
 
 cold storage process, entombed in the " thick- 
 ribbed ice " of the Lena, the Yenesei, and the Obi. 
 The fossil ivory there to be quarried will soon be 
 the world's only supply, and the ancient tropical 
 fauna, flora, and fossils, may give us new unread 
 pages in the history of the human race. 
 
 The tiger alone of all the olden fauna, has clung 
 to this mystic region, seldom crossing the silent 
 Amoor, but infesting the gloomy forests of the 
 southern provinces of Pacific Siberia. 
 
 The vast forests of cedar, oak, ash, beech, elm, 
 and walnut are traversed but rarely by little post- 
 roads or tracks leading down from the Amoor to 
 Vladivostock and the Chinese frontier. 
 
 At every twenty miles, a block house of logs is a 
 post station where plenty of rye bread, tea, and the 
 hunter's harvest, furnish food to official travelers. 
 Small detachments of soldiers garrison these places 
 and protect the . post-horses as well as prevent 
 wandering convicts from committing depreda- 
 tions. 
 
 The woods, apart from the struggling Russian 
 settlements, along the coast and the great river, 
 are given up to the hardy Manchurians, the lineal 
 descendants of Genghis Khan's warriors. In this 
 wild land, where pillars builded to Timur and 
 Genghis still crown the lonely heights, the fear- 
 less Manchurian hunter reigns supreme. Elk. 
 deer, bear, wolves, foxes, and every variety of 
 game bird are his means of subsistence, the fur 
 animals enabling him to buy his powder, lead. 
 
144 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 guns, or cartridges. Taciturn, grim, great of 
 stature and keen of every human and animal in- 
 stinct, the Manchurian hunter is a brave idolater 
 and free of all vexatious rules. Braving cold, 
 fatigue, and privation, he traverses the pathless 
 forest, guided by the stars, and ranges from Lake 
 Baikal to the mouth of the Amoor, from the Yel- 
 low Sea to Possiette Bay, at the northern line of 
 Corea. 
 
 Master of his own knowledge of edible roots 
 and bulbs, a great flesh eater, his mechanical arts 
 go no farther than making rude knives, bows, and 
 lances, and the rough gear for his stray Tartar 
 pony. 
 
 To these bold woodsmen is left the task of keep- 
 ing the post-roads clear of tigers, the troika team 
 attached to the khibitka wagons being plentifully 
 hung with bells to startle the lurking tigers. 
 
 Neither Chinese, Corean, nor Japanese have the 
 bold and fearless character of these Manchurians, 
 who undoubtedly are the progenitors of our pre- 
 sent North American Indians— such as the Black- 
 feet, Cheyennes, and old Comanches. Vengeance, 
 and a sleepless rancor for injury done, stimulate 
 them to a mad fury; one of them, some years ago, 
 lor an outrage by a petty Russian officer, stole in 
 to a blockhouse, slipped away with the sleeping 
 men's stacked arms, and, taking up a post to suit 
 him, shot down thirteen out of fourteen of the 
 startled Russians, only, the last one living to tell 
 the tale. 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 "45 
 
 In these gloomy Manchurian forests, lurks a 
 tiger whose size and habits are different from the 
 Indian feline. Whereas the average Indian tigei 
 is good sized when a ten footer, the Siberian tigei 
 often measures fifteen to seventeen feet from snout 
 to tip of tail. Its hide is fully double the thick- 
 ness of the Hindostan tiger's skin, and it bears a 
 thick fur as an undergrowth due to its cold 
 habitat, the pelt being a hide, with a fur growth, 
 and the beautiful tiger hair coat on the surface. 
 The superb skins brought from Corea and China 
 are often valueless, however, by reason of strych- 
 nine poisoning, which causes the hair to all fall 
 out very soon. 
 
 This gigantic animal in Manchuria adopts habits 
 at variance with his cousin of the Hindostan jungle. 
 The Indian tiger, covered by the tropical vegeta- 
 tion, in an over-populated land, swarming with 
 animals and human beings, steals upon his easv 
 prey, becoming satiated with human flesh, by 
 springing out from ambush on the pious Hindoos 
 lurking about the water pools for coolness, for 
 their religious ablutions, or in search of water to 
 fill their jars. The Siberian monster takes his 
 post in convenient trees, usually those of inclined 
 trunks or favorable growth, and thence, hurls him- 
 self headlong upon his prey, usually the three horses 
 of the troika or the pony of the traveler. Then, 
 if missing his first spring, he boldly follows, leap- 
 ing along in mad pursuit. 
 
 A singular penchant for horse flesh has pro- 
 
146 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 duced some of the strangest episodes of Siberian 
 tiger hunting. Some ten years ago a progressive 
 Russian gentleman imported a hundred and fifty 
 valuable horses from Odessa, via the Suez Canal, 
 at an enormous expense. Landed at Vladivo- 
 stock, they were transferred to his horse farm not 
 five miles from the Golden Gate of the East. 
 
 There, in the very suburbs of a garrison of ten 
 thousand, guarded by hardy and well armed at- 
 tendants, it was found necessary to build a fifteen 
 foot palisade around the beleaguered equines. The 
 vast number of giant tigers, attracted by this unfor- 
 tunate commercial experiment, created a serious 
 loss of human life. The boldest Siberians became 
 dismayed, and a full company of regular Russian 
 troops, under their officers, and armed with heavy 
 Berdan military rifles and double revolvers, were 
 sent to fight the invaders. The scent of the im- 
 prisoned animals maddened the tigers, and the 
 roads were practically blockaded. For several 
 months, the unequal contest went on. Dozens of 
 tigers were killed by volley firing, until the 
 nervous strain became unbearable, and the troops 
 flatly refused to keep their post ! 
 
 A handsome carriage span from the survivors 
 was presented to the Governor, and the last six or 
 seven of the beautiful Ukraine breeding animals 
 were, one by one, killed and eaten by the beasts at 
 a little summer resort not a mile from the Govern- 
 ing Admiral's palace ! One of the last of the car- 
 casses served as a bait to a trap made by digging 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER I 47 
 
 a deep pit. Over this, on a very weak staging, 
 the carcass was left, and the impulsive spring of 
 the one unlucky tiger of that ever victorious army, 
 landed him in a fifteen-foot hole, with sides so in- 
 clined that he could not claw himself out. A box 
 was lowered over the beast, he was starved into 
 seeking food in it, and the huge door then closed 
 by a strong wire. This particular animal made 
 thousands of roubles for his captors, for he was 
 taken overland to St. Petersburg, exhibited, and, 
 finally deposited, there, in the Zoological Gardens. 
 
 During a visit of mine to Siberia in 1885, a 
 dramatic incident occurred in a grand hunt given 
 by a Russian General, near Possiette Bay. Two 
 hundred soldiers with double belts of cartridges 
 and their seven-shooter rifles of enormous caliber, 
 were marshaled as a line of beaters, a yard apart, 
 to drive the game down a long, narrow neck about 
 fifteen miles long. 
 
 The general and his guests, well mounted, 
 awaited the coming of the heavier game, at the 
 most advantageous firing line, the beaters having 
 orders to cease firing on arriving in the vicinity. 
 The sport was going bravely on, elk, bear, deer, 
 and wolves were falling right and left, when with 
 a roar, a gigantic tiger made a dash for the General, 
 and, disdaining a volley from the hardy foot sol. 
 diers posted near him, dragged down both horse 
 and General. 
 
 The faithful soldiers of the Czar closed in, and 
 the result of the mclce, was a dead charger, his 
 
148 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 throat torn open with a single sweep of the claws, 
 a badly wounded General, and four dead soldiers, 
 two of whom, were killed by the frantic animal, 
 and two, accidentally shot in the wild firing at 
 short range, to save the Commander's life. 
 
 It was in early October, '85, that a young Man- 
 churian lad of eighteen, left Vladivostock for a 
 week's elk and deer hunt in the great forest sweep- 
 ing to the Ussuri River. The hunter's companion 
 was a stocky built young Russian hunter, Ivan 
 Ortich, about twenty-three years of age, and they 
 had been, for a couple of years, companions in the 
 chase. The deer and elk sold well in the bazar 
 market at Vladivostock, the skins and pelts of 
 smaller animals gave them a good revenue, and 
 they had, following the needs of their trade, ob- 
 tained a good battery from the ample stores of the 
 German traders. 
 
 Ivan had a good Winchester Express rifle, 
 Agar, the young Manchurian, a seven-shooting 
 Hotchkiss rifle, and, each bore the heavy Smith 
 & Wesson eight-inch army revolver slung over 
 their necks by a diagonal double leather thong. 
 
 A heavy hunting knife and a hatchet were hung 
 from their belts by a light chain, and under their 
 felt-lined leather jackets were their doubled cart- 
 ridge belts. 
 
 They took with them but one pony with their 
 slender supplies, it being their custom to hang up 
 the deer and elk on a staging of poles, after dis- 
 emboweling the game, and in case of luck, while 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER 1 49 
 
 one waited on watch, with a wcll-krpt-up fire, to 
 frighten the wild beasts, the other would return 
 for three or four ponies, or a heavy road sled to 
 drag home the game. 
 
 On this particular occasion, the hunters' luck- 
 had been exceptional. A band of splendid elk. 
 seven in number, had been rounded up and fallen 
 before the unerring rifles of the friends. And, 
 five fat deer were also hung up by their heels on 
 forked branches, lopped off five feet above the 
 ground. In the crisp, cool, October nights, the 
 game would cool and harden and be in prime 
 market condition at any time during a week. The 
 absence of moisture in the air and flies, made it an 
 easy matter to keep properly bled and dressed 
 game, in a land where salmon piled up like cord 
 wood, keep outside the huts all winter, one of 
 these frozen fish breaking like a stone when 
 struck, and where frozen milk in four-foot slabs 
 might serve as policemen's clubs. 
 
 Agar was light at heart as he left his friend to 
 tend their girdle of fire, and mounted their only 
 pony to ride into Vladivostock for two ox sleds 
 to drag home the game, and he joyfully scented 
 a fifty rouble profit in the game alone, besides the 
 great value of the skin of a superb black fox which 
 he carried rolled up behind his rude saddle. 
 
 Ivan w r as well provided with fagots to feed his 
 fire; he was thoroughly armed, and his tea-pot 
 simmered gayly on the little camp tire, while hi- 
 pouch of wild Chinese tobacco had been refilled 
 by his comrade. 
 
150 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 It was in the dusk of the next evening that Agar 
 led on his two Corean peasants, each guiding a 
 rough road sled drawn by trained Corean oxen, 
 and neared the scene of their camp. He had been 
 so elated with their unusual success that he had 
 failed to locate the camp correctly, and he bade 
 his two followers await at the nearest recognized 
 point on the main road, while he sought a prac- 
 ticable way through the gloomy forest shades to 
 where his friend was awaiting him. 
 
 At last, he recognized the clump of heavy cedars 
 around whose bases the game had been hung up, 
 and he could see the faint, blue smoldering smoke 
 of a dying fire. He whooped gayly as he trotted 
 his pony forward, but, there was no answering 
 response ! He was surprised, and his voice only 
 echoed back in a lonely wail from the woods. He 
 drew up his pony. There were always bad men. 
 Perhaps some wild Manchurians had overpowered 
 Ivan and taken away the valuable game ! Some- 
 thing had happened ! 
 
 With true Manchurian cunning, he leaped off, 
 tied his pony, and then, circling around the camp 
 at a distance of a hundred yards, stole cautiously 
 toward it, his heavy Hotchkiss rifle charged and the 
 magazine turned on. Did he see something mov- 
 ing? He was within fifty yards now. He tried to 
 call out, but his voice died away. Already he was 
 in sight of the forms of the elk lying piled on the 
 rude platform, and the smaller deer hanging from 
 the branches. Keeping trees in line ahead of him, 
 
FIGHTING THE TIGER 151 
 
 he stole forward with his finger on the trigger of 
 his rifle. The circle of fire had all smoldered 
 away, and there was no sign of any movement. 
 Had Ivan Ortich become sick and wandered away ? 
 He strode boldly across the ring of ashes to 
 something lying there prone which at once his 
 heart told him was his dead friend. 
 
 Before he could cry out " Ivan," a huge black 
 and yellow moving object swung down before him 
 and planted its paws on the body of the prostrate 
 hunter! 
 
 With a nervous energy, born of desperation, 
 Agar fired thrice point-blank into the breast of the 
 huge monster, and was rolled over by the dying 
 charge of the desperate brute ! His Hotchkiss 
 rifle was knocked out of his hand, and fell several 
 feet away from him. 
 
 " Tigers ! " he blankly murmured, as he struggled 
 to his feet, and then, with a yell, the giant mate of 
 the dead animal leaped down upon him from a 
 long, low tree trunk. The beast's teeth closed in 
 his left shoulder and crushed the bones of his arms 
 like pipe stems. 
 
 The heavy leather jacket, with its thick, red, 
 felt lining, alone prevented the beast tearing out 
 the arm. And the monster feline, shaking him 
 like a rat, then began to drag him away toward 
 the thick underbrush. His face was turned down- 
 ward, and at every few pulls, the great cat would 
 loosen her hold and strike him across the ba< k 
 with her claws! 
 
152 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 It dawned upon him that the second tiger was 
 infuriated by the loss of its mate, and, his legs 
 catching in some oak scrub, he caught hold of his 
 revolver chain. There was but one instinct now, 
 relief from the yellow-eyed, fire-fanged brute whose 
 hot breath sickened him ! He cocked the Smith 
 & Wesson revolver with his right and fired directly 
 into the tiger's mouth as it clenched its teeth 
 again and again in the poor lad's shoulder. With 
 a snort, the animal threw back its head, and as he 
 lay, ready, dashed on him again, grasping his arm 
 lower down. He now fired his pistol into the 
 brute's ear ! With a fearful growl, it closed its teeth 
 into the lower arm and began to paw the ground ! 
 He had regained his consciousness, and then, 
 thrust the weapon into the tiger's mouth, firing 
 full down its throat ! 
 
 And then, everything seemed to swim around 
 him, he fainted away, and was only revived by the 
 pain of the Coreans trying to lift him, when they 
 had wandered around and at last, stumbled upon 
 the camp. 
 
 The cold of the chill evening had stopped his 
 bleeding somewhat, and the frightened peasants 
 had found him with one huge tiger lying dead 
 across his half-devoured friend, and the dauntless 
 Manchurian boy was lying, literally, in the em- 
 brace of the enormous beast, with which he had 
 battled to the death. 
 
 The shoulder joint was badly lacerated, but the 
 natives knew enough to twist a hide thong around 
 
FIGHTING THI TIG1 
 
 his arm to stop the bleeding artery. Leaving all 
 
 else there, they carried him to his pony and one of 
 them caught up poor Ivan's Winchester and a bell 
 of cartridges. They made their way to the main 
 road, and, by a rare chance met the mail Khibitka 
 with a brave officer as passenger. 
 
 In half an hour, Agar, buried in furs, was be- 
 ing trundled along to Vladivostock. 
 
 The gallant officer, with the two Coreans, re- 
 turned to the scene of the fight. The story told 
 itself! Poor Ivan had probably been surprised at 
 his supper, and had no time to fire a shot. lie 
 had been killed the night before, ard the two 
 tigers had torn him to death and then feasted upon 
 the choicest portions ol the hard-fought game. 
 Captain Platoff loaded up the whole of the mute 
 witnesses of the hunters' skill and the battle to the 
 death, and escorted the two sleds to the main road 
 where a party of Cossacks soon arrived from town 
 with help. 
 
 The amputation of Agar's arm made him in 
 time, almost as good as new, and gave him rank 
 far and near, as a local hero. 
 
 In time, he was able to tell the main details of his 
 thrilling adventure, and he strangely profited by the 
 duel to the death. In the splendid Russian mili- 
 tary hospital, he soon recovered, and the two huge 
 tigers were carefully skinned, as proofs of the bo\ 's 
 heroism. 
 
 Their skins were cured, were sewed together, 
 and quite neatly stuffed with straw and moss, to 
 
154 FIGHTING THE TIGER 
 
 reproduce their exact physical dimensions. In a 
 wareroom of Kunst and Albers, the great German 
 tradinghouse, I saw these huge monsters, and, one, 
 which laid along the side of a twenty foot room, 
 left only one foot between his tail and the end of 
 the room. They were seventeen and nineteen 
 feet long respectively, and it was the female, the 
 seventeen-footer, which had tried to drag Agar 
 away to make a quiet meal of him. 
 
 The boy was made a mail carrier guard, and 
 furnished with an artificial arm. He always stated 
 that in his handling the revolver, he was, at first, 
 actuated by mere retributive instinct, but that 
 after the first shot, his wits somewhat returned, 
 and he felt a fierce desire to finish his enemy by 
 trying to find a vulnerable place. " I tried once 
 to shoot into her eye," he said, " but she was look- 
 ing at me, and she twisted her head away, and 
 shook me like a rat ! " . . . His last remark, 
 always was, as he pocketed a few roubles, " / 
 do not want to fight any more tigers." 
 
A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAQE 
 
WE WERE THE HUNTED FUGITIVES 
 
A HUNT IN COREA. 
 
 It was in October, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
 five, that I found myself coasting along the forbid- 
 den-looking shores of Eastern Corea, en route for 
 Vladivostock, Siberia, and the Amoor River. 
 There are dreams in life destined never to be real- 
 ized, usually the rosy-tinged clouds of youthful 
 anticipations, but a singular life itinerary is often 
 brought about by trifling switches from the beaten 
 path. Japan, China, Siberia, and Corea were terra 
 incognita to my wildest dreams of world-wandering, 
 and yet, in two years, I visited them all twice 
 under the fluctuating, quivering compass card of 
 commercial speculation. 
 
 In leaving beautiful Nagasaki, on a splendid steel 
 Clyde- built steamer sailing under an unpronounce- 
 able name, under the Japanese flag, we were not 
 especially persona grata in the " Land of the Morn- 
 ing Calm." The people of <4 Cho Sen" still re- 
 member the descent of Hideyoshi in htteen-ninet v- 
 seven, when the two hundred thousand match] 
 Japanese swordsmen swept from Fusan to Pin 
 Yang, in one glorious campaign. 
 
 Our steamer was one of the largest in the great 
 Japanese mercantile fleet, the " Hiogo Mara," 
 
158 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 " Hiogo Sea Goer," and my wife and I, had the whole 
 magnificent cabin to ourselves. There was only 
 one sturdy Chinese stewardess on board, a comely 
 big-foot woman, fit to be a bride for " Tom Bowl- 
 ing." The engine-room and wardroom were filled 
 with three or four canny Scotsmen, the steam 
 engineers, who never left their cosy haunts, save 
 for the room where they directed the workings of 
 their beautiful marine mechanism, as gracefully 
 finished as jewelry. 
 
 The Captain was the only other white person in 
 the splendid crew of a hundred and fifty, and a 
 splendid specimen of the north country Scot. He 
 kept up a naval discipline on the boat, and, royally 
 entertained his only two first-class passengers. 
 Andrew Meeker was as fine a fellow as ever sang 
 "Scots wha hae," or sat around the smoking 
 11 haggis." Fifteen years in the Japanese service 
 had made him a perfect linguist among the won- 
 derfully acute race whom foolish tourists designate 
 as the " little brown men." 
 
 His cruise extended for nine months of the year, 
 from Nagasaki, across the straits of Corea, to 
 Fusan and Gensan, along the whole coast of Corea, 
 to Russian Siberia, Saghalien, and the mouth of 
 the Amoor River. In the three months when 
 Vladivostock Harbor was closed by ice, his beau- 
 tiful vessel was used on shorter cruises by the 
 Mitsu-Bishi Steamship Company. 
 
 Captain Meeker opened both his heart and his 
 larder to us, and my wife and 1 had the 
 
A HUNT IN COREA i 
 
 largest liberty, with twenty superb staterooms to 
 roam around at will. A magnificent steel-bronze 
 
 colored Siberian blood-hound was given souk 
 mysterious password for us; a superb ta.il I < 
 Corean cat was also introduced, whose rolling 
 growl was like the thunder of war drums afar, and 
 whose rich red and black-spotted fur was a de- 
 lightful color symphony. 
 
 The king of all golden macaws was the third 
 cabin pet, and, I can never forget the day when 
 macaw, reformed tiger cat, and Siberian blood- 
 hound all wound up in my wife's stateroom in a 
 wild tangle of barks, yells, and screams, with 
 bronze, yellow and gold, black and red, all mixed 
 in a fighting phantasmagoria. 
 
 As we sailed out of the exquisite Nagasaki Har- 
 bor, under the white flag with its red ball, past the 
 grim red forts, with the heavy Krupp barkers, 
 ready for Russian or Chinese, we took with us in 
 our ship's company of a hundred deck passengers, 
 a four-thousand-ton cargo, and a crew of a hun- 
 dred and fifty, the germs of that ghastly and silent 
 scourge — the cholera ! 
 
 But, we were merry withal, as we swept along 
 over perfumed seas, passing myriad little twin- 
 kling lights of fisher boats at night, and dashing 
 on beyond storied and castled Tchusima, to dart in 
 and make a first Corean landing at Gcnsan. We 
 had spent a delightful month in Japan, among the 
 polite and courtly children of the old M Samauri 
 and I was eager to try my extensive hunting bat- 
 
160 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 tery upon the game of Corea and Siberia. I was 
 furnished forth a la Gordon Cumming. 
 
 When we had experienced the delights of being 
 hove to for twelve hours in a howling typhoon, I 
 realized the hardy nerve of the Japanese coasters. 
 Their frail-looking, high-built junks, with the sea 
 sweeping apparently clear through the stern, were 
 seen drifting with sea anchors, while whole fami- 
 lies gathered around the rice pot and fish kettles, 
 bidding defiance to rude Boreas. 
 
 When I awoke and peered out of the great 
 cabin ports in the beautiful circular harbor of 
 Fusan, I started in horror! Though a splendid 
 temple and some pretty tree-embowered cottages 
 shone out on Japanese point, where the old in- 
 vaders still keep a foothold, the low, thatched 
 roofed mud hovels of the Corean town were most 
 filthy and repulsive. Around us rose bare, bleak 
 hills, like an amphitheater, and they were covered 
 with some thousands of white, ghost-like looking 
 beings, scattered in groups of fifty or a hundred 
 on the rocky knolls. 
 
 It looked as if generations of the dead had risen 
 as dread ghosts, startled by the scream of the 
 steam whistle of the Hiogo Maru. To rush out, 
 clad only in kimono and pyjamas, and seize the 
 Captain's glasses was my first action. 
 
 Meeker gayly laughed, " There, Sir, is half the 
 population of Fusan, and they will sit there all 
 day and watch us till we are hull down. For 
 filthy, cantankerous, idle, noisy, quarrelsome chat- 
 
A HUNT IN < ORE \ l6l 
 
 terers, cowardly and vicious, the Coreans cannot 
 
 be matched in the whole world ! " 
 
 When a dozen lighters came alongside, with a 
 hundred or more of the natives, in their loo 
 cotton-padded white jackets, and baggy trotlSi 
 of the same color, I understood the graveyard 
 spooks who crowded the bare hilN. The 
 tufted hair, clinched in a knot on their ban 
 heads, surmounted frankly coarse and sensual 
 faces. The din and chatter and yells were soon 
 deafening around us. A duplicate board of 
 Corean and Japanese quarantine doctors came 
 off in an official boat and gravely forbade us 
 landing. Our " cholera " taint had been whis- 
 pered, and myself and wife were duly sprinkled 
 with perfume from an atomizer, and forbidden to 
 land. While we discharged our Fusan cargo, I 
 watched the native boats bringing us a dozen 
 huge cylindrical fishes, some twelve to fifteen feel 
 long, and as round as a mainmast. Sections of 
 these, sawed off with a saber, were stood upright 
 like drums of solid red meat cased in glistening 
 silver. 
 
 On the quarter-deck that evening, with my wife. 
 I watched the lights of the forbidden town, and 
 was not sorry when we steamed out and ran along 
 the great gray-jagged Tiger mountains, stretching 
 faraway to join the Kendeh-a-lin range of Man 
 churia. Bare, gloomy, treeless, cold and bleak. 
 their gray volcanic buttresses towered ten thousand 
 feet in the air. 
 
162 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 Groups of ugly, rocky islands lay along the 
 coast, and a fearful gale blew off shore for three 
 days. We lay to, to endeavor to rescue three 
 Coreans who were blown fifty miles out to sea, in 
 an open skiff some thirty feet long. With an out- 
 rigger and a quaint matting sail, steering with an 
 oar, they had a sort of drag out, and absolutely 
 refused to leave their frail craft ! Captain Meeker 
 offered to hoist their whole rig on deck, but they 
 defiantly refused to be aided. We tossed them a 
 bag of bread and a keg of water, and left them to 
 the mercy of the God of storms. 
 
 Only here and there, could little clearings be 
 seen on the hills, where a little scratched-in rice 
 seemed to be cultivated, the only goods available 
 at Fusan being hides and salted fish. There was 
 no sign of timber, and the breaking waves dashed 
 high on sharp-fanged cliffs sixty and eighty feet 
 high. A cheerless and a stormy coast ! Nearing 
 Cape Duroch, we saw all the grinding wreckage 
 of a Japanese c/uiser churning among the breakers 
 where five hundred brave men had perished. The 
 desire to oblige the few beach-combing Coreans, 
 and to test the power of a heavy double English 
 rifle, led me to " open fire " on a fifty-foot whale 
 who paddled audaciously near to us. The fifth 
 Boxer cartridge, .577 caliber (specially loaded), 
 finished the largest animal which ever fell to my 
 bag, and only the insurance clause prevented 
 Meeker from towing him into Gensan. But the 
 Coreans who found him, when he drifted ashore, 
 were greatly profited. 
 
A II T. VI IN < <>KI \ I63 
 
 A Long wooded sandy spit, veiling the mouth of 
 
 a small river, broke upon our view as we steamed 
 into Gensan, the only Corcan port, next to Po 
 siette -Bay, the Russian border town of Pacific 
 Siberia. Three or four hundred flat-roofed mud 
 hovels were strung along the beach, and a vail 
 opening into a cleft in the enormous mountain- 
 twenty miles away showed some signs of cultiva- 
 tion. There was to be seen on the beach two 
 neatly built European wooden houses, a halt mile 
 north of the Corean town. They had been sent out 
 from England, already jointed up, in ships, to be 
 used by the families of two English officials in 
 some strange way forming the customs staff the: 
 
 A three days' stay, while unloading a go. ..I half 
 of our cargo, allowed the exiled ladies the privi- 
 lege of an unexpected visit from a womanly sister 
 fresh from the gay circles of Petersburg, Paris, 
 and London. 
 
 The excellent corps of Japanese officers took 
 charge of the ship while Andrew Meeker prepared 
 to pilot me into the interior, a score of miles 1 >r 
 on a hunting trip. Our departure was to be kept 
 a secret from the Corean authorities, who objected 
 to allowing foreigners to enter their houses, roam 
 over their fields, or penetrate the interior. 
 
 Our httle social circle had. in a body, roai 
 over the repulsive town of Gensan under gu 
 of several Corean officials, one o\ whom in 
 mourning robes was doomed to be unit 
 year as a further mark of mourning, tl ting 
 
164 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 all his business by finger signs, seemingly well 
 understood. 
 
 The men, with babies slung in pouches on their 
 backs, seemed to loaf idly in the street, only busied 
 in smoking the vilest native tobacco in long 
 straight pipes, which seemed to be wind defy- 
 ing. 
 
 The women darted into their squalid hovels on 
 our approach, their baggy trousers in no way dis- 
 tinguishing them from the men. I have seen the 
 hovels of all the indigenes of the world, but the 
 Corean hut for filth is the most repulsive. An 
 alarming scarcity of fuel leads to the use of dried 
 cow manure as fuel, the mud floors being per- 
 forated with flues built under them. 
 
 To disguise our purpose of visiting the interior, 
 Captain Meeker had his smart gig crew row us 
 into the mouth of the little river above the town 
 before daylight, and furnished with provisions, 
 bade the crew work well up the river at dark and 
 pick us up at a bend some eight miles above Gen- 
 san. 
 
 There was a famous old temple to be visited 
 and a view of the interior western valley, which 
 stretches facing the Yellow Sea from Mauchang 
 to the Silver Plateau. Meeker had never peeped 
 through the defile of the Pwanlung Shan range. 
 The hardy Scot had his fowling-piece, 12-gauge, 
 and a good revolver, with store of cartridges, fine 
 and coarse, and twenty rounds of pistol ammuni- 
 tion. I had my rifle and fowling-piece combined, 
 
A HUN l i.\ ( OREA 165 
 
 with fifty rounds of mixed ball, bu< k and shot 
 cartridges, my revolver, knife, and twenty pistol 
 rounds. A good haversack of lunch and two < an- 
 teens made up our backloads, and tare were rigged 
 out in hunter's canvas suits and high boots. 
 
 After our boatmen left us, we struck out from 
 the river and passed a brook on a beautiful old- 
 pointed arch stone bridge, evidently dating ha< k 
 to the days of Kishi. There were numbers of 
 gray stone tablets handsomely engraved with old 
 obsolete characters, mounted on blocks three or 
 four feet square. These related the virtues ot 
 dead men of note, or bore old laws or public in- 
 scriptions. The daylight came blushing over the sea. 
 
 We had passed abundant flocks of 
 cranes, flamingoes and wild ducks in the marshes, 
 with plovers and snipe galore, but, we derided 
 not to fire for fear of alarming the morose dwell- 
 ers in the valley. 
 
 We made careful detours and avoided troops of 
 chattering men and women, mounted straddle on 
 tame oxen, going into Gensan. Lines of women 
 bearing scanty marketing on a frame of sticks 
 lashed to their backs, plodded along, the men 
 wandering idly after them, smoking the eighteen- 
 mch pipe, and " toting " the babies on their harks. 
 but, strangely enough, bearing no other burdens I 
 The little fields ol rice were triangular plateaus 
 arranged so as to drain the one into the other, 
 with rude rough-stone partitions, and the mud 
 walled, thatched-roof hovels were surrounded by 
 
l66 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 composts of trodden manure. Not a wheeled 
 vehicle was to be seen, and the road into the de- 
 file, soon became only an ox-path, then a trail, and 
 finally a stony path. We passed scattered grave- 
 yards, all telling of a dense population in the old 
 days of Chinese and Japanese suzerainty. 
 
 In four or five hours, we had crowned the defile 
 and could see the whole valley spread out below, 
 the black, dirty town huddled on the wharfless 
 beach, the two custom-houses, the graceful steel 
 Hiogo Maru, with clouds of barges around her, 
 and the fishing boats spread out fan-like over the 
 open roadstead. 
 
 We had been geologizing, botanizing, and won- 
 dering at the stern struggle for life in the bleak 
 and unfriendly countryside, and, pipe in mouth, 
 jogged along unmindful perhaps of frightened vil- 
 lagers running along in a gathering cloud around 
 us, but, so far, as skillfully concealed as Apache 
 scouts. It was afternoon when we saw the gray 
 domes of the long-looked-for temple shining out 
 in the glen, whence a gurgling brook ran down to 
 grow into a river and flow into the Yellow sea. 
 
 The temple, which we examined carefully, was 
 empty and deserted. Its gods were dead. Its 
 priests were fled. It had spacious halls and mas- 
 sive columned porticoes. Four rounded domes, 
 with flat lintel openings and several pointed 
 arches, with many rounded columns and flights of 
 steps all carved of hard gray basaltic stone, were 
 left, with a score of upright tablets with deeply 
 
A BUNT IN C( >ii \ 
 
 engraved characters, to tell of a vanished past. It 
 
 was a magnificent relic of better da\ 5. 
 
 There was no song of birds, no cheerful smoke 
 
 of happy homes, nothing to indicate life or }>i 
 perity. Only these relics of a dead worship, which 
 
 seemed gigantic in a land not now possessed ol any 
 of the mechanical powers. It would be impossible 
 for the degraded Coreansof to-dav, to erect even a 
 single porch of the temple of the vanished gods. 
 
 "And this, is the richest valley of the Ham-ki- 
 ang," said Captain Meeker ; " a little rice, millet and 
 beans, a few mangy oxen, half-starved chickens, 
 and razor-backed pigs. Barbarous isolation 1 
 caused these people to forget the glorious time 
 when their Corean tongue was the parent of the 
 graceful and impassioned Japanese. The Mongol, 
 the Tartar, the Chinese, the Japanese, have all 
 ruled here as conquerors, and the fabled wealth of 
 the land is a myth. No one knows if there are 
 five or twenty millions of people in the wretched 
 peninsula, and Tokingen, near here, and Katsuma 
 are fallen to decay. A few bronze bowls, a tew 
 pipes, a little native cotton and tobacco, seem all 
 the valuable products, save hemp, fish, and hid 
 The barbarous policy of excluding foreigners 1 
 kept these people in conflict with the Japanc 
 French, and Americans. They have bred in and 
 in, and so lost language, arts, and religion. Neither 
 roads nor bridges are available, as a rule, the 
 Government is a myth, and a ferocious hatred 
 Christianity exists." 
 
1 68 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 " What will become of Corea ? " I asked, as we 
 finished our lunch and prepared to hunt back on 
 the northern side of the valley. A great storm 
 seemed to hover over the northwest mountains, 
 and the air was raw and chill. 
 
 " Russia, the great national grab-all, will take 
 the peninsula some day, when her secret friendship 
 with China is cemented by the Trans-Siberian 
 railway. Russia seems to be the universal heir 
 of all the dead kingdoms in the East." 
 
 We struck out boldly across the great valley, 
 and soon came in sight of a few dirty huts. 
 
 " Rain, varied with snow and sleet, makes this 
 Eastern land desolate," remarked the Captain. 
 11 There are dense woods in the interior, but no 
 roads to provide these people with fuel, and the coal, 
 gold, silver, lead, and copper will be reaped by the 
 hardy Muscovite later. Here is a land with a dark 
 blank of a thousand years' drift backward to bar- 
 barism ! Chinese, Tartar, Japanese, and Mongol 
 have scourged Corea till its human wheat has been 
 threshed out and only the chaff remains. The 
 women are destitute of every art, the priests beat 
 upon tomtoms to exorcise the devil of sickness, 
 and a frank and besotted immorality governs the 
 rude communities. I know of no hope for Corea 
 but the red ploughshare of the conqueror." 
 
 Skirting the bare hillocks, hurrying along to the 
 northern side of the watercourse, I began to watch 
 for game, tired of the cheerless natural prospects. 
 It was as wild as the moors of Kerguelen land, 
 
A IP VI IN < OKI \ 
 
 and I wondered if any of the huge felines (A tin- 
 Tiger mountain were hovering in t he lonely 
 gullies. 
 Suddenly, I caught sight of a broken-down 
 
 shrine, and far below on the growing stream, a sort 
 of rude mill with stacks of rice paddy. We cir- 
 cled away to avoid the rude villagers and to rouse 
 up some stray game. 
 
 "There's a splendid black fox," whispered 
 Meeker; "shoot him with your rifle barrel!" I 
 drew a bead as the beautiful animal turned his 
 head toward us. The rifle rang out and the ani- 
 mal rolled over dead, but, the most unearthly 
 screams rose up from the vicinity of the dead 
 animal ! 
 
 " That skin is worth a good hundred dollars," 
 cried Meeker, as we ran forward to observe the 
 cause of all the outcry. 
 
 Alas ! for our peace of mind ! There w f as a hud- 
 dled Corean village in a glen near by, and from it 
 was now issuing a mob of yelling fanatics. An old 
 crone was wildly urging them on. The rifle shot 
 had evidently frightened her into hysterics. 
 
 But, the harm was done. The foreigners had 
 been seen and recognized ! We were fifteen miles 
 from the shore and a good five miles from the bend 
 where the boat with its dozen sturdy sail 
 awaited us at the big bend of the river. The first 
 pattering drops of rain were falling as Meeker 
 cried, "Follow me quickly and quietly. They 
 will stone us to death if they catch us! " 
 
I70 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 And, with the Scotsman in the lead, we com- 
 menced an energetic retreat trying to double and 
 elude our pursuers. 1 had heard of the genial 
 pleasures of the Coreans, who often, from sheer 
 ennui, form in two clans and stone each other until 
 the ground is covered with senseless victims. 
 
 The sharp missiles began to fall unreasonably 
 close to us, and the yelling mob increased as we 
 dashed along past several other hamlets. 1 could 
 see that Meeker was studying the topography of 
 the valley. 
 
 " We must not get into the rice fields and be 
 bogged down ! " he cried. " Don't you fire. Leave 
 that to me and keep the pistols to the last ! " 
 
 There was no mistaking the determination of 
 the rude mob to punish us a routrance. Then the 
 showers of stones became thicker, the yells fiercer, 
 and we began to lose breath. 
 
 It was in a pouring rain that the Scotch Captain 
 at last turned and fired one barrel of his fowling- 
 piece just over the heads of the nearest pursuers. 
 
 We gained five hundred yards before they took 
 courage to come on again, but the gathering mob 
 resolutely set out across the valley to cut us off, 
 realizing that to return to Gensan we must cross 
 the one stone bridge over the river which was 
 practicable to lead us into town. 
 
 The canny Scot saw the plot. " They have no 
 firearms," he said. " They evidently want to 
 raise a mob and blockade that bridge so that we 
 will be stopped there and killed with clubs or 
 
A HUNT IN COREA ' 7 I 
 
 stones in the night, when we cannot - ihoot 
 
 I will fool them ! " 
 And as the sullen rain fell cheerlessly and the 
 
 evening shadows begun to lower, we marched de- 
 fiantly along down the valley in the general 
 
 direction of the gray stone bridge whose pointed 
 arch we could see gleaming out a couple of miles 
 away. The gathering cloud of our pursuers grew 
 
 denser, and while the main body marched along 
 to bar our way at the bridge, our only seemi 
 means of escape, a dozen fellows struck out quar- 
 tering toward us, and 1 could see the gleam of 
 bush-cutters or bill-hooks on their should 
 
 It was now, indeed, a hunt in Corea ! We were 
 the hunted fugitives, and I noted that this flying 
 wedge seemed determined to bar our way by ad- 
 vancing diagonally across our downward path. 
 
 Captain Meeker's brow was stern as he held his 
 No. 12 gauge gun down, the cold rain dripping 
 from its barrels. But one chance remained to us 
 to avoid slaughtering a few of the maddened fools. 
 " This will cost me my position and the steamer 
 company may be forbidden to land," growled 
 Meeker. " We must not kill any of these fellows, 
 at least, not till we get near to our boat. As soon 
 as we get past this mill, we can see the bend, and 
 if the fields are clear, we can fool them. They 
 will keep inside of us, and we can make a last run 
 to the boat. They will never know who we are. it 
 we can slip down stream." 
 
 The pioneer guard of the chattering and vin- 
 
172 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 dictive crew had worked so near to me that 1 
 feared the use of the Manchurian bow and arrow. 
 And, men who can shoot through a tiger could 
 easily spit me on their four-foot copper-pointed 
 shafts. 
 
 Having had some practice in creasing hares on 
 the Texas frontier, I carefully sent a .577 Boxer 
 ball whizzing about six inches over the heads of 
 the bill-hook carriers. I was careful to see that 
 there were no more old women in range. The 
 whole band dropped on their bellies and we moved 
 on, laughing in spite of our danger. 
 
 We had a clear quarter of a mile to ourselves 
 when we approached the mill. 
 
 " I'm going to rest for a few minutes, anyway ! " 
 resolutely cried Meeker, " and, from that knoll 
 near this rice mill, I can lay out a clear course to 
 the boat." 
 
 We had so timed our return so as to have a 
 chance to fill the boat with the magnificent water 
 fowl swarming in the narrow river. 
 
 " It's not over a mile and a half over there," 
 said Meeker, " and, when we get near, if I fire 
 three shots in rapid succession, my men will come 
 to the rescue. They all have a revolver and a 
 short Japanese sword. There are ten and the 
 coxswain and we can then, whip the whole town 
 of Gensan. Let us put a bold face on it! If there 
 is any one in the rice mill, who speaks Japanese, I 
 am all right." 
 
 We strode up to the rude building near the 
 
A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 little river, and Meeker pushed open the door. 
 Our disheveled appearance, the gruns in our 
 hands, and the suddenness of our entry caused 
 
 half a dozen half-naked Corean women who u « r< 
 sacking up rice, to leap into the mill stream and 
 disappear in the hollows of the river bank beyond. 
 Two men fled away, and gathering up clubs stood 
 on the defensive. 
 
 In the ten minutes during which I stood on 
 guard, I saw the uncouth trip hammer still pound- 
 ing away at the rice paddy. A huge log, evi- 
 dently a drift log from the north, had been squared 
 at one end and banded into a huge hammer head. 
 Poised at its middle, the other end of the log was 
 hollowed into a huge spoon ; the water from the 
 rude mill race filling this, raised the hammer end 
 till the water fell out, and then, the machine 
 dropped with a bang. With about three blows a 
 minute, this machine was pounding out the rice 
 from the sheaves thrust under the hammer by the 
 nymphs who had fled. There was, perhaps a 
 thousand pounds of rice in the whole mill's supply 
 
 on hand. 
 
 When Meeker had scrambled down from his 
 post of observation we cleaned our muddy boots, 
 regirded ourselves, trimmed our loads, and in the 
 dying light, struck out boldly for the bend now 
 
 clearly visible. p 
 
 - The boat is there, thank God ! " cried the C ap- 
 tain " I can see the white flag and the red ball 
 in the stern. Now, these fellows may have hidden 
 
174 A HUNT IN COREA 
 
 a few marauders in front of us. I have just four 
 mustard-seed cartridges that I found in my 
 vest pockets. I have used them to knock down 
 some pretty plumaged pheasants. You are not to 
 shoot ! I will clear the way with these four, if they 
 try to stop us. Remember, no real shooting in 
 earnest, unless to save our lives, and — then — back 
 to back, and fight it out ! " 
 
 We had lost our patience, and could see the two 
 men who had left the rice mill pointing and en- 
 couraging on our assailants. With artful skill, 
 Meeker led me along the river bank parallel to its 
 course as if striking for a bend below the place 
 where the boat lay. We were nearly abreast of 
 the bend, when a dozen dark figures leaped upon 
 us from ambush. The Captain's fowling piece 
 barked twice, and then, repeated the smarting 
 dose, while I stood ready to fire with buck and 
 ball. Several jagged stones grazed us, but as we 
 ran on we could hear the howls of pain as the 
 angry wretches slapped their peppered legs. We 
 moved swiftly over the sedgy salt grass, and to 
 our inexpressible delight, soon saw the boatswain 
 leading on eight of our sturdy fellows at a run to 
 meet us. It seemed the very happiest moment of 
 my life when I tumbled into the stern sheets of 
 the ship's boat ! 
 
 There were none of the pursuers in sight as we 
 swept along down the river under the propulsion 
 of ten bending oars. The Captain steered us art- 
 fully so as to hide us, and, as we passed the bend, 
 
A MINI IN COREA 
 
 we could sec the white, ghostlike tonus <>f the 
 
 simple Coreans crowding on the hank. A couple 
 of torches blazed out behind us for some t i inc. and 
 we guarded a judicious silence. There were 
 several bottles of warm saki in the boat, and 
 covered with a dry boat-cloak, I lav at ease, until 
 three hours later, I was delivered over to the care 
 of the good-humored head Chinese steward of the 
 Hiogo Maru. 
 
 The town of Gensan was convulsed for tin re- 
 mainder of our stay by the stories drifting in from 
 up the valley of three fire-breathing devils who had 
 attacked the innocent villagers. One of them van- 
 ished, turning into a beautiful dead fox at the feet i >t 
 an old woman who had called on the sacred nam 
 of Buddha, and Tao and Shinto, all in one breath ! 
 The other two " fire breathers" had spit poison 
 fire all over the boldest of their pursuers, and then 
 rushed madly into the river, where they disap- 
 peared in fiery whirlpools! All this and more was 
 reported to the Corean and Japanese officials, and 
 I learned the lesson for life of keeping out of the 
 clutches of a morose mob of ignoramuses. Our 
 bodies were bruised with the sharp stones and. 
 chilled and sickened, we had only reaped in sore 
 bones and wearied bodies the useless fruits of our 
 hunt in Corea, from which we came out booth — 
 A number of equally innocent foreigners have been 
 murdered from time to time by the unruly brutal- 
 ity of this most unlovely of all nations. 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
I GAVE HIM TWO SHCTS OF THE KEV* LVER 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY. 
 
 One of the strangest features in the character of 
 the grizzly bear of North America is his change of 
 deportment according to his surroundings. 
 
 " Ursus ferox " is a perfect example of Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer's theory of " heredity " and " en- 
 vironment." This lumbering fellow, usually from 
 six to nine feet in length, and weighing from four 
 hundred to two thousand pounds, has certain traits 
 of heredity — his gameness, his slyness, and his well 
 marked preferences. 
 
 " Environment" may make him a jolly Friar 
 Tuck of the woods or a crafty "man-eater," hunt- 
 ing the trails with the malignity of the fiercest 
 tiger. In a well-watered acorn country, and where 
 roots, nuts, and succulent bulbs can be obtained, 
 he follows a live and let live policy. In dry 
 localities, like inner Arizona and the hills of San 
 Bernardino county, California, he becomes a terror 
 by day and night. Under similar circumstances, 
 the grizzly bear is far more formidable than the 
 dreaded lion, tiger, or panther. He loses no heart 
 at missing a single spring, but grimly fights on to 
 the last, especially with a cub included in the game 
 of life or death. 
 
l8o BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 I have seen a dozen cavalrymen " pumping 
 lead" into a patch of bushes where a grim old she 
 bear received seventeen Springfield rifle bullets 
 before giving up the ghost. And, no man dared to 
 explore that bit of blood-stained underbrush ! 
 
 Age adds an extreme ugliness to the grizzly's 
 "personal" equation. The teeth are worn off, 
 the huge claws and the death grapple are relied 
 on, and his giant strength and deadly pluck make 
 him a terror at close quarters. 
 
 In the early days of '49 to '52, vast herds of 
 mustangs roved the interior plains of the Sacra- 
 mento and San Joaquin in California. Huge 
 droves of elk commingled with the " prodigal 
 sons " of the Conquistadore's chargers, deer in 
 enormous numbers peacefully grazed with yellow, 
 flitting bands of antelope, and, along the sloughs and 
 rivers, giant grizzlies, then, made their favorite 
 haunts. 
 
 They loved to wallow in the tule marshes and 
 to fatten upon the bulbed rushes. Their vegetarian 
 living led them away from flesh seeking. On the 
 broad plains, the other nimbler animals could easily 
 elude them, and they lazily followed up the count- 
 less thousands of wild cattle and sheep, gorging 
 upon the animals which dropped from the herd. 
 
 It was easy for any one to avoid this huge, over- 
 fattened grizzly in the open country, and, in those 
 days of single shooters and half-ounce balls, the 
 big grizzly of the plains held his hide by " simple 
 possession." 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY l8l 
 
 The expert " vaqueros," in numbers of a dozen, 
 soon gauged the degenerate grizzly of the plains. 
 They loved to lasso him, and, in open country, 
 they were his masters, mounted on their quick- 
 turning lasso horses. 
 
 But, a change came ! The steamboats soon 
 puffed up through Stockton slough, the plains 
 were appropriated, and Ursus ferox, driven to the 
 most worthless mountain ranges, became a robber 
 by day, a sly thief by night, and his habits sensibly 
 changed in ferocity. It was a " black flag " and 
 no quarter for those who met him on the trail. 
 The coast range, the lower Sierra Nevadas, and 
 the southern chapparal hills became his home, 
 and he changed his bill of fare, often through ne- 
 
 cessity. 
 
 Though his cousins, the " silver tip," the " cinna- 
 mon," his northern relative, the polar bear, are 
 game enough, they have not the grim dash of the 
 big grizzly, whose " hereditary " courage vainly 
 struggles against the newer "environment" of 
 explosive bullets, multicharge repeating rifles, and 
 the heavy modern cartridge. In these piping 
 days of amateur bear slayers, the grizzly's chance 
 is reduced to that of the individual stockholder 
 fighting a powerful syndicate: he is doomed from 
 
 the first ! 
 
 In the old days, a pack of cur dogs was the 
 only aid to the real frontier bear hunter, these 
 useful auxiliaries gaining time for the hunter to 
 reload, or gain a tree to readjust his batteries. 
 
1 82 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 Only real huntsmen can appreciate the wonder- 
 ful development of the offensive weapons of man 
 in the last forty years. From the single shot 
 muzzle-loading rifle with its half-ounce ball and 
 absurdly light powder charge, to the Winchester 
 express, or the thousand-yard Sharp, the develop- 
 ment is as marked as the difference between 
 Columbus's three caravels and the Paris, St. Paul, 
 and New York. 
 
 In the olden days, the " honors were easy," and 
 now, the chances are decidedly " agin the b'ar," 
 unless the hunter becomes paralyzed with fear or 
 his walking " machine shop " refuses to work. It is 
 doubtful if any of the young " cannons " used by 
 British sportsmen against " rhino," elephant, and 
 giraffe have ever been used in America, nor even 
 the almost faultless double-barreled express rifles 
 with independent locks. The last are powerful 
 enough to kill anything that moves, and the 
 chances of a sudden breakdown are almost elimi- 
 nated. 
 
 The Spencer, Hotchkiss, Remington, and the 
 army Springfield rifle in the hands of a cool man 
 are " deadly weapon " enough to kill anything on 
 the American continent, save a veteran book 
 agent. 
 
 The effect of " environment " upon " Mr.Grizily 
 of California " was demonstrated in the forty days' 
 flood and three months' storm of " sixty-two," 
 which reduced California to an inland sea, and drove 
 the wild animals of the Coast range and Serrias 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 1 83 
 
 down into the foot hills, starving and abnormally 
 ferocious. 
 
 The smaller animals perished by myriads, the 
 deer died by thousands, their drenched and 
 weakened carcasses being unfit for food. Grass, 
 nuts, acorns, the winter housekeeping stores of 
 the denizens of the woods, were rotted, swept 
 away, or covered up in the uprooted forests. 
 Whole areas of pines and redwoods thundered 
 into ravine and canyon and the " clearing house " 
 of Nature was busied for several seasons. 
 
 It was at my boyhood residence on the Soquel 
 Creek in Santa Cruz County, in the afflicted Gold- 
 en State, that, almost under my eye, a California 
 boy fought out, alone, a vendetta with a " three- 
 star" grizzly. . . . 
 
 During- the terrible visitation, Morris White, a 
 determined-looking Pike County youth, had housed 
 in an upland field, his entire store of worldly 
 wealth, a yoke of splendid oxen. There was store 
 of hay in the squatter's barns, and, in the rear- 
 rangement of the "wreck of matter and the crush 
 of worlds," the young Missourian and his oxen 
 were w r orth ten dollars a day, either to the county 
 or the owners of the sawmills about " resuming 
 operations," after the flood. The particular mills 
 I referred to, sawed away for two years on timber 
 which had been hurled down the loosened and 
 quaking mountain sides almost to the very car- 
 riages of the gleaming " double circulars." 
 
 As the oxen furnished the " pull," and Morris 
 
184 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 White oniy the " generalship," by the liberal use 
 of the ox gad, the young man counting off the 
 days at an eagle per day, was rapidly becoming a 
 capitalist. 
 
 At night, his "Dime" and "Baldy" were se- 
 curely garnered up within an impregnable corral 
 surrounding the delta of the junction of two creeks 
 where the mills were located. Into this inclosure, 
 a ridge, too steep for any hoofed animal, ran 
 and formed a sort of nether rampart. It was 
 a pleasant dawn of day in later April, when the 
 lank Missourian, with the yoke already resting on 
 " Baldy's " neck, loudly called for " Dime " to 
 join his mate under the yoke. There was the soft 
 bed where the yoke fellows had rested, and the 
 youthful contractor, ox bow in hand, skirmished 
 around for the other half of his worldly fortune. 
 
 An extended search where a clump of enormous 
 trees braced up the spinal ridge, showed to the 
 astounded Pike County lad the carcass of the non- 
 appearing " Dime." The story told itself. There 
 lay the poor animal, its neck broken with a terrific 
 blow, and the head turned under ! A considerable 
 anatomical disappearance on the brisket and 
 foreshoulder told that the " red slayer" had made 
 a satisfactory meal. 
 
 The woodsmen of the camp were called into 
 council and Morris, himself, a mighty hunter for 
 one so youthful, swore oaths which set the balmy 
 morning air tingling. There was the twelve-inch 
 track, the great spread-out hand, and the long 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 1 85 
 
 he^rv heel. It was Mr. Grizzly, who had sidled 
 alone: down the mountains, and scenting the warm- 
 blooded prey, with one blow of its mighty paw had 
 laid out poor " Dime," forever. 
 
 In one fell swoop, he had paralyzed White's 
 engineering operations. Oxen were as gold and 
 diamonds in those days, and " Baldy " and 
 " Dime " were cases of the survival of the fittest ! 
 The chance that any other neighbor would break 
 up a span of well broken oxen to fill the half- 
 empty yoke was a slender one. The one-half of his 
 team would either be useless or be sacrificed to 
 some thrifty bargainer, while he himself must ex- 
 change " generalship," for a more active means of 
 making a living. 
 
 He had followed his fearless old father down the 
 Platte four years before, and as that old frontier 
 warrior put it, "had fit the painted Injins in the 
 Bad Lands." They had buried one or two of the 
 Whites in that long drag from " St. Jo " to Fort 
 Bridger, then on to Salt Lake, down the Hum- 
 boldt, and standing off fierce Cheyenne, murderous 
 Sioux, and thieving Ute, had " pre-empted " a very 
 large and lightly held domain in Santa Cruz 
 County. 
 
 Familiar with attempted stampede and derisive 
 scalp yell, nerved by standing guard and " pot 
 shots " from the wagon square at the saucy nomads 
 of the plains, Morris White swore a deadly ven- 
 geance against the grizzly who had laid out the 
 " Benjamin " of his small flock. " Dime " was an 
 
1 86 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 ox of many engaging qualities, and he represented 
 the " unearned increment " of the Pike County 
 boy's fortunes. With " Dime," fortune flowed in 
 upon him ; without him, the contracting business 
 was a failure, and, it would take nearly a hundred 
 dollars to replace the departed one. 
 
 The day passed with Morris White gloomily in- 
 specting the scene of the disaster. An absence of 
 two or three hours enabled him to place " Baldy " 
 under the charge of one of his brothers, with a 
 consolatory arrangement that the ox should be 
 " worked on shares." 
 
 And then, having gathered up what little armory 
 he could procure, the defiant young Missourian 
 laid away his yokes and chains until he should 
 have done battle with " that there b'ar," as he 
 scornfully termed him, with two extremely clench- 
 ing defamatory words interjected between the 
 words " there " and " b'ar." 
 
 One of the head sawyers strolled over before 
 sundown and found that the lad had bored several 
 holes into a soft fir tree about fifteen feet from the 
 ground. With strong oaken sticks, well wedged 
 in, he had made the foundation for a platform com- 
 posed of two eight-inch boards six feet long and 
 lashed to the supporting sticks. 
 
 A can of water and a bag of saleratus biscuits, 
 with some cold fried bacon, were his rations, and 
 his offensive weapons consisted of an old Missis- 
 sippi muzzle-loader, a German horseman's carbine 
 of unearthly appearance, and a battered six- 
 shooter. 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 1 87 
 
 " Do you mean to say you propose to kill that 
 bear with that rig," cried the astonished lumber- 
 man. 
 
 " It's him or me ! " sullenly replied Morris. 4< He 
 has busted up my business just as I struck the first 
 streak of luck in my life, and I'll get him, or he'll 
 get me." 
 
 " I'm afraid he'll get you, Morris," said the 
 kindly visitor. " You'll get tired, and fall off your 
 perch." 
 
 " I reckon not," grinned Morris, showing two 
 horse shoes which he had heated, drawn out, 
 and driven into the tree up to the heads. " There ! 
 With them two horse-shoe clamps and a lariat tied 
 around my waist run through the eyes, I can't fall 
 off." 
 
 Big Jim Hall was agnostic. " The bear may 
 come up to you ! If he pulls your whole rig down, 
 where are you ? " 
 
 " He won't get to me," doggedly answered the 
 boy. " I'll be getting to him, all the time." 
 
 And so, at evening fall, the millmen helped to 
 place the lad in position, perched up where he 
 would have a good view of the remains of " Dime," 
 and a chance to even up. The fifty men at the 
 mill agreed to chip in a dollar apiece if the invader 
 were really slain. " That's half an ox," hopefully 
 said Morris. " And, I'll get the rest of the money 
 outen the b'ar." 
 
 The lad had smeared the tree and his trail with 
 the lights and stomach offal of the dead ox to 
 
1 88 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 obliterate any human scent. He hung on his un- 
 comfortable perch for two weary nights without 
 result, and, during the day, he began to run the 
 gauntlet of many jokes. 
 
 But a few squatters were attracted by the boy's 
 venture, and one of them, who had notches on his 
 rifle and six-shooter for men, as well as " b'ar " and 
 " bison," with " elk " and " panther" to match, 
 sagely observed : " A grizzly always gorges and 
 comes back when his prey is a little gamey. That 
 b'ar will soon be along." And, in support of -his 
 theory, he begged the boon of the one decent shoot- 
 ing-iron in the gulch, the six-shooting Colt's rifle, 
 which was our local pride. 
 
 " I'll pay for the gun if anything happens to it. 
 
 I want the boy to have a show as well as the b'ar. 
 I'm somehow doubtful of that rig of his." And he 
 made some slugs of preternatural hardness, and 
 most carefully heavily charged the six barrels of 
 the revolving rifle — " plum up," as he pithily 
 put it. 
 
 The third night of Morris White's vigil was 
 dark and chill; the wind sighed through the pines, 
 and a knot of wiseacres sat around the great fire 
 in the log cabin and " arguefied " upon the chances. 
 
 II There's been so many human footprints around 
 that the "b'ar" is grown suspicious," said one. 
 " Mayn't been a b'ar — a panther," said another. 
 " There's the tracks, and the way he wuz killed," 
 lucidly rejoined another. " He's sure to come 
 back — and — get the boy, too," said old Uncle Able, 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 1 89 
 
 who had been a trapper of might in his younger days. 
 " The boy's foolhardy. What could we do to help 
 him ? " It was only two hundred yards over the 
 ridge, and three hundred around the point, to 
 where the determined lad was keeping his lonely 
 
 vigil. 
 
 I had myself eyed him as one who begs that his 
 name will be put down first in a list for a Bala- 
 clava charge, or any useless personal feat, but, late 
 that night, I lay and listened to the song of the 
 pines. The wild forest was vocal, and the purest 
 air on earth was sweeping down the terrific rocky 
 gorges of Williams Creek. I had apparently 
 ignored a remark made by Eben Wright, 
 " There's nothing to prevent the ' b'ar ' coming in 
 here, if he wants to." That hospitable cabin door 
 was never locked for ten years ! I indulged " a 
 pleasing hope," however, that the " b'ar " would 
 prefer the remains of "Dime' to our party in the 
 cabin. 
 
 I sprang to my feet in the gloomy hours before 
 dawn as a heavy rifle-shot rang out, seemingly at 
 my side, and, while the men sprang to their feet, 
 another and another sounded, the last two so near 
 to each other that they seemed to be one report, 
 and, then came a dead silence. It was broken by 
 an unearthly yell, fully up to the standard later set 
 for me by the Apaches and Sioux, pastmasters of 
 all vocal arts. 
 
 It was old Uncle Able who dashed to the dy- 
 ing fire and seized a burning brand. " Let's all 
 
190 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 go over, men, and see what's happened ! " There 
 was a repetition of the yell, and two quick shots, 
 evidently from the revolver. 
 
 "The b'ar's got him, sure enough," cried Eben 
 Wright, as he grasped a brand, and said : " I'm 
 one to go, who else ?" Then, we all realized that 
 there was not a weapon on the place but a little 
 unloaded pistol and a broken-down shot-gun. 
 The party assembled in front of the cabin. There 
 was a dead silence, broken only by the sighing of 
 the pines, but, as we moved forward to go around 
 the road to the point, whirling the blazing 
 brands, something sped up from the rear of the 
 corral ! It was Morris White — hatless, breathless, 
 and, as was described later, on the dead jump 
 like a scared coyote ! 
 
 We dragged him into the cabin, and candles 
 were the order of the growing day. One man 
 produced a drop of whisky, and then, the youth 
 threw himself into a rough chair and passed his 
 hands aimlessly through his hair. His revolver 
 was dangling by a thong and also his hunting knife. 
 
 " What's happened to you ? What's come of the 
 bear?" an excited chorus cried. 
 
 " He's over there, chuck full of lead, I hope — 
 dern him !" growled Morris, as he picked up his 
 dangling knife and pistol. His face was bleeding 
 from the effects of a fall. 
 
 "Tell us the whole story?" growled "old 
 
 Uncle" Able. "Did he get away from you?" 
 
 ' No. I got away from him ! He's big as a house 
 
BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 191 
 
 — too!" angrily cried l:ic Pike County lad. "I 
 was half asleep, chilled and cold, when he come a 
 tumblin' and a snortin' down the hillside. He 
 nozed around ugly, and snuffed all over poor 
 4 Dime.' Then, he gave him one wipe with his 
 paw and turned him over, as if he was a dead 
 coyote. I waited till I got a good aim, and let 
 him have it. And, then he made straight for that 
 tree. He roared and got his claws in the cracks 01 
 the fine bark and started to comin' up. I fired 
 twice plump into his breast, and I lost my nerve, 
 when I seed him so near me by the flash of the 
 gun, and, then, I dropped my rifle ! " 
 
 "He was growlin' and groanin' awful, and he 
 started a-comin' up again, and then I hollered. I 
 give him two shots of the revolver right in his 
 mouth, and then, with one swing of his claw, he 
 carried off the whole staging. 
 
 " There I was left hanging on the lariat, and I 
 couldn't reach the pistol I had dropped, but, it was 
 tied in my belt. 
 
 " I swung over, head down, and began to choke, 
 and, when I heard the bear a-wallowin' around down 
 in the creek, I cut the lariat with my knife, and 
 down kerchunk I come. See here ! 1 ran down back 
 into the corral, and fell over a dozen stumps, but 
 here I am ! He didn't get very far. In the 
 mornin', I'll get Pop's hounds and find him. He's 
 mortal badly wounded ! " There was a grim 
 silence as the defiant Pike County lad glared at his 
 audience. "Most of you all, told me a grizzly 
 
192 BOY AGAINST GRIZZLY 
 
 couldn't climb ! This one could, you bet your life ! 
 It was only the third rifle shot that laid him out, 
 somewhat." 
 
 In the early dawn, we visited the scene, and from 
 a safe distance, observed the body of the slain 
 "ox" pulled around as described. Morris White's 
 perch was dangling from one stick still wedged 
 in the breast of the pine. The rifle lay there at 
 the foot of the tree. 
 
 The torrents of blood staining the silver gray 
 bark of the pine led to a trail ending in the bushes 
 near the little creek. It was Morris White who 
 had caught up the rifle and ran up the steep hill- 
 side. " Hold on, all !" he yelled, and then, he sent 
 a ball whizzing down into the rushes. " He's dead 
 as a mackerel !" the delighted lad cried, and we 
 were soon gathered around the gaunt carcass. 
 The Missouri lad had reached him every time ! 
 
 And, now, came setttling day ! The fifty-dollar 
 subscription, twenty-five dollars for the skin, 
 twenty-five dollars from the nearest Chinese for 
 the gall, and thirty dollars for the meat and fat, 
 enabled the youth to replace the lamented " Dime " 
 and have a small surplus. " But," he frankly de- 
 clared himself, " I ain't a-huntin' no grizzly bar 
 any more. This fellow was a nine-hundred pounder, 
 and, a leetle too big for me !" 
 
WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
M 
 
 
 ^tt^^ 
 
 
 HE SAW TWO OR THREE BUSHY HEADS 
 
WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE. 
 
 One of the most unwelcome stations in the 
 West at the close of the war, was the territory of 
 Arizona. The civil government was almost pow- 
 erless, and the murderous Apaches held the whole 
 interior. The unorganized territory was sparse! v 
 settled, and Camp Grant, Camp Apache, Camp 
 McDowell, Camp Whipple, and Camp Mohave 
 were the only strongly held points in the Land ot 
 Gold and Blood, with Fort Yuma, on the Colora- 
 do River, as the base of supplies. There were 
 but two towns, Prescott and Tucson, of any m. 
 nitude. 
 
 The mails and army supplies, forwarded by 
 steamer via the Gulf of California to Fort Yuma. 
 were transported at enormous expense over the 
 old Southern Overland Mail Route. 
 
 One of the bright ideas of the Confederate 
 leaders had been to incite the Indians of the 
 Northern plains to break up the Northern Over- 
 land Mails to the Pacific Coast, and, in the fall oi 
 '61 and spring of '62, the Texan cavalry swept along 
 from Texas and New Mexico, over the southern 
 route, through Arizona to Antelope Pcak,< >nly sixty 
 miles from the Pacific Ocean, at the nearest point 
 
196 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a tradition that a 
 few hardy Texan Confederates rode over to the 
 seashore, and dipped their flags in the waters of 
 the western ocean. I climbed Antelope Peak, 
 nine hundred feet, to see the stump of the mast, 
 on which they left the stars and bars flying defi- 
 antly when they retired before Carleton's com- 
 mand, first burning and plundering all the mail 
 stations. 
 
 From sixty-five to sixty-eight, the commanders of 
 the army posts named above, were the conservators 
 of all law and order. Backed up by six or eight 
 companies of mixed infantry and cavalry at each 
 post, they kept the roads open, escorted trains, 
 guarded the mails, and moved on the civilians 
 who were forced to travel. 
 
 The troops were partly reliable regular regi- 
 ments, and others, filled up with the riff-raff scatter- 
 ing westward after the war. Guerrillas, deserters, 
 marauders, and all manner of Ishmaelites swarmed 
 from El Paso to Fort Yuma, and a " trial of title 
 by force," usually followed the possession of use- 
 ful plunder. The Apaches, posted on high 
 ground, narrowly watched the sending out of 
 heavy scouts, and, signaling all over by mountain 
 fires, then incited the fierce Hualapais and others 
 to harry the weakened garrisons. Artillery was 
 useless, the men suffered from chills and fever, 
 they became dejected and deserted, and the hum- 
 ble potato (when canned and desiccated) alone 
 kept off deadly scurvy. The officers and troops 
 
why THE mail CAME LAI B 197 
 
 were paid in currency, only available at sixty 
 cents, and a gentle admixture of grinding poverty 
 varied the lives of men fairly certain of being 
 scalped some day. 
 
 Camp McDowell, a strong post on a mountain 
 near the juncture of the \'erde and Salt River, 
 was the link connecting Prescott and Fort Whipple 
 with the blazing cremation post of Fort Yuma. 
 
 An ugly canyon some twenty miles long led 
 down past the Salt River and Superstition Moun- 
 tains toward Maricopa Wells, and this region v. 
 haunted by the wild Apache bucks from tour 
 counties — Graham, Gila, Pinal, and Maricopa. 
 
 This mail route from Camp McDowell to Mari- 
 copa Wells intersected the line of the buckboard 
 express flying on, never halting day or night, from 
 Fort Yuma to Tucson. This line rested somewhat 
 upon the settled Gila, the friendly Indians along 
 its banks keeping the Apaches north, but, after the 
 Pima villages were passed, the buckboard express 
 always faced dangers similar to McDowell canyon 
 in the graveyard defile of the Picacho, along the 
 Santa Cruz River to Tucson. On both wings of 
 the route, intelligent marauders awaited to murder 
 the mail-carriers when any unusually valuable 
 mail or remittances were in transit, and the tree- 
 masonry of crime seems to warn all evil-doers in 
 advance of the tempting plunder. Trams, pay- 
 masters' escorts, wagon outfits, express ridei 
 had been systematically entrapped tor years in a 
 land admirablv laid out for villain v. 
 
lgS WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 The condition of affairs was almost desperate in 
 eighteen sixty-eight, when I was serving with a 
 small command in these murder pens, wondering 
 whether desperate marauders or sly Indians 
 would have the honor of my taking off ! There 
 were wistful farewells when any one fared forth 
 upon a journey, especially when the troops were 
 scouting, for the deadly villains, red and white, 
 pressed closer then to all the important places left 
 weakened. And, the strange lottery of life, the doc- 
 trine of chances ! I was witness of a timid New 
 York bride, leaving luxury in New York to travel 
 safely over the wildest scenes of Arizona with a 
 strangely reckless young husband, the surrender 
 of a dog tent to them, with a couch of river 
 rushes on the insect-infested sands, being accepted 
 as Arabian hospitality, capped with beans, bacon, 
 hard-tack, and muddy coffee. So far will love, 
 mighty love, blind the children of Cupid ! These 
 amiable infant tenderfeet could have crossed the 
 plains alone in safety, I am sure, and the same 
 season, near me, a gallant officer, the hero of a score 
 of desperate Indian fights, was instantly killed by 
 one random shot fired by a good-natured but 
 drunken Indian. 
 
 My other guest, in that dog tent, and centipede 
 and tarantula-infested shakedown, was a brilliant 
 young officer, who closed three years of desperate 
 service, fighting the mad Apaches, to take a gilded 
 staff appointment in the Department of Oregon. 
 He rode down through the Picacho, a revolver in 
 
WHY III E MAIL CA I B 
 
 each hand, the wild steeds dashing along under a 
 scattering Apache fire, to reach me at Sweetwater 
 
 in safety. 
 
 " I am now safe. I have passed all my dangers, " 
 he said, in bidding me " adieu." "I have earned 
 a safe place — I shall be married in the sprin. 
 And, as I divided my slender store with him, and 
 he showed me, proudly, the pictured (ace oi a 
 beautiful girl, neither he nor I knew that the 
 Apache bullets were never cast to kill him ; but 
 that he was on his way to die like a dog, beside 
 his gallant General, and be scalped by the cowardly 
 Modoc brutes, two thousand miles away. 
 
 It was written in the stars! In a desperate fight 
 that season in the Picacho canyon, where twenty- 
 seven men were murdered by the Apaches, the 
 only survivor was an eleven-year-old Mexican 
 boy, unable to lift a hand in his own defense. 
 Death deliberately danced around him, leaving 
 him to await his own allotted time of doom ! 
 
 I had learned to wonder at the uselessness of 
 various expedients to work the mail through M 
 Dowell canyon. Large escorts would be attacked 
 and followed from the heights. St< mes and bullets 
 would hail down upon them. A single man might 
 get through ! The trains would be safe at night for 
 a time, and then, the tactics o( the red fiends would 
 change. There was every variety of assorted 
 deviltry going on. In many of the gravest fron- 
 tier disasters, secret information has been undoubt- 
 edly smuggled out by infamous agents oi the 
 
200 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 enemies of peace. Scallawags, reiugees, pretended 
 friendly Indians, infamous Mexicans, Apaches 
 dressed up as Pimas, Papagoes, or Maricopas, 
 have penetrated into the very camps and then 
 " laid for the victims," almost within gun fire of 
 the bafHed garrisons. In a thousand schemes, 
 some are sure to succeed, and the thieving, cow- 
 ardly, brutal Apache had every means to make 
 his attempt a reasonably sure one. The policy of 
 sending the mail carriers out secretly, and giving 
 them every latitude of route, worked well for a 
 time, and even brave Mexican riders were hired to 
 run the gauntlet. 
 
 After a time, McDowell canyon became full of 
 little rude crosses with piles of stone thrown 
 around them where human blood had slaked the 
 arid soil. 
 
 It was in this delightful suburban resort that I 
 flushed my first Apache ! Two wagons and a 
 small detachment toiling on through the pass were 
 guarded by a dozen riflemen in the wagons and a 
 half dozen scouts marching in readiness. A couple 
 of men closed up as rear guard, and on this par- 
 ticular evening, I worked out in advance of 
 the two men in the lead. The relief from the 
 blazing hell of the day was the only comfort, and 
 in the enjoyment of a huge briarwood pipe, I 
 strolled along with the usual self-consolatory feel- 
 ing " There is not an Indian within fifty miles ! " 
 
 My heavy revolver was belted on, but, I did not 
 even think of it as I turned a bend in the road and 
 
WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 201 
 
 came plump on a shock-headed brute sitting on ■ 
 
 rock looking down into the canyon. A bow and 
 
 quiver were upon his bark and a rifle lav across hifl 
 knees. The distant rattle of a trace chain caught 
 his ear and he turned his head. We were not ten 
 
 feet apart ! 
 
 By a mere mechanical motion of surprise, I 
 grasped the heavy pipe from my mouth, and " the 
 party to whom 1 had not been introduced " evi- 
 dently thought I was going to shoot him in the back! 
 It was hardly possible for him to turn, as his le 
 were dangling over, and I presume that he made 
 a wild grab for his rifle to save it. 1 could have 
 pushed him over and probably broken his neck! 
 But, from sheer habit that pipe clung to my fingers 
 as if it had been tarred. 
 
 When 1 had regained my presence of mind and 
 "yanked " out my revolver, the Indian let himself 
 go and over the cliff he went, dropping out of sight 
 like a panther leaping down into darkness. The 
 whole performance was no more creditable to the 
 Apache brave than to the " regular army-oh ! " 1 le 
 had no time to recover from his " stage fright," 
 and, when I sent two shots spinning down into the 
 darkness after him, the two foremost riflemen were 
 
 at my side. 
 
 It was an anxious half-hour after that till our 
 safety from attack proved that he was probably a 
 runner making his way across McDowell can von 
 to the Maricopa divide. Our forward route 
 would have left us exposed to be peppered with no 
 
202 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 return, for we could not get away. I was perfectly 
 delighted to find that 1 " had killed as many 
 of him as he did of me," and that, from perfectly 
 natural causes he could not fire his rifle at me 
 through his own back. I devoutly hope that 
 this follower of Cochise broke his neck in tum- 
 bling down the cliff, which was a fairly rocky 
 canyon side. There has been no mention of this 
 engagement made in any " official reports," and 1 
 only hope for his reputation as a warrior that he 
 said as little to his chief as I did to mine ! It was 
 simply after all an informal meeting of two savages. 
 
 But, it was a result of the uncertain chances of 
 life in McDowell canyon, that after a few more 
 depletions of the garrison by sporadic murder 
 the soldiers began to commit trivial offenses which 
 led to their being placed in Camp McDowell 
 guard-house. An acute-minded Post-Adjudant 
 discovered this, and found that many of the 
 wearied out and dispirited men preferred to 
 trudge up and down the hill wearily carrying back 
 loads of fresh water for the garrison from the 
 river, than to risk being scalped, or having their 
 heads beaten flat with stones. 
 
 The ways of the " old soldier " are past finding 
 out. Thrice happy is the man who can invent 
 diseases of appalling frequency and weird, un- 
 familiar character, and so, spend a fair share of 
 his enlistment snugly in hospital, playing " Seven 
 Up," " California Jack," and fattening while his 
 pay runs on. 
 
WHY THE MAIL ( AMI; LAI L 203 
 
 There were several soldiers at Camp M< Dowell 
 whom the Adjutant could have- better spared than 
 other men who died under the knife or arrow. 
 Among these was notably "Private Patrick 
 
 Maguire," of a chequered army career. Nat 
 were to him as things of protean hue. Enlist- 
 ments he had shed as the serpent does its worn- 
 out skin, and, he was a past-master of every art of 
 malingering by flood and field. The last twentv- 
 five years have brought into the " regulars " as 
 fine human stock as ornaments any service, but 
 immediately at the close of the war, a regiment on 
 Western service was the best place to hide an un- 
 comfortable personal record. These bad men were 
 not in a majority, but they leavened the whole 
 mass, and several commands in the territories had 
 the reputation of "trying on their voung officers" 
 to the verge of mutiny. It was with the design 
 of forcing a fair division of dangerous duty, that 
 the Post-Adjutant obtained an order that the 
 "guard-house men" should be drafted equally 
 with the " duty men " for the running of the mail 
 gauntlet. A tacit understanding at Maricopa 
 Wells that the men should be well (cd and re- 
 freshed with the " strong waters of Kentucky " 
 made the detail, at last, rather a popular one. Pri- 
 vate Patrick Maguire was delving in his well-fur- 
 nished brain for schemes whereby to profit by his 
 dangerous duties. The appeasing of his Tantalus 
 thirst was always "a well-spring of joy. "but it 
 was to him and his partner Tom Doolan, that the 
 formation of the whisky express was due! 
 
204 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 Given two excellent mules, each man armed 
 with a revolver and good Springfield breechloader, 
 with double belts of ammunition, the singular pair 
 made bi-weekly trips, with great success, for a time. 
 A dozen bottles of whisky, purchased at Maricopa 
 for a dollar each, and buried just outside the guard 
 lines, were always promptly retailed at five dollars 
 a bottle to men who had no other means of spend- 
 ing their pay. The all-pervading " spiritual influ- 
 ence M which enlivened Camp McDowell was for 
 a long time undiscovered, until a little rencontre, 
 which permanently broke up the whisky express. 
 
 The most perfect latitude had been given to the 
 two chums, who departed as they listed, made the 
 trip as they liked, and came into the post from dif- 
 ferent directions, sometimes by night, sometimes 
 by day. Discharged men going away, settlers from 
 the Verde, and casual travelers, often swelled their 
 little party. A condemned quartermaster's mule 
 was given them to pack the mail on, and the can- 
 yon seemed to have lost some of its terrors. 
 
 But, like " that boat on the Mississip," a fatal 
 night came when the two daredevils were jogging 
 along up the canyon, with the laden mule trotting 
 peaceably between them. There were twenty- 
 four bottles of whisky balanced across the pack- 
 mule, with the mail sack strapped over the illicit 
 pack. A rattling volley from above to the right 
 brought poor Tom Doolan off his riding animal 
 at the first fire ! 
 
 " Save yerself, Patsey," he cried. " I'm hit! '' 
 
w HV i Hi. mail CAME LATE 205 
 
 "Crawl up into the rocks under the cliff! I'll 
 be with you, in a jiffy!" huskily ened Maguire 
 
 as he cut away the mail bag and ran swiftly up 
 under the overhanging rocks! It still lacked two 
 hours of daylight, and, Maguire was back life 
 flash! With his hunting knife, he cut away the 
 ammunition pouches from the riding mules and 
 then, sent them clattering al< mg the road ! " We've 
 a few minutes' to hide, before they'll be down!" He 
 had snatched up Doolan's rifle and found the very 
 spot he wanted! A re-entrant hollow under tin- 
 overhanging bluff at a bend, where a pile of ragged 
 rocks had slid down from the hill over them ! 
 
 With the smartness of an old soldier, he had 
 wrenched away the water canteens from the saddle 
 bow of the riding animals. 
 
 While he aided Doolan to hide himself in the 
 rocks, Maguire listened to a fusillade two hundred 
 yards up the road. 
 
 " By hokey !" he cried, " they're peppering the 
 mules!" And, while he retrieved all his useful 
 articles, he found that Doolan had already got his 
 handkerchief twisted around his thigh and cramped 
 tight with his revolver barrel. 
 
 "They'll not find us till daylight, maybe ," cried 
 Maguire, as he heaped up a barricade of the la 
 stones, while he cheered the wounded partner <>f 
 the " Whisky Express." u In five minutes, if thej 
 hold off, we'll have a snug little fort here. Try and 
 beaisv, now, Tom, till I can help you ! " With the 
 haste of desperation, Maguire loaded the two 
 
206 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 Springfields, laid them ready, and brought his re- 
 volver round to the front. 
 
 " If we had but a bit of the whisky," groaned 
 Maguire. " I've two flasks in me blouse pockets, 
 inside," groaned Doolan. 
 
 " If they hold off half an hour, glory be to God, 
 we may stand them off! " whispered Maguire, as he 
 tugged away at his breast-high wall. There 
 was the sound of triumphant yells far up the can- 
 yon ringing out now ! 
 
 " Ah ! the devils !" groaned Maguire. " They've 
 caught the mules now. When it's light and they 
 find no sign of us, they'll be down here after our 
 scalps !" 
 
 The " first aid to the injured" of Private Tom 
 Doolan was soon replaced by a strong tourniquet 
 of Maguire's suspenders, well twisted up with a 
 piece of a dried branch. A few gulps of the 
 whisky and Doolan was set up on his knees, 
 propped up behind the stone barricade, his revolv- 
 er in his hand and Maguire's revolver slipped in 
 the empty holster. 
 
 "You're not to shoot unless they rush, remem- 
 ber, Tom ! " cautioned General Maguire. " 1 can 
 stand them off, with the two guns ! " They had 
 doubled cartridge belts and forty extra rounds for 
 rifle and revolver in the saddle pockets. 
 
 The men both knew what a grim death awaited 
 them ! For the Apaches craved the weapons, and 
 ammunition to be found belted around the bodies 
 of the men whom they supposed they had killed! 
 
WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 207 
 
 Firing a volley directly at the advancing no 
 the Indians were misled by the positions in which 
 
 they found the animals, which, by instinct, had 
 trotted leisurely along on their homeward road! 
 
 And, while the two soldiers at bay, were resolv 
 ing to sell their lives dearly, the attacking part\ 
 were searching the lower canyon and gully lor 
 the bodies of the slain! 
 
 The dawn came glimmering slowly into the 
 canyon as Maguire, with quick eye, caught the 
 first bushy head bobbing around the bend. 
 " There's no use to fire till they find us," he 
 growled, " and every minute we hold off, betters 
 the chances of some one coming along the road. 
 If it was only two or three travelers we could 
 then stand them off! Tom, not a shot from you. 
 unless they rush," hoarsely whispered Maguire. 
 
 "They're acting mighty funny," muttered 
 Doolan, with a groan. His thigh was stiffening, 
 and the irritation of fever burned in his fingers 
 twitching the triggers of the two big army revol- 
 vers. 
 
 It was still so dusky that the two men could 
 only see the three Indians picking up the trail bit 
 by bit ! 
 
 Suddenly, with a shout, the three rushed di- 
 rectly up to the bank toward where the sole pro- 
 prietors of the Whisky Express grimly awaited 
 them. Well the two men cooped up there knew 
 the stocky naked forms, the girdle and breech - 
 clout, the raw-hide sandals, the quivers of short 
 
208 WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 arrows, and the hastily scraped Apache bow. 
 There was a revolver and knife at each brute's belt, 
 but, they staggered along with their guns at a 
 ready. 
 
 As yet they saw nothing, but when two of them 
 came in line, by a mere chance, then Maguire, at 
 ten feet distance, sent an ounce bullet plowing 
 through them both! The other buck turned, with 
 a yell, but Maguire had snatched the second gun 
 and killed him before he reached the road! 
 
 " Patsy," whispered Doolan, the reserve, 
 " we've a chance left. These fellows were all 
 drunk ! If the others " 
 
 ''Remember!" yelled Maguire, his fighting 
 blood up, " Hold your pistols to the last !" A knot 
 of a dozen dusky forms dashed around the corner 
 of the bluffs sixty yards away, and, firing wildly, 
 made directly for the spot where the bodies of the 
 three braves lay ! 
 
 Rifleman Maguire had been trained to fire ten 
 shots a minute from his Springfield, and so, he 
 worked in seven discharges, dropping five men, be- 
 fore three of the rum-infuriated warriors crowned 
 the little stony knoll, only to meet the fusillade of 
 Doolan's heavy revolvers as an agonizing surprise ! 
 One of the warriors dashed off the bluff into the 
 creek gorge, and three rolled and twisted away 
 out of sight and fire, more or less crippled ! 
 
 But, seven bodies lay motionless in plain sight of 
 the little breastwork ! 
 
 The two men lay glaring out like wild beasts at 
 
WHY 1 HE MAIL (AMI. I. A I B 20 ) 
 
 bay as the merciless sun tame up and it 
 beat down into their little cavern. The effect ol 
 
 some random shots from the two angles ol tin 
 bends of the road, the attempt to roll some hea 
 boulders down on them and crush them, and the 
 menace of hideous yells ringing through the 1 an- 
 
 von, alone showed the presence of the- red devils ! 
 
 There was no sign of relict, and the exi ited 
 
 Maguire began to lose all hope when Doolan 
 
 became flighty under the influence of the heat and 
 
 the pain of his wound. Several times the poor 
 
 castaway had to drag his friend down behind the 
 breastwork; and the idea of lashing his friend's 
 arms began to dawn upon him. 
 
 "These devils will sober off soon!" gloomily 
 cried Maguire. <k Thev'll wait till night and come 
 on with a rush. Then, it's all up with poor Doolan 
 — an' me. Well, I'll hold on to one of the revol- 
 vers! A couple of shots from it for poor Tom, 
 and the last one — for me. I'll cheat them, at the 
 last ! " 
 
 He considered the idea of lashing the half- 
 frantic Doolan to his own body with Doolan* 
 belt. " I must keep a way to shoot," he grimly 
 decided, and, he was relieved and yet astounded, 
 when Doolan's head sank back in a swoon of ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 " Poor old Tom! Ye'll never see Galway Baj 
 again!" he growled, as the wounded man's limbs 
 relaxed. He rolled him back and covered his 
 face with a wet cloth. As he turned his head, 
 
2IO WHY THE MAIL CAME LATE 
 
 fearfully, he saw, to his horror, two or three bushy 
 heads peeping up from each side of the ap- 
 proaches, as the remaining half-sobered Indians 
 tried to crawl up into position. But, the two guns 
 handled alternately were too much ! The soldier 
 was fighting now for the honor of Gal way and to 
 save his friend from being scalped. There comes 
 a time when desperation alone rules, and Maguire 
 had reached the automatic point ! 
 
 His ears had not noted the ringing answer of a 
 cavalry bugle provoked by the last rapid fusillade 
 as he was watching the crawling up process. 
 
 " Who is up there in the rocks?" yelled Lieu- 
 tenant Witherspoon, as a half-dozen of his men 
 chased the last fleeing redskins around the bend. 
 
 " A detachment of the Fourteenth Infantry, and 
 the U. S. Mails !" proudly cried Maguire, as he 
 leaped down the shingle, when he saw the lead 
 mules of a heavy train come wagging up the road. 
 " Come up and help him out ! " begged Maguire. 
 
 Before Lieutenant Witherspoon's convoy 
 reached Camp McDowell, the teamsters had 
 counted the dead Apaches and the empty whisky 
 bottles. The story was too good to keep ! When 
 Patsy Maguire apologized to the Commander for 
 " the mails arriving a little late " — that officer 
 kindly said, " Never mind, Sergeant Maguire, 
 you are to have your chevrons for saving your 
 friend's life, but, I will discontinue the Whisky 
 Express ! " 
 
THE SECRET OF DOCTOR 
 HARPER'S CABINET 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
GOOD-BYE TO OLD TUSCULUM 
 
THE SECRET OF DOCTOR 
 HARPER'S CABINET. 
 
 THERE was no unhappier man in the beautiful 
 Shenandoah Valley in the gloomy winter of [860 
 than that universally beloved old gentleman, St. 
 George Beverley Harper, M. D. The election of 
 Abraham Lincoln seemed to portend serious 
 trouble for the beloved Old Dominion. 
 
 There was no physician as well known in Fred- 
 erick, Clarke, and Loudoun counties, as a rigid 
 practitioner of the old school of medicine, the 
 duello and Arabian hospitality. By means of his 
 well-known traveling carriage and his span of 
 blacks, guided by old Pompey, Doctor Harper 
 distributed calomel, jalap and laudanum with a 
 liberal hand, over avast border area of Maryland 
 and Virginia. His life had rippled on serenely at 
 Tusculum,his stately home near Winchester, since 
 he had retired from society upon the death <>t a 
 beloved wife many years before. His pint 
 sional presence had illustrated many of the high- 
 toned affairs of honor in the good old fighting 
 days, and at sixty-five, the simple-hearted, fiery 
 old patrician was still ready to Hare up win n the 
 
214 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER'S CABINET 
 
 " peculiar institution " or the " sacred soil " was 
 endangered. 
 
 " I can see trouble coming, my boy," he would 
 gloomily remark to his only relative, St. George 
 Harper Beverley, the prospective heir of Tuscu- 
 lum. This gallant young gentleman, after leaving 
 the University of Virginia, was duly moved along 
 into that gentlemanly preparation for public life — 
 the law — and, was already the ornamental capstone 
 of the four hundred and eighty-two young law- 
 yers of Charlestown. A daring rider to hounds, 
 an excellent sportsman, and the soul of manly 
 honor, young Squire Beverley rallied his friends 
 around the hospitable board of Tusculum and 
 calmly awaited greatness to be thrust upon him. 
 Seated upon the broad porch of the old mansion 
 house, young Beverley and his friends listened to 
 the old Doctor's forebodings, while they enjoyed 
 their after-dinner cigars and proudly gazed upon 
 the beautiful vistas of the Shenandoah, then " fair 
 as a garden of the Lord." 
 
 " The brunt of it will fall upon you younger 
 men," sadly remarked the old doctor. " I was out in 
 Mexico, and my fighting days are over, but, I am 
 making preparations to meet the trouble. We are 
 here on the border, and these clouds seem to lower 
 over dear old Virginia." 
 
 " The Yankees will never fight us, they will back 
 down, as they always do, in Congress," hotly 
 urged young Persifer Drummond Rhett. He was 
 a fiery young local aristocrat, whose personal 
 
THE SECRET OV DOCTOR HARPERS I 115 
 
 knowledge of the detested Yankee v. nfined 
 
 to an itinerant tin peddler or a meek-eyed, thin- 
 chested school teacher. 
 But, the old man, seated by one oi the six great 
 
 fluted Corinthian columns of the ancient manor 
 house, gazed wistfully over his fair inheri'tan 
 It was a noble old place with stately trees, fair 
 meadows, gurgling brooks, and rich, fruitful fields. 
 A hundred negroes were cosily domiciled upon 
 the broad lands of Tusculum, and much was done 
 and undone there in the loose, easy way of the 
 fine old Virginia gentleman, all of the olden time I 
 "I am not so sure, Persifer, my boy," kindly 
 said the venerable host. " The power of the North, 
 if exerted, will be a mighty one. We always un- 
 dervalue our opponents in the struggles of life ! I 
 saw the New York Regiment go up the hill at 
 Chepultepec, with as game a rush as the Palmet- 
 toes ! In money and resources, they are far beyon< 1 
 us." Doctor Harper's mind went back to the days 
 when his rosy, clear-eyed Virginia wife swept 
 along the piazzas of the great Saratoga hotels like 
 an escaped goddess, a memory of the days ot Gre- 
 cian beauty. He had spent his mornings around 
 the Springs, his panama hat lying on his knees, and 
 enjoying a rare Cuban cigar, while the " solid men " 
 of the great summer resort, gravely consulted 
 "upon the state of the Union." And, a traveled 
 man, the doctor knew the prep< >n« lerati ng si rengl b 
 of the great North, East, and West. " It will bra 
 sad business, gentlemen, if we come to a trial by 
 
2l6 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER'S CABINET 
 
 force. Our beloved Southland has high blood, 
 brave men to muster in, and the courage of our 
 convictions. We are weak in monetary resources, 
 railroads, and the manufacturing element. Of 
 course, our people and even our blacks are to be 
 relied on, but, I fear for the final result, if the war 
 is a long one." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Beverley, " we will carry the war 
 over the borders with a rush and dictate terms at 
 Boston, Philadelphia, and New York !" 
 
 " It may be ! It may be so ! " the old gentleman 
 said, as he wandered away to his library and the 
 consideration of his own preparations, leaving the 
 young men demolishing the illogical public posi- 
 tions of the Yankee statesmen. 
 
 An excitable state of feeling soon pervaded the 
 whole valley of Virginia, and as the spring days 
 came on, the inauguration of Lincoln, the frantic 
 wave of enthusiasm rolling up from the gulf, and 
 the necessity for the " Mother of Presidents " tak- 
 ing sides brought about Virginia's secession on 
 April 1 8, and the immediate seizure of the Harper's 
 Ferry arsenal and the Norfolk Navy Yard. 
 
 The land was ablaze, north and south, and there 
 was quite a bevy of bright-eyed Virginia girls 
 clustered around the white columns of Tusculum 
 when Captain St. George Harper Beverly rode 
 back from the successful descent upon Harper's 
 Ferry. 
 
 He was a young fellow of handsome and athletic 
 proportions, sinewy, well knit, and yet, not a giant 
 
THE SECRET OP doctor iiakti-k's CABINE1 217 
 
 in stature, and therefore, he had jxtiiiK <<1 upon the 
 very tallest horse available, the Longest black 
 feather, and one of the antique lour and a half loot 
 sabres once made by a liberal Ordnance officer tor 
 the old First Dragoons. 
 
 These fearful blades were, in reality, approximat- 
 ing five feet, and their weight and clumsiness made 
 it possible for even the simplest Yankee to scram- 
 ble away out of reach. They had a curve of dia- 
 bolic uselessness, moreover! But, all looked fair 
 in the future of the budding Confederacy. It vras 
 "chock full of fight," and the nevcr-to-be-replaced 
 flower of the South was being hastened forward 
 to the Potomac and the Ohio. 
 
 It was natural that Beverley should join Turner 
 Ashby's splendid riders, and he was quite the h< 
 of the hour when the spirited beauties decorated 
 him with red, white and red rosettes, sword knot, 
 and all manner of military coquettish adornments. 
 
 And, then, lightly the gallant young hearts went 
 forth to battle for States' Rights and old Virginia ! 
 With fond affection, the brave girls "bound their 
 warrior's sash," but, sad and gloomy years were 
 stretched out before them, hidden behind the pall 
 of Bull Run's battle smoke! 
 
 The old master of Tusculum had not urged on 
 immediate secession; his silver hairs were seen in 
 the Convention voicing the noble words of John 
 Bell, Crittenden, and other moderate patriots. 
 But, all in vain, and, after the bevy of young 
 people had departed to other homes, t<> speed other 
 
218 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER'S CABINET 
 
 departing warriors, the Doctor and his nephew 
 dined sadly alone. 
 
 At daybreak the young captain was to ride away 
 to Manassas, and his preparations were now all con- 
 cluded. " Hank " and " Rube," two of the likeliest 
 negro boys, were to be his henchmen, the one to 
 act as military valet, the other to take care of the 
 two blooded chargers. The two men had wan- 
 dered up to a knoll from which the whole 
 beautiful Potomac region could be descried. 
 
 It was glowing in its loveliness, and not a blood- 
 stain smeared God's tender, budding grass. 
 
 The " Old Dominion " was ablaze now ! No one 
 knew of the horrors and devastation to come. In 
 vain, young Beverley urged that the Southern 
 army would keep the Yankees north of the 
 Potomac. " My boy," sadly said the Doctor, " it is a 
 sluggish giant, that Northern people, but they are 
 making vast preparations. I fear that the torrent 
 of war will burst soon upon our peaceful homes." 
 
 When all was done that night, and Beverley had 
 received every instruction from the old surgeon as 
 to health, possible wounds, and a hundred details, 
 the old man laid his hand in blessing upon the 
 young knight. 
 
 " I am sorry that I am not a richer man, my 
 boy," the veteran kindly said. " Here is five hun- 
 dred dollars in gold. Treasure it. Our troops 
 will soon be poorly provided — poorly paid." 
 
 " I have left the old place to you, the colored 
 people go with it. Heaven knows what their fate 
 
THE SECRET OP DOCTOR HARPERS CABINE1 919 
 
 will be in this war— which I sec now will be long 
 and bloody. I could not realize any money for 
 
 you save by selling the dear old place, <>r a large 
 
 portion of the slaves. Either act would be a prac- 
 tical treason to our community now ! But, I bav< 
 
 made some prudent provision for you, in SO far 
 
 as I could, and Doctor Hall, our dear old pastor. 
 will know of it. I have hardly decided upon the 
 last steps. If you are spared to come back to inc. 
 if I am here to meet you, I will act myself, and, 
 if I am called away, he and his wife alone, will 
 know what I have done for you." 
 
 There were grateful tears in the young man's 
 eyes, as he said " Good night," and long after he 
 had sought his room, he could hear the old doctor 
 pacing his own apartment wrapped in gloomy 
 forebodings. 
 
 When the gallant young captain galloped away 
 the next morning, he paused a half-mile away to 
 snatch a last fond look of the antiquated glories 
 of dear old Tusculum. 
 
 None of us is a prophet in his own time, and 
 few dreams seem wilder than that in the next two 
 years, a grave, careless-looking, obscure professor 
 of mathematics at the Virginia Military Institute 
 would make the name of " Stonewall Jackson " 
 deathless for all time! That the campaigns of the 
 Shenandoah would bring out of the dreamy man 
 the iron valor of a Ney, the headlong gallantry of 
 a Lannes, and the irresistibility of a Wellington I 
 But, it was written in the stars! The lonely region 
 
220 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPERS CABINET 
 
 seemed to be framed to illustrate that marvelous 
 military career of two years, which caused the 
 great Lee to despairingly cry, after the gloriously 
 fatal day of Chancellorsville : " He is better off 
 than I am. He lost his left arm. I have lost my 
 'right!" The whole region which the old doctor 
 had ridden over seemed to be only a death trap 
 for the Federal armies, and the death of Stone- 
 wall Jackson, and the coming of that grim swords- 
 man, Philip Sheridan, alone turned the tide of de- 
 feat ! 
 
 The red plowshare of war was driven through 
 the heart of the lovely Shenandoah at last, and 
 Doctor Hall had preached the funeral sermon 
 over the friend of his youth, long before Major 
 Beverley, sick, wounded, sore at heart, and pen- 
 niless, was turned loose, a returned prisoner of 
 war, at the Potomac to look at the ravages of 
 Sheridan's cavalry. 
 
 For two years, the veteran Confederate had re- 
 ceived no news of his home, save the tidings of 
 the death of the old doctor, who saw the last 
 hopes of his fellow Confederates perish one by 
 one. 
 
 Winchester was shot and shell torn ! Its streets 
 were garrisoned by Federal soldiers and beyond 
 a parole and a vast experience of gallant and hope- 
 less fighting, St. George Harper Beverley was 
 absolutely without belongings of any kind ! He 
 found a mass of straggling blacks hanging around 
 the dear old town, where he was forgotten, and, in 
 
I in: SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPERS CABINE1 2J\ 
 
 whose halls the stern Provost-Marshal ruled gruff- 
 ly. The war had been fought out at last ! Virginia 
 had been torn in two, and at thirty, the Confeder 
 ate veteran gazed, siek at heart, upon t he ruin 
 of his section, his State, and his family fortunes. 
 
 A first pilgrimage to his uncle's tomb nerved 
 him to depart with the aid of a few straggling 
 friends, finally met with, to revisit Tusculum, the 
 home of his youth. Riding on a borrowed mule, 
 he journeyed over the old roads once so familiar. 
 The whole beautiful face of Nature had changed I 
 Sheridan's wild troopers and the ebb and How 
 of armies had swept away houses, barns, bridges, 
 fences, stock, crops, and all that made the valley 
 habitable. 
 
 The abandoned wrecks of military property 
 alone, marked the tide of Federal or Confederate 
 disaster. 
 
 When at last, St. George Beverley crowned 
 the well-remembered knoll, he groaned in the 
 anguish of a bitter heart. Only a heap of black- 
 ened ashes marked the site of the old mansion- 
 house. The woods had been swept away for 
 picket fires, the gardens were uprooted, the offices 
 leveled to the ground, the orchards and fields 
 were bare and blasted. 
 
 Here and there, a tottering chimney told of the 
 red hoof of war which had plowed with fire this 
 once smiling Paradise! 
 
 " Why in God's name did I not stop a Federal 
 bullet that bit deep enough?" the penniless Major 
 
2 22 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPERS CABINET 
 
 groaned, and his hand fell on the butt of a revol- 
 ver which had been his only trophy of victory. 
 
 "No; not by my own hand / " he cried, as his eyes 
 rested upon a few white stones marking the family 
 cemetery. 
 
 They had spared his mother's grave, and there 
 he found the blessed relief of tears. He prayed 
 beside that grave and dedicated himself to a new 
 life! 
 
 There was nothing to linger for. The negro 
 quarters had all vanished. There was no stock, 
 only a few wandering razor-backs. The blacks 
 had evidently been impressed or swept away to 
 join the great helpless mass then cowering around 
 Georgetown, " in the full enjoyment of the blessings 
 of liberty." 
 
 On his way back to Winchester, he tossed up a 
 copper cent, one of his boyish luck pieces. He 
 had a distant connection at Hagerstown who had 
 already offered a temporary refuge. 
 
 " Heads, I go out to the Pacific Coast ! Tails, I 
 stay and try and work into the Baltimore Bar ! 
 This is a dead land. A shrine of battle memories. 
 And, twenty-five years must pass before it can 
 begin to recover." 
 
 He duly returned his borrowed mule and sought 
 out the old pastor at Winchester. Perhaps there 
 was some little thing left hidden away — the trust 
 which his uncle had hinted at ! Alas ! Doctor 
 Hall was dead, and Mrs. Hall had sought a refuge 
 w^th some family friends in Kentucky or Tennessee. 
 
mi: SECRE1 01 DOCTOR HARPERS CABIN El I 
 
 And so, girding up his loins, he crossed the- Po- 
 tomac to begin Life anew at Hagerstown. 
 It was three years later, when the winning ofa 
 
 celebrated case sent the rising Lawyer's name over 
 
 the border States with the most friendly en- 
 comiums upon his talents and record. A nomina- 
 tion for Congress followed and in the press of the 
 political fight, Major Beverley was astounded to 
 receive a letter from Cynthiana, Kentucky, signed 
 by the pastor's widow. It transmitted a Letter 
 from his dead uncle with a drawing of the secret 
 drawers of a famous old cabinet which had been 
 the pride of Tusculum. The words of the dead 
 man stirred up strange memories of that last night ! 
 " There is a treasure hidden in the cabinet for 
 you, my boy. I have concealed it, knowing that 
 if you survive the war it will be only to meet pov- 
 erty and hardship, on your upward way in life !" 
 
 In the few words, the budding Congressman 
 recognized the paternal tenderness of his dear old 
 clansman. 
 
 How well he remembered that old mahogany 
 cabinet, a piece of ponderous joiner work. Three 
 great drawers below, a desk-lid dropping down, 
 counterpoised by huge concealed interior weights, 
 a wonderful nesting of drawers, and an inner mir- 
 ror, with one large drawer at the top, in the rear 
 of which the secret compartments were ingen- 
 iously masked. A huge mahogany slab, split and 
 turned sideways, displayed on this swinging door 
 the most magnificent tracery of grain, and the 
 
224 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPERS CABINET 
 
 dark, red polish of a hundred years made the old 
 cabinet a thing of beauty. Its gilt-bronze hatch- 
 ings and scutcheons were worked with the Bever- 
 ley arms. 
 
 Major Beverley had, in some loose fashion, set 
 up a suzerainty over the place where Tusculum 
 had once opened its hospitable doors. A few of the 
 negroes had wandered back, and were half starving 
 along there, " on shares." The history of the sad 
 past had been picked up bit by bit. Tusculum 
 had been used as quarters by a dozen leading Gen- 
 erals on each side. It had later been turned into 
 a hospital, and finally burned down as the result 
 of military vandalism, its imposing front inviting 
 such retribution in the bitter days of the Early 
 and Sheridan campaigns. But the silver, the por- 
 traits, the valuable furniture, the library, all the 
 treasure had been gradually looted one by one ; 
 the floors were ripped up in search of hidden 
 treasure ! Major Beverley was a Congressman 
 before he had succeeded in tracing the vanishing 
 movements of the well-remembered cabinet. After 
 the hospital use of the old house had ruined it for 
 residence, Tusculum was used as a forage depot 
 for a season — preparatory to its holocaust. 
 
 An old family negro was unearthed who told 
 the tale of a Yankee Quartermaster who packed 
 up the cabinet and had it moved Potomacward. 
 Much futile correspondence with the pastor's wife 
 and considerable trouble ended in a final abandon- 
 ment of the search. 
 
THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPERS CABINET 225 
 
 But, there arc strange turns of fortune's wheels 
 even in the histories of inanimate as well as ani- 
 mate cabinets ! One of the first civic honors be- 
 stowed upon Congressman Beverley was tin- invita- 
 tion to make an address at the dedication of the 
 Confederate Military Cemetery at Hagerstown. 
 
 For, loving hands had gathered up the remains 
 of the brave Southrons who died at Sharps- 
 burg, at South Mountain, Boonsboro, and Keedys- 
 ville, as well as Falling Waters. 
 
 A dinner was given to several of the visiting 
 dignitaries at the nearest mansion house to the 
 now consecrated grounds. 
 
 Major Beverley was enjoying his after-dinner 
 cigar with his host, when the ceremonial festivi- 
 ties were over, and the two " talked war a bit,'' 
 as was the fashion of those days. For now, a 
 generation has arisen which knows not Joseph ! 
 The old soldier is relegated to obscurity, and the 
 oceans of costly blood shed in a vain struggle to 
 settle the unsettled enigma of the blacks seem to 
 have been forgotten, save in family tradition ! 
 
 Suddenly Beverley walked up to a cabinet, 
 which w^as one of the pit ?ces de resistance of the li- 
 brary. It needed but a glance to tell him that the 
 lost was found ! 
 
 " Pray tell me, Colonel Houghton, where you 
 obtained this beautiful old piece of furniture," 
 said the Congressman, with a thrill of Loving 
 awakening memories. 
 
 ''That," laughed his host, " is about the only 
 
226 THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPER'S CABINET 
 
 thing I made, as a clear profit by the war ! " 
 
 " Some of McClellan's excellent artillerists 
 shelled my old home into flames, and the Federal 
 soldiers swept over my farm like the proverbial 
 Tartar, whose horse's hoof marks a period to all 
 future fertility. I was skinned alive!" The Mary- 
 lander " sighed his reminiscences." " But, this 
 beautiful old cabinet was brought out of the Shen- 
 andoah Valley by a good-natured Yankee quarter- 
 master, who told me he found it in an old mansion 
 where every other portable thing had been carried 
 off. Some marauders burned the old place after- 
 ward, and, as he was Depot Quartermaster at Hag- 
 erstown for along while, we exchanged some civili- 
 ties. He gave it to me, as it was far too massive 
 to send north, and really begged me to try and 
 find an owner. " You see there's a coat of arms 
 on the hatchings." 
 
 " So there is, Colonel — mine !" quietly said Major 
 Beverley, handing his host his seal ring. 
 
 That night, when the guests had departed, the 
 two Southern friends, aided by the drawing, suc- 
 ceeded in opening the long hidden secret drawer, 
 four feet long and about six inches wide. 
 
 The sum of five thousand dollars in gold five 
 dollar pieces was found secreted carefully there, 
 the coins being wrapped in rouleaux and the 
 packages padded to prevent a jingling noise. 
 
 There was also, an envelope with a deposit 
 receipt of Coutts & Child's Bank, London, for two 
 thousand pounds in gold to the joint and several 
 
THE SECRET OF DOCTOR HARPERS CAB IN El J27 
 
 order of the uncle and nephew, and the deeds to 
 
 several hundred acres ofcoal lands in Kentucky 
 which had been a notable family invest nienl . A will 
 bequeathing the whole to St. George I [arper Bev- 
 erley was the last article concealed in the drawer. 
 
 "I trust that the old home will be spared, 
 and, that 1 may live to see you return in honor! " 
 so ran the last letter of the keen-sighted old 
 doctor. " If Doctor Hall sees fit, he may n - 
 move and conceal these matters in a safer place, 
 but, I trust that my age and non-combatant char- 
 acter will serve to save dear old Tusculum from 
 the torch. I have a fatal presentiment that the 
 South will not win ! Sheer exhaustion of material 
 resource and population will turn the scale against 
 us in a long war. My only hope is in some brilliant 
 Southern general conquering a peace by some 
 great blow !" 
 
 The men turned their eyes away with bitter 
 tears, for Stonewall Jackson's name came back 
 like the mournful sigh of the wind through the 
 pines! Had he lived to command the great charge 
 at Gettysburg, a peace might have followed the suc- 
 cess of that thunderbolt of war ! But, it was < >t her- 
 wise ordained ! And, later, when Major Beverley 
 sold the coal lands for a half a million dollars, a 
 new mansion rose on the olden site, and a fair- 
 faced Virginian wife often told her children the 
 story of the secret of the old Doctor's cabinet, 
 which was " Home again ! " 
 
THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT 
 ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
sneath's mean yellow eyes followed the sergeant around 
 
THE MYSTERY OE SER- 
 GEANT ARMAND CAIRE. 
 
 There was no doubt that Sergeant Armand Cairc 
 of " Ours," was a walking mystery, and a very 
 handsome mystery, too. Seated in my quarters at 
 our battalion headquarters at Ro well's Point, I 
 often followed his alert soldierly figure, as with 
 springing step he crossed the parade. "Some 
 mystery locked up under your shell jacket, my 
 good-looking French friend," I decided, "and — 
 a very well-guarded secret, too." 
 
 Many a meditative pipe I smoked, while idly 
 watching the silver yacht sails flit by on the 
 Sound, or listening to the music floating over the 
 tranquil waters from the great Fall River summer 
 boats. I was young to the service myself, impul- 
 sive, generous, and ardent at twenty-three. I had 
 observed the many accomplishments of the Gallic 
 stranger who had worked himself up from recruit 
 to first-class private, corporal, and sergeant in two 
 years. 
 
 In my cozy Lieutenant's cottage 1 tain would 
 have sent for Armand Caire and tendered him the 
 use of my books, papers, and the little adjuncts 
 which make garrison life pass lightly away. Th< 
 
2$2 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 was, however, a limit to polite intrusion, and the 
 young Gaul knew how to hold his tongue. He 
 was the very picture of a soldier. Thirty or thirty- 
 three, brown, sinewy, of active and elegant fig- 
 ure, his mustache and imperial bespoke the pro- 
 fessional French soldier. He was a correct and 
 fluent English scholar, a fact which surprised me. 
 A pair of steady, dark eyes, an olive cheek, a 
 graceful oval face, and delicate hands and feet 
 marked " race," as far as externals can be safely 
 taken as guide. 
 
 Of course, in the sixteen or eighteen battalion 
 officers, there were experienced men of our special 
 Corps who had thrown away much useless previous 
 sympathy on men tied down in the ranks beneath 
 their station in life. Several epaulette-bearers 
 prophesied final disaster as the result of Armand 
 Caire's rapid rise. There was only first sergeant 
 and sergeant-major between him and perhaps a 
 Lieutenancy in a line Regiment. 
 
 And, yet there were obstacles ! No one in the 
 command was ignorant of his thorough mas- 
 tery of men, drill, and tactics. His military char- 
 acter was irreproachable. A delicate smoker, he 
 avoided the sutler's store, and his leisure was 
 passed in athletic recreation, in sketching, or 
 with his beloved violin. The elevation to a ser- 
 geantry had given him a room of his own, and a 
 very handsome sketching case and violin were 
 the only ornaments of his den. A few water 
 colors and some exquisite professional projects 
 
THE MYSTERY OP SEKGEAN1 \KM.\ND CAIRK 233 
 
 took the place of the cheap battle scenes and 
 glimpses of womanly beauty which our "ikhi 
 corns'' usually culled from the illustrated weeklies 
 to adorn their rough dens. 
 
 On inspection tours. 1 passed through Sei 
 Caire's room with a mere perfunctory glance of 
 approval. There was not a photograph, not a 
 woman's face, nothing to indicate that he had any 
 life outside of Upton or the Aide Memoirc. 
 
 One day, he flushed, as his eyes met mine, when 
 my sword hilt displaced a dainty volume of I >e- 
 Musset's poems from his drawing desk. I picked 
 it up hastily and could not avoid seeing the words 
 traced, in a dainty hand. u Marguerite to Armand." 
 There was a date — but — I had seen all too much! 
 
 And, then, Armand Caire's eves met mine, with 
 the glance half pleading, half defiant, which sealed 
 the door of the tomb once more ! 
 
 Our Sergeants were mostly sturdy, well set up 
 Germans, happy in receiving almost an office 
 pay at home — some exceptionally fine Irish- Ameri- 
 cans, and one or two practical Americans of real 
 value, for in our corps every "non com" and 
 man, was required to be an artificer of some sort. 
 And, a better lot of men were never gathered 
 together. The war was just over and we bad 
 promoted up into our double allowance ol Ser- 
 geants and Corporals many men who would have 
 made good commissioned officers. In later years, 
 I have marked their general success in attaining 
 permanent and good stations. Among these men. 
 
234 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 Armand Caire was hardly popular. He was ban 
 camarade, and yet — he was of another world ! The 
 army verdict upon " skeletons in the closet " is 
 usually a harsh one, and Sergeant Caire was sup- 
 posed to be prudently silent for cause. And yet, 
 he never drifted into trouble, he joined no cabals, 
 and was apparently as happy and prosperous as a 
 man could be under the yellow chevrons of a ser- 
 geant. 
 
 No one had ever gained his confidence, and 
 no one cared to press upon his polite reserve. 
 He took but little leave of absence, and on occa- 
 sion had been seen at the performances of the 
 better French companies giving opera or drama 
 in New York City. 
 
 The perfect performance of his duty and his 
 equable character made him respected by the men, 
 the officers learned to depend upon him, and, only 
 among the ladies of the post, was he a standing 
 object of wonderment. His taste in decoration, 
 his worderful arts in improving some pleasure 
 grounds, his ready resource on all occasions, 
 proved him to be a master of many branches of 
 technique. 
 
 All the officers of our corps were above pump- 
 ing or following the man up, and, but one singu- 
 larity of demeanor was noticed. He always went 
 over to the little village postoffice, a mile and a 
 half away, and posted his own letters himself. It 
 was impossible for him to prevent his mail being 
 received " through the usual channels," which 
 
THE MYSTERY OF bfcftGKANT A KM. WD CM RE 235 
 
 meant in the Army, the Battalion Quartermaster. 
 
 After one of our summer hops, a chorus ofladiefl 
 took up the fascinating subject of the mystery of 
 Sergeant Armand Caire. 
 
 " There's one thing I do like about him," said a 
 very distinguished veteran officer. " He strictly 
 minds his own business. Nearly all the 'dis- 
 tinguished foreigners ' whom I have met with in 
 our service are veiled scamps. They usually are 
 pleasant bootlicks, and obsequiously creep upon 
 the notice of officers and their families. This man 
 is a thoroughbred, in his behavior. He certainly 
 deserves promotion in time, and yet, there is al- 
 ways the real element of 'character.' I have in 
 fifteen years of Army life, been several times fasci- 
 nated with supposed ' broken down ' European 
 gentlemen: Grafs, Barons, Chevaliers, and Counts, 
 'younger sons' decidedly gone wrong — as a rule 
 they ' work the sympathy act,' and either make a 
 snug nest by base arts, or, when trusted, decamp 
 with the post funds or play some low prank. The 
 only real 4 Lord' I ever discovered, was a rattling 
 good fellow at heart and a farrier in a Western 
 cavalry regiment. When * discovered,' he flatly- 
 declined ' fatted calf,' and went on hammering 
 gayly on horse and mule shoes, until really plucked 
 away by the British Minister. 
 
 " He was a jovial youth of a very fresh complex- 
 ion, simple ways, a good soldier, a mighty drink- 
 er, and, he always said that the 'Texas bron- 
 chos " were " no end of a lark ! " None of them 
 
236 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARM AND CAIRE 
 
 could ever kick His Farrier Lordship loose ! But, 
 bless you, he didn't want promotion, and he guyed 
 his own officers ! 
 
 The usual number of croakers went on predict- 
 ing that in due time Sergeant Armand Caire 
 would " make a break," but, he never did! And 
 when one-fifth of our force was suddenly ordered 
 to California to garrison a wild wind-swept isl- 
 and in San Francisco Bay, thither went the refined 
 stranger as second sergeant of " K " Co. On the 
 voyage out, in the ante-railroad days, his demeanor 
 was perfect. We had taken in some new men to 
 fill up the roster, as second-class privates, and 
 among them, a few graceless souls who only 
 joined the command of about two hundred, to get 
 a comfortable steamer passage to California, and 
 then abscond in that Golden Land. 
 
 The relaxation of discipline due to a crowded 
 steamer, the tropical heat of the Caribbean, the 
 opportunities of the Panama transit caused a few 
 frays and disorders among the more turbulent of 
 these few undesirable men. 
 
 In one of these ententes, before we had the men 
 fairly in hand on the old Colorado, Sergeant Caire 
 was obliged to severely punish one of the new re- 
 cruits named Sneath, a sneaking smart sea-lawyer 
 sort of a fellow, whose mean ways and cunning arts 
 led him later into various secret delinquencies. 
 The handsome Frenchman's violin was greatly in 
 demand, as we glided along the purpled Mexican 
 coast, and, one evening, after the impromptu con- 
 
Tin; MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMANI) CAIRE »37 
 
 cert was over, a quartermaster of the steamboat 
 
 took the sergeant aside. "There's one of vour 
 fellows, that -one," and the son of Neptune pointed 
 
 out Sneath, " has sworn the most awful oaths t<> 
 get even with you. Look out for a knife in your 
 ribs, some dark night. Watch that fellow; he 
 means mischief, and he is a dangerous dog ! " 
 
 The cool Frenchman thanked his nautical men- 
 tor. " I will watch him. I fancy, however, that 
 he will turn up missing some day, out there, when 
 we take post. He does not look as if he would 
 dare to hurt any one ! But, I'm obliged to you all 
 the same !" 
 
 To the surprise of the command, Sneath, upon 
 our arrival at our island home, showed no disposi- 
 tion to clear out. Within a month, he had got 
 into " daily duty, postal clerk, companv clerk 
 work, and quartermaster's papers," as a relief from 
 the soldierly duties of standing guard, and the 
 artificers' work of aiding to build that pretty post 
 where I spent the three happiest years of my life. 
 
 We soon lost a few men whom we were really 
 glad to drop from the roster, for good new men were 
 available, drawn to us by our higher pay, quicker 
 promotion, and double allowance of Sergeants and 
 Corporals. I had been " Officer of the Day " when 
 Sneath was punished, and I noted the relentless 
 glare of the eyes he turned upon the disciplinary 
 sergeant. So, feeling that black blood existed be- 
 tween the men, I narrowly watched Sneath's rapid 
 rise at the new post to a sort of general utility 
 
238 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 man. He was a remarkable penman, quick and 
 accurate at accounts, and soon drifted into a snug 
 clerical berth, with considerable perquisites, and 
 one which only called on him to carry a gun once 
 in every two months at muster. I noted with 
 satisfaction that this separated Sergeant Caire and 
 his avowed enemy, for the steamer Quarter- 
 master had also warned, me against some attempt 
 at crime. 
 
 " If it's ever anything, it will be a knife stab in 
 the dark," I muttered, having several times caught 
 Sneath's mean, yellow eyes following the Sergeant 
 around. In fact, I bade Caire keep his door locked 
 at night, as the separate Sergeants' rooms in the 
 new barracks enabled him to do. 
 
 But, a strange change in the demeanor of Ar- 
 mand Caire soon became to me a matter of grave 
 concern. As the beautiful new garrison neared 
 completion, the alert French soldier seemed to lose 
 both heart and self-control. His eyes became hag- 
 gard, his very habits altered, and when not on 
 duty, I often observed him pacing the sandy 
 shores of the lonely island like a restless wolf. 
 
 There was no hidden dissipation, there was no 
 apparent bodily lesion. But, the lines of his face 
 were grave and stern, and he moved about his 
 duties as one under a sentence of death. When 
 the non-commissioned staff reported to me that the 
 Sergeant's barrack demeanor was that of an 
 utter hopeless listlessness, I forced my nearest 
 friend, our post-surgeon, to send for Caire and 
 carefully examine him. 
 
THE MYSTERY OF SERGEAN1 ARMAND CAIRE *39 
 
 " It beats me!" exclaimed my housemate, the 
 
 bothered son ot Esculapius. " Six months ago, at 
 fencing drill, as general instructor, I thought 1 
 
 never had seen a more soldierly figure. Some- 
 thing, it seems, has gone out of the man's life, 
 never to return! If he would only talk," sadly 
 concluded Dr. Wclckcr. "But he has the same 
 right to his mental privacy, as the Commander-in- 
 Chief. I give it up, but I will have Halton, our 
 English hospital steward, keep a good eye on him. 
 They are great cronies, for Halton was in a medical 
 school in Paris." 
 
 Circumstances made me post-commander for a 
 period of five or six weeks in the early spring 
 after our arrival, for the four senior officers and 
 the surgeon went away on a tour to the Yosemite 
 
 Valley. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you, Lieutenant?" said 
 the Brevet-Colonel in command, as I was left with 
 only my ten sergeants, ten corporals, and one 
 hundred and fifty men to associate with. True, 
 there was the hospital steward, but, I must look to 
 civilian visitors for my mind brightening, as my 
 golden epaulettes barred me from any close asso- 
 ciation with my command. 
 
 " Yes, Colonel ! " I cried. " Take poor Sergeant 
 Caire along with you. " He will make you some 
 exquisite sketches, and be of use to you. You 
 have two or three enlisted men to look after. He 
 will keep them straight." 
 
 " By Jove ! That's a good idea ! He has been 
 
240 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 moping, and the man has earned a bit of diversion ! 
 His work on our model battery has been fault- 
 less!" 
 
 A half an hour later, I saw Sergeant Caire walk 
 away from my commander's quarters. 
 
 " Strange fellow, that," said the Colonel. " Proud 
 as a king — thanked me — declined the billet, and 
 said he was expecting some important communi- 
 cations soon. By the way, you can give him ten 
 days' leave of absence, while I am away. If you can 
 get him over to San Francisco, perhaps even a 
 few wholesome infractions of duty, a bit of a 
 " blow out," may wake him up. The man's 
 simply hipped and melancholy." 
 
 I lost no time, after I became the autocrat of the 
 island, in sending for the " Silent Sergeant," as he 
 was now termed It is strange how embarrassed 
 I felt in deliberately trying to peep behind the 
 scenes of his hidden life. " Thank you, Lieutenant," 
 he said, " I prefer not to leave the island." He 
 saluted, and then, stood awaiting his dismissal,with 
 the air of a man who knows his personal rights. 
 
 I sighed that I could not enforce my ideas of 
 letting some sunlight in upon his darkened soul, 
 but, in our republican land, the difference between 
 officer and soldier is a vast one. Even in auto- 
 cratic Russia, haughty Prussia, or medieval Aus- 
 tria, the gulf is not wider. Our regulations seem 
 to have been guided by the old English " mutiny 
 act," and the absurd caste and fantastic notions in 
 vogue when our military laws were copied from 
 
THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT AKMAND LAI KM 241 
 
 the old English purchase system rules, I trier! to 
 throw some brotherly kindness into my yoi< < . 
 
 u I am afraid, Sergeant Caire, you miss the bon- 
 
 hemic of the French service. There are so many 
 gentlemen," I emphasized the word, "who think 
 they can speedily rise to a commission, here, by 
 enlisting and then working their way up. We are 
 'plus aristocrates que Us vrais aristocrat est And, 
 yet, in an Infantry or Cavalry regiment, you might 
 rise, in a few years. Have you no friends in the 
 country?" The man was ten years my senior, 
 and he could see my boyish kindness struggling 
 for utterance. 
 
 "Not a friend in the world, — but — you, Mon 
 Lieutenant !" 
 
 He smiled sadly, as 1 blurted out, " If you 
 would only tell me — I see that you are unhappy — 
 I might help you." 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieur ! " he softly said, " some sorrows 
 lie too deep for words. I have no future, — the 
 past is voiceless — now. Pray excuse me. I shall 
 never forget your kindness. I have been a gen- 
 tleman — I don't deny it ! " 
 
 It was in my private room that our hands met, 
 as I impulsively cried : " And — you will be one 
 always ! If you feel the need of a friend, come to 
 me, send for me to your room at barracks, and I 
 will do what I can." 
 
 " I shall never forget your noble words," he 
 said. " If I ever cross the line, it will only be to 
 confide in you. And the reason why I sought your 
 
242 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 Corps for service was the officers are all men of dis- 
 tinction, and I have been treated like a man." 
 
 He was gone after I had vainly pleaded again 
 to induce him to take the ten days' leave and have 
 a little run. 
 
 Four weeks from that day, I walked down the 
 parade to make a critical inspection of the double 
 company anent the return of the chief. A wild, 
 unnerving California wind was whistling over the 
 island. It was one of the days when men's minds 
 and tempers go strangely awry ! 
 
 To my astonishment, Sergeant Armand Caire 
 was reported absent ! It was the first offense ever 
 marked up of the kind. Turning to a file closer, I 
 ordered him to step over to the barracks and turn 
 out the delinquent. " I've tried his room, sir " re- 
 ported the First Sergeant. " Both doors are tightly 
 locked!" 
 
 With a sudden misgiving, I left the company at 
 parade rest, and beckoning to the First Sergeant, 
 entered the narrow hallway leading to the two 
 sergeants' rooms facing each other. 
 
 Rapping smartly on his door with the pommel 
 of my drawn sword, I sharply cried, " Sergeant 
 Caire ! " 
 
 There was a clear response " Here ! " and then, 
 rang out a deafening report. The First Sergeant 
 and I leaped at the door with a common impulse 
 of shoulders. It gave way with a crash ! 
 
 There on the bed, dressed in his full uniform, lay 
 the soldier who had answerd " Here ! " for the last 
 time on earth ! 
 
THE MYSTERY 01 SERG1 \ " -i VRMAND CAIRE 243 
 
 He was dead, and upon the table lay a pack 
 age marked with my name. M Suicide I " cried the 
 startled Orderly Sergeant. 
 
 I sent the Sergeant on the run to send me the 
 
 hospital steward and the post-guard with a 
 stretcher. 
 
 " I've been afraid of this for some time, sir," 
 said Ilalton, as he dropped the nerveless arm. 
 "Poor Armand! He is gone. Time expired — 
 now!" With a desire to trace the mysterious 
 cause, I sent the Sergeant to inspect and dismiss 
 the company. Halton and I made a thorough 
 private search of the room. There was nothing 
 save the fragments of a tattered letter on which 
 I could trace the word " Marguerite." 
 
 Under my own eyes, the dead soldier's belong- 
 ings were sealed up, and deposited in a doubly 
 locked vacant room in my own quarters to await 
 the commander's return. I decided not to open 
 the package addressed to me until then, from 
 motives of official delicacy. 
 
 As became my duty, two days later, we buried 
 the unhappy man, with full martial honors, upon 
 the bleak hillside of the storm-lashed north side 
 of the island, and a fresh red mound met the eyes 
 of my astonished chief on his return. 
 
 I reported all but one little incident, the last 
 being that when the company broke ranks after 
 the soldier's volleys three had been fired for the 
 poor French exile, Sncath had mockingly cried. 
 u and so, good-by— for good— Mr. Johnny Cra- 
 
244 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 paud," for which brutality, Sergeant Dennis 
 O'Brien, a warm-hearted Celt, promptly adminis- 
 tered a wholesome beating, which was passed over 
 by the commanding officer, viz., myself! 
 
 When the chief returned, I begged the instruc- 
 tions of that delicate-minded gentleman as to Ser- 
 geant Armand Caire's still unopened packet. " It 
 was his own choice that you — and no one else 
 should receive that packet. I have no instruc- 
 tions to give you. Use your honor as an officer, 
 and your sense of gentlemanly obligation. If 
 there is aught you should report to me, you know 
 your duty." 
 
 I unfastened the sealed parcel with trembling 
 fingers in my own room. As I fancied, it was the 
 little copy of De Musset's poems. There was an 
 envelope in which he had traced these lines: 
 
 " I wished you to have the little book. I 
 thought of your kindness — even at the last. If 
 you ever go to Europe — see these two ladies. 
 Alas ! They have both forgotten poor Armand. 
 If you can communicate with them, do so. I have 
 failed to receive any replies to my letters, for 
 nearly a year ! " 
 
 On one of the cards, was penciled the words 
 " My sister." And the other, bore the name of 
 of the Countess de Couci, an degante of the best 
 Parisian circles. 
 
 A month later, my official duties were to auction 
 off the sketch case and violin of the dead gentle- 
 man, as by due operation of law. I had decided 
 
THE MYSTERY Of SERGEANT ARMANI) CAIRE 245 
 
 to have the violin bid in for our commander as a 
 personal relic, but, when the yellow-eyed Sneatfa 
 bid forty dollars for the sketching case, I firmly 
 met his cowardly eve. After a snappy conflict, I 
 obtained it at ninety. And, the neat stone and 
 substantial fence around the poor fellow's grave- 
 were thus provided for. 
 
 I passed long nights wondering why Sneatfa 
 should have come to the front for the possession 
 of the case, in which I found not a single paper. 
 It was a beautiful Winsor & Newton artists' case 
 of the very best quality. I was puzzled, but an 
 ugly feeling took possession of me when I later 
 received from Paris two heart-broken letters. 
 The sister of my dead friend boldly charged that 
 her brother's letters had been stolen for several 
 months. There were several five-hundred-franc 
 billets de banquc in them. And, the sweet-faced 
 Countess de Couci, before the roses had bloomed 
 twice upon his grave, had told me all the sad 
 story of Captain Armand de Gainville, of the ETtat 
 Major of one of the French Divisions in Algeria. 
 An unfortunate duel of honor, in which asociallv 
 powerful antagonist had been slain, caused him to 
 flee to America. 
 
 " We were sure of his pardon from our gra- 
 cious Imperatrice, but, he had madly enlisted in 
 your service and so, was tied down for five years! 
 We feared to bring about his punishment by taking 
 steps for his public discharge — and his enemies 
 must have found him out ! I always wrote to him 
 
246 THE MYSTERY OF SERGEANT ARMAND CAIRE 
 
 twice a month ! We were preparing to visit Cali- 
 fornia incognito, for his heart-rending letters some- 
 times reached us. Who was his enemy ? May God 
 reward him for breaking two loving women's 
 hearts. Arm and was to have been my husband ! " 
 
 I dared not indulge my suspicions and, I dared 
 not tell them that he died a suicide ! The work of 
 the scoundrel who drove Sergeant Armand Caire 
 to madness had been but too well done. 
 
 Five years later, on the eve of a departure to 
 Europe, I was hurriedly summoned to a city hospi- 
 tal to see a poor wretch who had been crushed by 
 some falling timbers. It was Sneath, the dis- 
 charged soldier ! The moment when he saw me, 
 he covered his face and groaned, " It's all up with 
 me now! I may as well tell you all! I robbed 
 Sergeant Caire's letters to get even. I was in the 
 quartermaster's office, I handled the mail, I stole 
 his outgoing letters, too ; and, I got eight hundred 
 dollars out of the French letters. But, his face 
 always haunted me !" He whispered to me where 
 he had hidden them. " Let the women have the 
 letters he wrote. God may have mercy on me, 
 now ! " With a low groan, his spirit passed, and 
 the mystery of Sergeant Armand Caire was at 
 an end ! I saw the two loving women later, happy 
 even in their sorrow, when 1 gave them the last 
 words of their loved one. 
 
How We Court=martialed 
 Sergeant Maloney 
 
 BY 
 RICHARD HENRY SAVAQE 
 
HE WAS ALL THERE, BUT SLIGHTLY SCATTERED 
 
HOW WE COURT-MARTIAL- 
 ED SERGEANT MA- 
 LONEY. 
 
 It is nearly thirty years since the fate of Ser- 
 geant Michael Maloney, the ranking duty Ser- 
 geant of "K" company of the battalion of 
 Regulars to which I was attached, trembled in the 
 balance before a stern Garrison Court-martial. I 
 unloose the gates of Memory, and forgetting my 
 silvered hair and wrinkled brow, see myself, once 
 more, the slim Lieutenant bending under the 
 aueust honors of Recorder of that memorable 
 tribunal. 
 
 It was upon a distant and lonely shore, far trom 
 the gray-castled fortress of West Point, where we 
 assembled to try the " malignant"; in fact, a few 
 miles further west, would have plumped our 
 double company out into the blue Pacific ocean. 
 From our sterile island in the harbor of San Fran- 
 cisco, we could gaze out through the Golden 
 Gate and mark the happy ships " whose cou: 
 had run, from lands of snows to lands of sun.'" 
 The storm flag upon old Fort Point, streaming 
 out in defiance of all the world and his brother, 
 cheered me by day. I was "blushing under 
 
250 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 budding honors" in those fall days of "sixty- 
 eight," and, while by day, the golden sheen of my 
 staff epaulettes and the martial clank of my sword 
 reminded me that I was no longer a book-de- 
 vouring Cadet, the dragging over that rocky isle 
 inspecting sentinels on post, in the midnight hours 
 through sleet and storm, was a gentle prelude to 
 other dc'sdgremens of the service. But, I owed a 
 great debt to Uncle Sam for nurture and educa- 
 tion and, in my poor way, I was then beginning to 
 pay it off by installments, which have since 
 stretched out to ten long years, in various duties 
 and changing stations, military and civil. 
 
 The junior of four commissioned officers at- 
 tached to the double company, my modest rank 
 gave me the exclusive privilege of being Recorder 
 of this memorable court, and copying neatly in- 
 terminable folios of " proceedings " from my 
 own notes laboriously penciled in the Court. I 
 had a monopoly of the work, the Brevet Colonel 
 and Post Commander wore the " brow of Jove," 
 and my two First Lieutenants evidently enjoyed 
 the studious Second Lieutenant's labors, while 
 they whiled away their leisure in sketching 
 the " trembling malefactors " and the " indefati- 
 gable Recorder." I drew a " full hand " at duty, 
 when I reported on that island, " fresh from the 
 Academy." Post Adjutant, Post Treasurer, Drill 
 Master, Officer of the Day, and a few more 
 "functions" made me believe that "life was earnest, 
 life was real," " when I first put the uniform on ! " 
 
HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 25 I 
 
 A multiplicity of little odds and ends fell to my 
 share, and my first "Court-martial" is recalled 
 to-day by a memory of the pride with which I 
 donned the golden epaulettes and cocked hat, with 
 strict full dress, for the first time on duty. The 
 fact that I had sported my entire regalia, less 
 sword and spurs, at the swellest ball of the season 
 in San Francisco did not count. I was only called 
 to that " pahty," to exhibit the perfections in the 
 dance of some of " California's fairest daughters, 
 but, when we court-martialed Sergeant Michael 
 Maloney I was " on duty," and, I deeply regretted, 
 being a " mounted officer," that I had no charger 
 to ride the three hundred yards from " Officers' 
 Row " to the barrack room hall, where poor 
 Maloney writhed under my accusing eye, as I 
 read the charges and specifications against him in 
 an appropriately hollow voice ! 
 
 Courts-martial are very solemn tribunals. 
 The memories of the quick dispatch of the high- 
 souled Nathan Hale, the stern adjudication of the 
 fate of the gallant and unfortunate Andre, the 
 " maimed rites " of the council condemning the 
 chivalric Due d'Enghien, the mutiny of the Norc, 
 and the awful tragedy of the brig Somcrs,m?iy recur 
 to some of my readers. The doom adjudged 
 by these stern tribunals is apt to be as merciless as 
 the swing of the scimetar of a Bashi-Bazouk, ami 
 I have always greatly respected the acumen of 
 Monsieur le Marechal Bazaine in slipping away 
 at night and reaching Spain safely before the mili- 
 
252 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 tary executioners of France reached out for him 
 to execute an ex post facto sentence of death. 
 
 I was fresh from the extremely entertaining lec- 
 tures of Professor French and Major General 
 Alexander S. Webb at West Point when we 
 court-martialed the unfortunate Maloney. Not 
 only the lectures of these great expounders of 
 military law were fresh in my ardent mind, but 
 much lore extracted from Halleck, Kent, De Hart, 
 Benet, and many other now by me, forgotten 
 " authorities." I had listened with awe for four 
 long years to trie reading of the " Articles of 
 War," and, I had observed with pain that there 
 were just ninety-nine of them, and that many of 
 them ominously ended " to be shot to death with 
 musketry." " That's a very neat way of putting it, 
 Savage," had remarked laughing Benny Hodgson 
 to me on one occasion at West Point, when a local 
 excitement in the corps of cadets had caused 
 Colonel Henry W. Black, U. S. Army, "to favor 
 us with his company at dinner," for the purpose 
 of reading, in a rich rolling voice, those same very 
 ably drawn articles ! When Colonel Black pre- 
 pared to lead away his half dozen staff officers and 
 leave us to our interrupted meal, he briskly turned 
 around to deliver a last word of cheer. " You 
 have heard the articles, young gentlemen ! They 
 will be strictly carried out to the letter, if there 
 is any more trouble ! " I pause here to say that 
 " there was no more trouble," but, laughing Benny 
 retorted, sotto voce, " It seems if the enemy don't 
 shoot us, our friends will ! " 
 
HOW WE COURT-MAR 11 A I in SKRr.KANl MALONEV 253 
 
 Poor Benny Hodgson ! It was only eight years 
 after that remark when he was obligingly " shd 
 to death with musketry" by the grim Sioux war- 
 riors on the Rosebud, as he bravely held the ford 
 in front of Reno's Hill, at the Little Big Horn 
 laying down his life in its youthful flower to save 
 the wounded of his command from the scalping 
 knife ! The Seventh Cavalry lost its brightest 
 face when Benny died ! 
 
 And so, with a knowledge of the gravity of mili- 
 tary law, I was in a serious mood when I took my 
 seat at the Recorder's table to administer this 
 lex talionis in the case of the recusant Sergeant 
 Michael Maloney " and such other prisoners as 
 might be properly brought before the Court." 
 The Company Clerk had arranged all in due order 
 in the "fair chamber looking east." There was 
 store of foolscap paper and lakelets of ink. Books, 
 authorities, and Army Regulations were there to 
 serve as " lamps to my feet." I do not yet know 
 who added " Charles O'Malley," " Laus Veneris," 
 by Algernon Charles Swinburne — The Nautical 
 Ephemeris, — and the San Francisco City Direc- 
 tory to my official books, but a beautiful " Treatise 
 Upon the Resection of the Hip Joint" (with 
 plates) led me to believe that the Post Surgeon 
 kindly wished to help me out ! 
 
 I was u helped out " for a year or more in many 
 ways on joining my command by those u seniors " 
 who seem to delight " to make things pleasant for 
 a young graduate." If they did not always sue- 
 
254 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 ceed, they tried to, and — so, we will let it go at 
 that! 
 
 At parade, the evening before, I had read the 
 solemn order of the Post Commander convening 
 the Court, and every man jack of the four pla- 
 toons quivered visibly at my impressive manner 
 of rendering the will of our " war lord ! " He was 
 only a Brevet Colonel, but he ranked us all out of 
 sight, and as Post Commander, we were the 
 " sheep of his pasture," and as far as peace of mind 
 goes, he held us " in the hollow of his hand." No 
 civilian can understand the dread black shadow 
 of the Commander's displeasure hanging over the 
 unfortunate officer or soldier. There are a 
 "thousand and one" delightful " Arabian nights" 
 and days of torture which a Commander can in- 
 flict, and, even now as I write, I recall the wide- 
 spread pleasure in a " gallant Regiment " of our 
 army to see its Commander go up to the well- 
 merited stars. But, as he has made regimental 
 life one glad, sweet song and dance for the whole 
 period since the war, they rejoice as one man, 
 and now feel that the " weary are at rest ! " 
 
 Denied the unfeigned pleasure of hearing Mr. 
 Gounod's very proper " Marche Funebre" appro- 
 priately rendered " by the band " over his cold 
 " corpus," the officers of this happy Regiment can 
 only remember that " parting is such sweet sor- 
 row," and, with one voice, decide to omit the 
 " loving cup" presentation which seems to spread 
 over our benighted land like the march of the 
 
HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED IERGEAN1 MALONEV 255 
 
 Canada thistle, or the twin blessings of bloomers 
 and bicycles ! 
 
 In that Light-hearted Regiment to-day, many a 
 man in reading the order promoting their "stem 
 Commander " will realize the beauties of those 
 last lines penned by Thackeray's master hand : 
 " And, my heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss ! " 
 
 At the parade when I thundered forth the 
 bringing to the bar of the unlucky Maloney, every 
 man of the command knew that the Post Com- 
 mander u had it in " for the Sergeant. He was 
 "in close confinement" in his barrack room, — only 
 spared the disgrace of the guard house. For, the 
 three yellow stripes of the Sergeant's chevrons 
 were still upon his manly arms. He could not be 
 deprived of them without " due course of law," 
 for he had a warrant signed by our distinguished 
 Battalion Commander, a Major General of the 
 piping times when the Stars and Bars flew in defi- 
 ance of the extremely energetic Mr. Edwin M. 
 Stanton, and greatly to that gentleman's daily an- 
 noyance. Though Michael Maloney, by a figment 
 of the law, languished like Eugene Aram, " with 
 gyves upon his wrists," he was simply interned in 
 barracks. He was not as sadly off as that pitiable 
 creation of the great magician Kipling, the abject 
 ' Danny Deever," whose uniform was torn off and 
 buttons cut away. But the sorrowing son of Erin, 
 Michael Maloney " of Ours" was in the toils, for 
 all that ! 
 
 It's verv vvell for Messrs, Gilbert and Sullivan 
 
256 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 to airily remark " Never mind the why and where- 
 fore." The " why and wherefore ' 5 threatened to 
 reduce Michael Maloney to the ranks, to drop his 
 pay from forty-three dollars a month to nothing — 
 and to affix a ten-pound ball by a ten-foot chain to 
 his robust Milesian leg. 
 
 The prospect of Maloney spending the rest of 
 his enlistment in assisting the ingenious officers of 
 the Corps of Engineers to transform Alcatraz 
 Island into a gun platform was strictly in the line 
 of his profession, but while they labored with level 
 and theodolite, he, as a military prisoner, if con- 
 victed, would operate a wheelbarrow, under the 
 guard of a sentinel, and sleep in a cold cell with 
 forfeited pay, a dishonorable discharge, and 
 meagre rations of truly Spartan simplicity. 
 
 In the evening, before Maloney's trial the three 
 juniors gathered in my quarters to discuss the 
 forthcoming Court proceedings. Three handsome 
 double houses were the homes of five bachelor 
 officers, the Commandant dwelling in awful majesty 
 alone in one of them. It was due to the presence 
 of the Surgeon, my house mate, that some " facts 
 as to Maloney " were judiciously sowed on fertile 
 ground — cast, as it were, like bread upon the bitter 
 waters of Marah then engulfing the luckless 
 Sergeant. 
 
 I can recall the winning face of our senior 
 First, who was to be President of this Garrison 
 Court. Poor Jack ! The only human realization 
 of an Ouida hero whom I ever met! He had all 
 
HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED »ERG1 \m IfALONEY 257 
 
 the talents — all the graces ! " Alcibiades " I fondly 
 
 nicknamed him. Spirited, daring, and graceful, he 
 always affected the absence of heart, and yet, in a 
 few brief years, he ran the race of life, and died 
 untimely, leaving before him a half-finished written 
 message to the woman whom he loved, the last 
 thing he saw in life ! Not in battle or storm did 
 he lay down his life of promise, and more than one 
 heart was broken when handsome Jack died alone ! 
 
 The second member was a man with a heart of 
 gold and of a taciturn demeanor; for the promise of 
 his distinguished career was then hidden in his 
 level head. I, as the junior, let my superiors go 
 over the ground and kept silent. 
 
 There was no possible discussion as to the facts 
 in the case of Sergeant Michael Maloney. When 
 " Buster " (our second) knocked out his pipe and 
 strolled aw r ay to bed, he sadly said : " I'm afraid 
 poor Maloney is in for it ! " And yet the senior, the 
 Surgeon, and I lingered, in a chat, artfully drawn 
 out by the kind hearted Doctor, an Irishman, him- 
 self. 
 
 It was the old, old story ! There was no woman 
 in the case, although the military Pandora after- 
 ward fumbled in her box and gave us a good- 
 looking woman of humble rank on that island who 
 kicked up as much rumpus as that classic member 
 of the ha ut canaille, Helen of Troy ! 
 
 Take the story of" honest Michael Cassio," and 
 substitute " Mike Maloney." for Othello's ancient, 
 and " the incident is closed," as the Frenchman 
 aptly says. 
 
258 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 A few days before the council,Sergeant Maloney 
 had departed on a three days' pass for San Fran- 
 cisco, and he was then a miracle of military neat- 
 ness! His well-brushed dark and light blue 
 uniform, his gleaming shoulder scales, the pride of 
 his heart ; his yellow chevrons and blue service 
 stripes, his artfully polished military platter-shaped 
 shoes, his neat forage cap, all marked him as 
 destined to play havoc with the susceptibilities of 
 certain young " colleens " in the city, whose 
 hearts grew lighter when he came. 
 
 When he sailed away on the government steamer 
 McPherson he had a complacent smile on his face, 
 and— alas — a five-dollar bill in his pocket ! I was 
 Officer of the Day. I received his salute, examined 
 his pass, and bade him (mentally) go forth to meet 
 his Norah Creina, in peace, for the paymaster had 
 " been around," and Maloney was justly entitled 
 to his three days off. 
 
 We had nourished high hopes of Michael ! The 
 Orderly Sergeant of the double company, Hand, 
 was soon to be discharged. Nothing but the fact 
 of Maloney being a bit shy on " book learning " 
 could prevent his promotion to the place of the 
 retiring Hand, and, adding a lozenge to his chev- 
 rons and five dollars a month to his pay. The 
 whole effective control of the company would pass 
 into Maloney 's brawny hands, and he had well 
 earned the distinction. 
 
 For, in the dark days from '6i to '65, Michael, a 
 lad born of Irish parents in our " regulars," nur- 
 
HOW \u C >' ;: l MARTIAL] D 51 KG] \*. I MALONEY 259 
 
 hired as a drummer boy, had cheerfully bitten 
 cartridges and fired his old Harper's Ferry mus- 
 ket cheerfully in the face of almost anything visi- 
 ble ! I [e remembered the flaming ridgeol Gaine 
 
 Milis, the bloody slopes of Malvern, the railroad 
 c ut at the second Bull Run, the peach orchard at 
 Antietam, the bloody angle at Gettysburg, and he 
 swore by McCletlan, Fitz John Porter, and Gen- 
 eral Sykes. Mike Maloney was game up to Appo- 
 mattox, and the blowing to pieces of his comrades 
 of Sykes' Regular Brigade, had at last forced the 
 honors of a Sergeancy upon him. 
 
 I had seen him march up the hill at West Point 
 when the depleted command came home from 
 the war, with its ranks opened to show the vacant 
 places of the lamented dead, and the band playing 
 "Ain't You Glad to Get Out of the Wildernes- 
 
 Now, I had been Officer of the Day on Maloney 's 
 return, and I was astonished to see him debark in 
 an unkempt condition and silently make his wax- 
 back to barracks. Turning and following his re- 
 treating steps, candor forces me to say that his 
 unsteady legs described the grapevine twist ! 1 
 had passed the regrettable discovery over in 
 silence, and I tried not to notice the careless wag- 
 ging of his curly pate, the vacant smile on his 
 honest face, and the relaxed mouth, ordinarily 
 snapped close in a Milesian triangle. He was -all 
 there," but slightly scattered! There were 
 dozen other soldiers on the boat returning from 
 pass — and some of them were habitual drinkers, 
 
260 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 but, strangely, none of them were " leery " on this 
 day. 
 
 It was at mess that evening while we five officers 
 were being neatly served with our cosy dinner, 
 that the sounds of a couple of shots rang out on 
 the evening air ! 
 
 " That's for you, Mr. Officer of the Day," curtly 
 said the Colonel. Grasping my sword, and run- 
 ning over the parade, followed by a Corporal's 
 guard, I found that Sergeant Maloney was locked 
 in his room. With a spring, the Corporal of the 
 Guard and myself went through the door ! We 
 were obliged to temporarily place the excited 
 Sergeant in the guard house for safety. 
 
 It was the work of that universal devil — the in- 
 visible spirit of wine ! There was no excitement 
 in the barracks, for a real discipline was always 
 maintained, but, on my return to report the un- 
 happy " break " to the Colonel, I found that Ser- 
 geant Hand had already reported to the Com- 
 mander that he had been fired upon twice, from 
 Maloney's window, although he saw no one. I 
 was at once directed to return and secure the Ser- 
 geant's gun. It was easy for me to see, a half 
 hour later, that some quick-witted friend had 
 cooled the barrel and wiped the piece out in the 
 interval since the shooting. A kindly master 
 stroke of old soldier wit ! 
 
 But, it all looked black enough, on this night 
 before the Court, until the Surgeon astonished Jack 
 and myself with a few well-put observations. 
 
IK)\V U|, ( < ) I K 1 - M A K I I A I I I ) I RG1 AN I HALO N B V >6] 
 
 44 I'm not on the Court," he said, between pilfffl ;it 
 his pipe, "and I can show you a dirty bit of ground 
 hog work! There's no love lost between Hand, 
 who is an Ameriean, wears Burnside whiskers, 
 and hopes for some future favor by bootlicking the 
 Commander, and poor Mike. Sergeant Hand has 
 saved money. He gets a heavy ' travel pay ' and 
 hopes to be made Post Sutler, and so grow rich. 
 In the hospital, I get all the men's chatter through 
 my Hospital Steward. Hand has some crony rec- 
 ommended for promotion, among the ten sergeants 
 and ten corporals, and — Maloney was never drunk 
 before ! Now, I can almost swear that poor 
 Mike's enemies put all those men on to him, who 
 went off on pass, to drink successively with him, 
 and so, lead him away ! 
 
 11 They, the old soakers, all came home sober. 
 Poor Maloney has been victimized, and he may 
 have realized his condition, and sees now what he 
 lost. The real author of the job is this slick Ser- 
 geant Hand, or his friends. Maloney, in despera- 
 tion, may have taken a couple of cracks at him, 
 but, Rand did not see the shooter! Maloney 's 
 gun was clean ! I think it's a case for ' executive 
 clemency ! ' " 
 
 "If I believed this," cried the warmhearted 
 Jack, " he shall not lose his stripes. See here, 
 Sawbones, you can talk to each of us alone, about 
 this. Find out what you can, and we will see — 
 what we shall see ! " 
 
 The undercurrent of garrison lite is often 
 
262 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 stranger than the official flood tide, foaming along 
 on the surface. When the Garrison Court assem- 
 bled the next day at ten, there was a peculiar in- 
 terest manifested by every one on the post. But 
 the three members of the Court never* exchanged 
 a word until the Court was called to order in the 
 presence of the commanding officer and the guard 
 and orderly as sole spectators. With due solem- 
 nity, the prisoner was introduced, and Sergeant 
 Michael Maloney entered far paler than when he 
 fired point blank into the faces of Hood's Texans 
 springing up the rugged slopes at Gaines's Mills ! 
 He was a model of soldierly neatness and sym- 
 metry, devoid only of the treasured Sergeant's 
 sword upon which he had expended three years 
 of polishing, till its Corinthian brass mountings 
 gleamed like the gold of Ophir ! 
 
 His sad eyes roved over the silver castles on the 
 epaulets of his three judges, and, in an awe- 
 struck silence, he heard the orders appointing the 
 Court read, and listened to the swearing-in of the 
 Court and the Recorder. When asked if he had 
 an objection to being tried by any particular 
 member of the Court, his eyes rested upon all of us 
 in succession. He bowed his head in manly nega- 
 tion, which was simply touching. I rejoiced that, 
 as a Garrison court, we could not administer the ex- 
 tremest penalties, for I had heard more of the 
 sneaking conspiracy which had effected the sim- 
 ple Sergeant's ruin. I fancied that the Surgeon 
 had also privately enlightened my colleagues ! 
 
Hhu WE C0UR1 MARTIALED SERGEANT MAL0NE1 263 
 
 It was a painful task for me to read tin- charge — 
 under the ninety-ninth article: "Conduct preju- 
 dicial to good order and military discipline." The 
 specification, which I had been forced to draw 
 with much useless flourish of antiquated verbiage, 
 was strong enough to fell an ox. It was after this 
 interesting ceremony that Handsome Jack, Looking 
 like a robust Cupid-in-arms, informed the prisoner 
 that he was entitled to the assistance of counsel, 
 to be selected from the military persons of the 
 garrison. 
 
 There was a convulsive sob racking brave 
 Michael Maloney's breast, as he shook his head 
 and brushed his face with the sleeve marked with 
 four service-stripes. 
 
 He declined the assistance of counsel, and I 
 then, formally arraigned him, and was astounded 
 to hear him, in a broken voice, plead guilty to the 
 specification, and guilty to the charge. The three 
 members of the court gazed blankly at each other. 
 The pleas cut off the necessity of the introduction 
 of evidence, in fact, there was no official evidence 
 available, save the excited condition of the man 
 w r hen his room door was forced. 
 
 Our Commander hastily left us at this legal sur- 
 render of the unhappy man. 
 
 I deemed it my duty to inform the prisoner that 
 he was entitled to make a brief oral or written 
 statement by virtue of his plea. The pool- fellow 
 stood "before his betters" and huskily said: 
 "Gentlemen ! I leave it all to you ! 1 have always 
 
264 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 tried to be a good soldier, and it's idle for me, a 
 poor Sergeant, to say that I'm not bound to know- 
 good order and military discipline. I've know my 
 whole duty these many years. I was born in the 
 army!" 
 
 There was an awkward silence as the prisoner 
 was returned to his quarters in charge of the 
 guard, and the last look of his sorrowful face was 
 a good-by — a long good-by to his chevrons ! He 
 had opened the door to his own degradation as 
 far as rank and promotion went. One fault, the 
 fault of the hot-headed and gallant Celt, the one 
 spot upon his faultless record had marred the 
 clean record of years of brave service, of drudg- 
 ery, and grinding privation ! 
 
 In silence, I prepared a dozen or more folded 
 ballots, all of similar appearance, marking them 
 "Guilty" and "Not Guilty." As became the 
 younger, I voted first, and handed the hat to the 
 others for their secret selection and vote. The 
 voting was done without discussion. When the 
 record of the votes upon the specification and 
 charge was correctly announced by me, there 
 was a majority recording the fact that the absent 
 prisoner was not guilty of either the charge or the 
 specification ! An astounding verdict ! 
 
 There is a wholesome special obligation of the 
 oath of the Judge Advocate and Recorder which 
 absolutely forbids him from disclosing the vote of 
 a " particular member." From that day to this, 
 1 have never known who cast the majority votes 
 
how \vi. COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONKV |6j 
 
 which in face of a plea of "guilty" declared 
 
 Sergeant Michael Maloney,of Ours to be innocent! 
 I may have had some personal ideas, but my oath 
 would not allow me to indulge in "vain con- 
 jectures." There were other prisoners tried 
 afterwards before this famous Court, who re- 
 ceived very moderate punishments for trifling 
 offenses. 
 
 When the result of the trial of Maloney was re- 
 luctantly announced to the commanding officer, in 
 answer to a direct question at mess, I was glad 
 that Handsome Jack gallantly " leaped into the 
 chasm." The Colonel rose and "left the rich 
 meats all untasted," storming out of the room! 
 For three days, we were denied the light of his 
 countenance, save when he sent his orderly for us, 
 officially. I was happy and busy in my duplex 
 functions and I escaped the storm. 
 
 As Post Adjutant, I was gruffly ordered to re- 
 lease " Maloney from arrest and restore him to 
 duty — chevrons and all ! " As Recorder of the 
 Court, I was bidde not to make up the record of 
 this case of legally " squaring the circle." The 
 proceedings in re Maloney were all quashed. 
 Lightly as the roe, I sped away to the sergeant's 
 room. When I entered, he had the haggard look 
 of impending disaster. When I left the strong 
 man sobbing at his table, he had stopped an im- 
 promptu oration while saying: "Liftinint! Tell 
 the gintlemen av the Coort— " for, his flood of 
 pent-up sorrows swayed him as the wild rain gusts 
 shake the bending pines ! 
 
266 HOW WE COURT-MARTIALED SERGEANT MALONEY 
 
 " Maloney's bad break" was his only one ! His 
 rosy face shone out in ranks for years, untinged 
 with " spiritus frumenti" and yet, he did not get 
 his Orderly Sergeant's lozenge until a long year 
 later. Sergeant Hand had left us for good and all. 
 I was cut off the next year in the Arizona deserts 
 with four of our men on duty, to face a possible 
 starvation, when I found a bullet-headed sapper 
 secretly adding his allowance of food to mine by 
 hiding it under my desert pillow. " What do you 
 mean by this?" I demanded of the shamefaced 
 Riley. He mumbled : " You gave Mike Maloney 
 a square deal ! We had all got round him to fill 
 him up just for a lark ! There was them as would 
 ruin him, we found out, later ! Damme if I know 
 how you found him ' Not guilty ' ; but — we was 
 all played on - ■ ?jA—you did the square thing ! " 
 
Archibald Clavering Gunter's 
 Celebrated Works 
 
 THE MOST SUCCESSFUL NOVELS OF THE AGE 
 
 Mr. Barnes of New York 
 
 Mr. Potter of Texas 
 
 That Frenchman 
 
 Miss Nobody of Nowhere 
 Miss Dividends 
 Baron Montez of Panama and Paris 
 A Princess of Paris 
 
 The King's Stockbroker 
 
 The First of The English 
 
 The Ladies' Juggernaut 
 Her Senator 
 Don Balasco of Key West 
 Bob Covington 
 
 ^. „ r TT7 ( Part I — Susan TurnbvJl 
 
 The Power of Woman | ■ 
 
 I Part II — Ballyho Bey 
 
 CLOTH, GILT TOP, $1.25 PAPER, 50 CENTS 
 
 For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on 
 receipt of price by the publishers 
 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING CO. 
 3 East Fourteenth Street New York 
 
My Official Wife 
 
 BY 
 
 Col. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE. 
 
 What America says of it. 
 
 "One of the most entertaining books of the season. 
 It reads strangely like one of Gunter's masterpieces." 
 
 — Rochester Sunday Times, June 14th, 1891. 
 
 "In it the most exciting complications arise, making 
 the story one of absorbing interest." 
 
 — Cleveland Plaindealer, June 14th, 1891. 
 
 " It would be hard to find a more exciting 
 story than ' My Official Wife.' A series of events 
 and situations which increase in excitement, 
 mystery and danger. A book through which the 
 reader will dash with wild eagerness." 
 
 —NEW YORK HERALD, June 21st, 1891. 
 
 What En rope says of it. 
 
 * Far beyond the average. Exceedingly powerful 
 and exciting." — Newcastle Chronicle, July 10th, 1891. 
 
 " One of the ablest of its kind." 
 
 — Carlisle Patriot, July nth, 1891. 
 
 " Deserves to be one of the most popular tales of the 
 season." — The Morning Post, London, July 15th, 1891. 
 
 "Plenty of dash and go." 
 
 — Saturday Revieiu, July 18th, 1891. 
 
 "Wonderfully clever," 
 
 —LONDON TIMES, August lOth, 1891. 
 
 "A delightful story." — Tauchnitz, Leipsig. 
 
 FOR SALE EVERYWHERE. 
 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING CO., 3 East 14th Street, N. I 
 
What the Press Say of 
 
 His Cuban 
 
 Sweetheart 
 
 BY 
 
 Col. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
 (Author of "MY OFFICIAL WIFE," Etc.) 
 
 AND 
 
 Mrs. ARCHIBALD CLAVERINQ GUNTER 
 
 'If you have a leisure afternoon it will send the 
 hours flying." — New York Herald, Feb. 8th, 1896. 
 
 <; At this time the pictures of Cuban life and Spanish 
 tyranny will be particularly interesting." 
 
 — Daily Advertiser, Elmira, N. Y. 
 
 " Thoroughly interesting, full of glowing color, 
 artistically handled." — Boston Ideas, Feb. 28th, 1896. 
 
 "The reader will not be willing to put it down 
 until it is finished." 
 
 — Picayune, New Orleans, Feb. 9th, 1896. 
 
 Paper, 50 Cents. Cloth, $1,00, 
 
 Sent postpaid to any address on receipt of pnce. 
 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
Her Foreign 
 Conquest 
 
 BY 
 
 Col. Richard Henry Savage 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "My Official Wife," etc., etc. 
 
 "That brilliant writer, Col. R. H. Savage, has added 
 another success to his considerable list of society novels." 
 
 — The Westminster Review. 
 
 "A novel on which Col. Savage is to be truly con- 
 gratulated." — Boston Ideas. 
 
 "The plot is skillfully constructed; the characters file 
 before us with vivid personality; the style is strong, 
 iluent, and unfaltering, and from the first page to the 
 last the story sweeps along with dash and swing." 
 
 — The Home Journal. 
 
 Cloth, $1.00 Paper, 50c. 
 
 Sent postpaid on receipt of price 
 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 3 East \%\\\ Si., New York 
 
NOW READY 
 
 An Exile 
 from London 
 
 A Story of Startling Adventure 
 and Charming Romance .... 
 
 * * » MjX . . . 
 
 COL. RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE 
 
 Author of 
 MY OFFICIAL WIFE, Etc., Etc. 
 
 Paper, 50c. Cloth, $1.00 
 
 Sent postpaid on receipt of price 
 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET 
 NEW YORK 
 
"Mr. Gunter's books are 
 
 more generally read than 
 perhaps those of any 
 
 OTHER LIVING WRITER." 
 
 The Times. 
 
 London, Eng., Nov. 4, 1888. 
 
OPINIONS OS- 
 
 THE GREAT NOVEL, 
 
 Mr. Barnes 
 
 of New York. 
 
 ENGLAND, 
 
 u There is no reason for surprise at 'Mr. Barnes' 
 being a big hit." — The Referee, London, March 25th. 
 
 "Exciting and interesting" — The Graphic, 
 
 " ' Marina Paoli ' — a giant character — just as strong 
 as * Fedora/ " — Illustrated London News. 
 
 "A capital story — most people have read it — -I 
 recommend it to all the others." 
 
 — James Payne in Illustrated London News* 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 "Told with the genius of Alexander Dumas, the 
 Elder." — Amusement Gazette. 
 
 "Have you read ' Mr. Barnes of New York ? ' If 
 no, go and read it at once, and thank me for suggesting 
 it. ... I want to be put on record as saying ' it is 
 the best story of the day — the best I have read in ten 
 years.' " — Joe Howard in Boston Globe. 
 
 But at that time Mr. Howard had 
 not read 
 
 "Mr. Potter of Texas/ 1 
 
JUST OUT 
 
 BOB COVINGTON 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 Archibald Clavering Gunter 
 
 " Of intense interest." — 67. Louis Star 
 
 "There is not a dull line between the covers." 
 
 — St. Louis Post-Despatch 
 
 Cloth, $1.25 Paper, 50 cts. 
 vSent, postpaid, on receipt of price 
 
 THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 3 East 14111 Strei 1 
 Xr.w York 
 
Don Balasco 
 Of Key West 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD CLAVERING GUNTER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "Mr. Barnes of New York"; "A Princess of Paris"; 
 "The King's Stockbroker," Etc., Etc. 
 
 The first thing we have to say after reading this marvelous story of ad- 
 renture, intrigue, deception, Spanish brutality, Cuban patriotism, love and 
 fidelity, sacrifice and heroism, and the inexcusably cold indifference of the 
 United States Government : that cold and criminally apathetic must be the 
 heart of the man who does not at once become an ardent sympathizer and a 
 
 beneficent actor with the Cubans struggling for life and liberty 
 
 . . The description of the West Indies by the gifted author — of the seas and 
 islands, and of the people— American, Spanish, and Cuban— and of the climate, 
 and of the manners, and customs, and temperaments of a volatile people, is a 
 piece of word painting truly sublime and fascinating. 
 
 — Christian Leader, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 Plenty of the romance, excitement, and surprise for which Mr. Gunter's 
 novels are noted. — Boston Journal. 
 
 Have you read Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter's latest story ? If not, 
 get a copy at once at the nearest news-stand . Before you begin it, however, 
 eat a good square meal, for you will not eat again until you have finished the 
 book. Thai is true of all his stories. — The Rochester Courier. 
 
 CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER, 50 Cents. 
 
 Sent post-paid on receipt of price. 
 
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