Evening Star Newspaper, July 9, 1922, Page 55

[ ‘ o~ ‘M still broadcasting in short- * wave lengths. “A bit gaspy in my conversation; you know. Who wouldn't be after starting out on a casual week end aunt hunt, mainly to duck a hot Sunday in town, and erding up by discovering fhat you'd had a New Hampshire farm wished on you? “Tell me. Squire Sweat,” says I “how did Aunt Luella ever happen to pick on me?” “Why." says the old boy with the big face and the twinkly eyes, “I ex- yect if'must have been because ‘you were her only niece.” “But she'd never seen me,” fays I “and had barely heatd that I existed You made out the will for her, didn't you? What did she says about me at the time?" “Sure you want to hear it, Miss Dodge?" asks the squire. “Absolutely.” says L “Well.” he goes gn. his eves getting more twinkly than ever, “your Aunt Luella was kind of peculiar in her ways, and more or less snappy in her talk. She'd sort of soured on the world, you understand. ‘Specially on Young. good-looking women. Used to £it at her front window watchin’ for ‘em. Oh, she was caught at it plenty they'd get past she'd make faces at "em. Ah, she was caught at it plenty of times. Everybody knew about it, but nobody could guess why. Just naturally couldn’t abide seeing a prett¥ face. 1 was talking with a college professor who summers here. and he said it must be a complex. whatever that is. that she'd worked up from something that had happened , to her in the past.” “1 know,” says I “They told me 7 where the grass was nearly waist high. “Huh!" says Inez. “Ain't so much, | is 17" . “Sorry my ancestral estate lsn't quite what you expectel. Inez, dear, says I, “but I'll admit it isn’t all that I'd had in mind myself. About as cheerful and inviting as an abandoned army camp, eh?" < ‘Course,” says Squirs Sweat, “the place does look a little run down. Bound to after standing idle for two years. It's a fine.old house, though, built back in the days when they put ‘em up to stay. The Judd place. we used to call it when I was a boy. and I remember 3h: 4 Peter Judd lived here with his’tamily. One of the county commissioners, Peter was. and a daughter of his married the lieutenant governor. Lives in Boston now, I believe. The rest are all dead or moved away. Your Aunt Luella bought it from ths widow of one of the sons. She didn't do much with the farm land, though, except to sell off the hay, so it ain't been kept up very well.” “And she wasn't strong for having things painted, was she?” says 1. “No/" he agrees. “Kind of near. | Luella was. Just lived along by her- seif and sort of let things. go. Never bought a stick.of new furniture, they say.. So you 'neednt look for much inside.” “Well, let's take a squint and know the worst,” says. L. PR ID you ever go into a house that had-been ‘shut for that length of time—one that was just as it had been left after the undertaker had shooed _out the last mourner and ! v Checks Up— windows, where she squatted when she dia her spy act on the passers-by. “What a life!” says I. “And how long, squire, do you say it was that she kept that up?’ “Fifteen years or more.” says he. “That's hating the world consist- ently, anyway.” says 1. “I hope it doesn’t run in the /blood. At least, Ppaw was never Itke that. He liked people—all kinds. Out’ at Dodg Clearing he’d drop work any time to stroll out on the road and get folksy with anybody he saw driving by. And he was an easy mark for book agents, lightning-rod men and-tin-cart ped- dlers. He'd let them sell him any- thing, whether he could pay for it or not. I expect that's why the only. heirlooms he ever had to leave were seven corncob pipes and a cigar box full of unpaid bills." “Well,” says Barry, "I'll say you're long on heirlooms now. Here's a houseful, not to mention a few sheds and a barn. By the way, you haven't inspected those, you. know.” “Then let’s” says I “I don't want to miss anything. * K * ¥ ‘ROM the ‘kitchen addition ren § series of these sheds clear to the big barn, pérhaps a hundred fest away. They were built with arched openings, some of which were closed and some were open, but what they were all mieant for I couldn't guess until the squire explained’ that two were used to store wood in, another was for buggies and a fourth for stor- ing horse rakes; plows, mowers and such things. “But mainly,” says - the ‘squire, “they built this string of sheds so they could get from the house to the “COURSE,” SAYS SQUIRE SWEAT, “THE PLACE DOES LOOK A LITTLE RUN DOWN. HOUND TO BE AFTER STANDING IDLE FOR TWO YEARS.” about it down in Connectlcut. where she lived before she moved up here. It was a soprano with soulful eves “who edged her out as soloist at the Congregational church. That's why she left Danberg. So she continued o be rore on the gobd-lookers, eH?" * ok ok W GQUIRE SWEAT nodded. “Even to * high school girls,” said he. “Used 1o sit peeking through the gréen blinds. and when a pretty girl would go by she’d run out her tongue and screw her face up cpiteful.” “H-m-m-m!" says I. “And then she leaves me her house and farm? Who tipped her off, squire?” 'Eh?" says he. “About my carrotty hair and goose- savs [ Perry green eyes, He chuckled. “I might as well own up. Miss Dodge.” says he. “and tell you exactly what your Aunt Luella said. Seems Four father had sent on a picture of you, taken when you were about four Years old. ‘There's that brat of Eph- yaim's say she. ‘Pity it wasn't a boy. But she's bound to have grown up to be a homely little tyke. Let her have it all, squ And that's the way I wrote the will “Excuse me if T don't seem to blush, squire, but somehow F'm not flattered pink. It's an odd way to qualify for & legaty. but T'1l gdmit I can meet the epecifications.” “Oh. now. younglady!" says he. *If you ask me, I'll say you're out- grown everything but your right to dnherit the propert 3 “Thanks, squire,” “If you ask’me, Il turning it down. A farm isn't pre- cisely what I've been yearning for these last few years. In fact. I got rather fed up on the bucolic life be- fore I left Tamarack Junction. maybe this is a different proposition. 1s it far out?” “Just on the edge of town.” says he, #and right on the main road. Like to Yook it over, would you?" # “That's what we all came up for this afternoon,” says I. “The rest of them are out in the car—my friend, Miss Inez Petersen; her Uncle Nels and Barry Platt. May we take you slong as guide?* “Just as soon as I get the keys,” Bays he. - ok ok % A ND as we drove out Main street I 4 .began to work up that well Xnown thrill which always comes to the best of us and to the worse of us when we're about to.get something for nothing. I found myself stretch- ing my neck to stare ahead and won- der if it was the next place or the next. And when the squire finally did motion Barry to puil up in front of this dingy white old house, with the faded green blinds, the sagging gate and the weed-filled yard, I. was more or less disappointed. You-see, we had been passing neatly-Rept places, with the blinds thrown- back, stretches of smooth. green lawn in front and flower gardens around them. They'd all looked gort of comi- fortable and homey. . But this one had & forlorn, gloomy air about it. A dead branch from one of the big elms had fallen across the .stone Moorstep, tufts of last year's grass fmixed with the green. of this sum- mer’'s crop in the overgrown front walk, a spider's web :hung from the tarnished silver doorknob to the bot- tom molding, some bricks from a chimney top were lying in a weed- choked flower. bed. Stretching out ¥rom one side of the house toward the barn was a row of sheds, and in #ome places the roof was sagged. .On the other side were a few old apple frees, full of dead branches,.in.a yard But | turned the key over to the executor? Gives you quite as pleasant a sensa- tion as stepping into a tomb. Out- side in the July sunshine the air was warm and sweet; inside it was heavy and damp and chilly. Almost. gave me the creeps. a cleared space in the.front ;room with chairs ranged around in a stiff row. I'd never seen my late aunt, u know, but T almost expected a thin-nosed, sharp-eyed old lady. .to jump out and grab me as I followed Square Sweat across the threshold. Inez must have had. a similar sen- sation. “This—this ain't one of them haunted houses, is it, mister?” she demanded. “Land. no!" says the -big -squire, chucking heartily. “Some of ,the voung folks have told how they thought they'd seen Luella still peek- ing at ‘em from behind the blinds, but, of course, that's all_ nonsense. She had her last peek long ago, poor old girl It wasn't half an hour. though, be- fore we all felt differently about the house. With the front and back doors open, the blinds thrown back and the shades run up, the chill in the air soon disappeared and the scent of the newly-cut hay and syringa blossoms took its place. Also the dusty furni- ture didn’t look quite so badly after the sunlight had filtered in. . True, Inez viewed most of it with scorn. “Lotta junk, mented. “Oh, I say ainit it?" she com- protested Barry, “you don’t call those old rush bottoms, lad- der-backed chairs junk, do you? Or that swell front spindle-legged side- board? Look at the inlay on it and the crotch mahogany in those panels. And how about this gate-legged ta- ble? ‘Isn’t that a pippin? Say, Trilby May, if you had this stuff on Park avenue you could get big money for it: Any antique dealer would go nutty over it.” “You mean he would if he was try- ing to sell it to you,” says L. “But we are a long way from New York, and I don’t know but I kind of fancy this old stuff myself. Let's see-what else there is.” 2 * ok ok * QO for the next hour we rummaged through the deserted house, scour- ing_into every nook and corner and making finds that got Barry real en- thusiastic. The furniture wasn't all mahogany, and some of it seemed fit for little else than to start a bonfire with, but according to Barry it was all precious. He even raved over wooden-seated chairs with stenciled backs and broken rockers and rick- ety four-poster beds with corded bot- tom instead of springs. It was out ina shed off the kitchen, thqugh, that he- made his big find—an old secre- tary with broken glass-doors and the drawers full of rusty nails and parts of hinges and other discarded hard- ware. - That's a real prize,” says he. “Looks as though it might have been brought over in the Mayflower. And see what your Aunt Luella did with it—kept it-in a shed!” “If you ask me” ssys I, “that's where 1 should keep-if too, until it had a lot of tinkering done to it. And 1 should judge by the looks that the | old girl hadn't much use for most of the stuff she had here. Out of the ten ;or a dozen rooms in the house she seems to have lived in only two— the kitchen and this little bedroom off from it. - The others appear to have been shut up.” % ¢ . Squire Sweat sald that was right. except that she: had an old rocker|. pulled-up. to one of .the front parior Why, there was eveng- 7 barn in winter without having to dig | through snowdrifts, and when you have to turn out at daylight to feed the stock and milk the cows, that's some advantage. 'specially with the thcrmometer thirty below zero.” “Brr-r!” says I “I get the picture. Haven't T ¥aded. through three feet of snow to carry hot mash to a lot of pigs that wouldn't reward me with so much as a kind look? And see how handy all that split birch stove- wood is, stacked up there so neat. Say, by the way the outside tiers are weathered they must have been put in there a long time ago.” In the carriage shed we ran across a real antique—a high-slung old buggy with a low top and faded broadcloth- cushions. It was dusty and cobwebby, but the wheels were'nt gished and the silver mountings un- tarnished. i Z “That was Judd's old Goddard” says the squire, “and in it's day it was as fine a buggy as any that was driven to church Sunday morning. There's what's left of his old demo- crat wagon, too."” “Maybe there's a horse or two in the barn,” says I F But it was the barest barn I've ever seen. The great haymows yawned cavernous at us, the horse stalls were empty, and the long row of cow stanchions was empty, too.” A few swallows flitting back and forth from their nest up understhe ridgcpole were the only tenants. And is there any- thing quite so -lonesome, next to a skating rink in summer, as an empty barn, T ask you? “You could stow lotta hay in here,” suggests Uncle Nels. . “Yes,” says I, “but, thanks be, I don’t have to. That's another little pastime I've outgrown my taste for— stowing away hay. Let's go back to the house.” In the big parlor we dusted off some chairs and gathered for a coun- cil of war. “What you gonna do with all this truck?” asks Inez. “That's just what I'm worrying about,” eays L * % Xk ¥ VWE thought up various schemes. Uncle Nels was all for an auc. tion, with the country posted: with handbills far and near and a -real comedy auctioneer to do the selling. But Barry objected. He thought.-I ought to make a list of all the at tiques and send coples to dealers in New York and Boston. He was sure 1 could get big prices that way. Then he advised me to fix the place up a little and advertise, it for rent as'a summer home. All that Inez had to suggest was that we get back to the hotel in Keene by dinner time. But as I'd been a heiress only overnight I said I'd have to have a little more time to think over what I wanted to do. So we all took to wandering around again. It was while Barry was poking about' the fireplace and mantelpiece that he came across this dummy door at one side. v “Here's a find, Trilby Ma he called out. “A cret closet. And look at the old decanters and cut- glass wine glasses in it!" =5 Sure enough, here was a perfectly, good collectio: B “But dry as Volstead’s bar,” says Barry. “Your Aunt Luella must have been an original prohibitionist by the look_at the old decanters amd cut of sight.” b3 » ‘We had ranged them all on the old sideboard, &nd Barry ' was ' pawing away-in the secret closet whes he let out a real whoop, - - .. _“Thery’ other secret. closet,back-of .th “Hey!" -he shouted. r Story By Sewell Ford And b3ttles in'it! Full, too! Trilby May; look at this!” “Eh?” says I, brushing the cobwebs Off the lgbel. “Madeira wine, eightéen —er—Aifty-gix! Well, well! Howdy- do!. Much obliged to meet you. Try another grad, Barry, boy! This -time it was a bottle of old port, London Dock.. 0]d shaped jug of ,Holland schnspps; e bottle of old brandy and one of Med- ford rum. "By the time he'd cleaned the place out he had brought to light nedrly two dozen bottles, tull of, vari- ous kinds of almost.forgotten boo: ‘And_evéry drop practically price- less!” says he. “Say‘you did have some sporty old aunt, after all.” % “I doubt it.” says I “Maré likely it wa's that Peter Judd person who kept his private stock so secret. It Aunt Luella had known of all this she could never have gone so sour on the world. . At least, she would have had'a few mellow moments. Anyway, this ig some treasure -we've unearthed. As I feel now, All Baba had nothing on'me! Let's put it all back.and not breatne a word about it to any one. We had just tucked the last bottle in tenderly and slid th® secret into place when Ines came crashing up the cellar stairs quite excited: “You can’t gudss 'what'I find, Trilby May;" she aunounces. ‘i you come down and see.” 2 * ok % % AND when ‘we had- followed hes down 'the stairs ‘she led us to a dark corner, threw open a door and dis- Dlayed a long swinging shelf loaded with jars and glasses. “Jams, jellies, preserves!” says she. “M-m-m-] ] “Really?’ says I “Yes, you're ab- solutely right. Crab apple jelly, cur- rant jelly, strawberry preserves, ap- ple butter, raspberfy jam, blyeberry sauce! Why, here's enough to stock half a dozen tea rooms. Aunt Luella was some industrious cannef, I'll say! And trust you, Inez, to dig out any- thing like this.” 7 “If we had some hot biscuits and butter now.” sighs Inez. “Wait! wanna tell Uncle Nel 2 ciery But we had to-scout’around the vard to find him, and when we did his shrewd eyes were all lit up -enthusi- astic. SN “You don't find the garden, you,” : ":An_other Say, says he. “Raspberry bushes, black- berries, rhubarb plants, asparagus and everything. Cherry .trees, too, and lotta good apples. trakhans. See! “Well, well!” says I._ “You could raize lotta things here.” Some red as- he goes on. “It:ain’t too late-now for peas and beans. Maybe green corn. Say. “I know.,” says I - “But it would be a bit unhandy having a.garden here and living on East 2lst street, New York. Quite a way. to go to do a lit- tle weeding, wouldn't it be; or to pick a mess of pease?’ “Hey?" says Uncle Nels. scratching his ear. “You gonna go back to—to that place, where the feller plays sax- ophone in next flat all day?’ ““Well, that was .the general idea, wasn't it?" says I. “And leave all them:jams and jel- lies?" protested Ines. “Not to mention items,” adds Barry. “Must be gettin' pretty hot by New York now." comes in Uncle 'Nels. And gradually T got the notion. Having absorbed it, I proceeded o act as if I'd thought it out all by myself. ~Ot course,” says I, “we only started out on a week-end trip, just to dodge the heat'and the amateur musician. 1 suppose we could go back and stand it for a month or six weeks and hope that the town cools off and that some- body kills that saxophone player. But in the meantime I've inherited a per- fectly good country place. There are tables and chairs Nd beds and bed- ding, and a cook stove, and jams and jellles, and fruit growing on trees and bushes. and—and a lot of other things. - Why couldn’t- we camp out here for a while and be rather com- fortable?" : “Sure!” says Inez. “If T could get some flour I could make some hot biscuite.” > “I can pick lotta nice berries.” says Uncle Nels. “And with a little ice and a tall glass,” says Barry. “Oh, boy!" “Glad I'can make you all see it as Ido,” says I. “Why go back to New Ybrk when I own a slice of New Hampshire? Shall we.give it a try?" The vote was unanimous, and Barry, who's still a good deal of a kid, hopped up on a bench and made us join him in_giving three long cheers for Aunt Luella. (Copyright, 1922, by Sewell Ford.) The Electron. A STRIKINGLY apt description of that inconveivably minute particle, the ‘electron, which.within late years has dethroned the atom as the ulti- mate component of matter, was given not long ago by an eminent scientist. Its behavior, he stated, is that of an atom of negative electricity pure and simple. 1Its form is spherical and not spheroidal.- Itssize is probably less than one ten-millionth of an inch. When revolving briskly enough in an orbit' within the atbm ‘it ‘gives us colored light of highest purity. When violently jostling frregularly about, it: gives us white light.” Without it all light would_be impossible. . certain other American Rainfall. A VIVID picture of the amount:of rain that falls upon the United States is given by a Washington sclen: tist. It is equivalent to ten Mississippi |1VeT rivers. flowing constantly. Otherwise measured, it equals thirty inches of wa- ter for the entire area, making a total voluine -of 152,000,000,000,000 cubic,_feet. But this is only half the amount that would be necessary to maintain the full productivity of .the soil of the whole country. . One-third of _this - amount runs down, to the sea. in rivers. .The problem for engineers to salve is the utilization to' the utmost of the supply that nature furnishe: Traveling Sand Dunes. JN the desert of La Joya, Peru, there are thousands of crescent-shaped sand dunes formed by the winds and slowly advancing across the level surfgce.. One investigator measured one of these dunmes, the points.of Whose -créscent were 160. feet apart, while the length around the-convex side was 477 feet. The width. at the widest part.of the créscent was more than 100 feet. The weight of the sand composing. the dune was- ésti- mated at 8,000 .tons, yet it imoved 125 feet in a year. All dune have the samé form, and dlll:‘% fli ‘convex 'side ' toward -the' prevailing south .winds, e i e S Next cqme a fat | l 1 i ! = Exciting Days? 7ASHINGTON Man Tells .of Early Life in Wyoming, When He Was a Surgeon at Army | : Post—Visit to Scene of the Famous Custer Massacre One Year After the Fight—Finding Custer's Graye byAccide Indian Game. nt—With the Apaches and Navajoes— 'Pot Shots™ at the Whites as an “T“.ITAGt WAS “JUMPED' ON NEARLY EVERY TRIP BY THE HOSTILE INDIANS, WHO ROAMED OVER THE COUNTRY IN THE IMMEDIATE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE POST.” URING the past forty-five years Wyoming has certain- 1y grown . and developed apace, but it was difficult for me to believe 2 story told lately by a triend who bad recently returned from that section of our country. He enthuslastically described the net- work of railroads in operation in all parts of the state, the wonderful bridges and the automobile highways, where one may now see the descend- antg of the formerly wild and savage Sioux riding in their own cars—often wearing a silk hat and carrying a cane! Where once frontler posts existed we now see thriving cities. with populations running far up into the thousands. All of the big game has been exterminated; there was but little of any kind left for' the sports- man of the present day. and such as it was it was going fast. Some of my experiences are as fresh in my mind today as though they were but the happenings of yester- day. In the old days Wyoming con- stituted a part of the military De- partment of the Platte: and to the best of my recollection, without consult- ing my filed records I believe it was in the spring of 1877 that I Teported for duty there. One of my first detalls sent me to Fort Laramie. on the Platte river, to await the arrival of the 5th Cavalry. which regiment had been ordered from Fort D. A. Russel. at. Cheyenne, into the fleld against the Sioux Indians. Upon its arrival I was directed to report to the officer in command of the outfit for duty with it as surgeon. * ok x % T was some time before the column came up, and I became very rest- less, as there was a'deal of drinking and gambling going om at the post. which was quite foreign to my tastes, 5o that 1 was on several occasjons on the point of resigning to seek some poition as a naturalist in civil life. As the days passed I felt I could no longer endure the enforced confine- ment within the very limited avea constituting the post, so [ determined to seek permission from the com- manding officer to ride out on horse- back for a few miles into the sur- rounding country. Needless to say. my request was not granted. As I stood before the commandant in the adjutant’s office 1 was, in no uncer- tain language, reminded of the fact that the stage was “jumped” on near- ly every trip by the hostile Indians who roamed over the country in the immediate neighborhaod of the post: also, that we lost a mounted courler almost every day and that were I shot the coming command would be without a surgeon—together with various other pointed objections. However, as I was about to leave, he seemed to unbend a bit and remarked: “I will grant your request: lieutenant, upon conditions. They are ‘that you will return within an hour. and that you go no further than the prairle dog .town op the other side of the cut.” 1 thanked him, and gave my word that T would obey the order to the letter. : The aforesald “cut” was through the long “hogback.” about a half a mile from the hospital, and had been:made for the - convenience of troops. wagons, stages, etc, coming in or leaving the, post, in the direction of the Platte river, which was not far beyond it. Between the cut and the river was an immense prairie dog town, occupying many acres, and my orders kept me within the limits of the latter. The -hogback tapered off to the level in the direction of the jver, which could readily be waded ZY horses at the point-where the for- mer feathered out and where the was several hundred yards wide. Between the cut and the hos- pital the country was level, with sagebrush growing here and there. My time was nearly up. I had emptied my .22-caliber revolver. all to a single load and the cut was off some few hundred yards. - My horse was a good -one and very “speedy,” and I had about.made up my mind to return. to -the -post, when my atteny| tion was attracted to a string of seven ponies, leisurely walking along the edge of the bank on' the other side of the river, which I thought was very strange, especially as’there appesre! be no riders on thém. However, “tenderfoot” though I was, 1 soon realized that what I saw was something rather more than unusual. 1 headed for the cut, but in doing so 1 .avoided giving the impression that it was_gpy Intention to Téturn to. thie post. All of a sudden I noticed a mioccasined foot swinging below the belly of one of the leading ponies. and ‘2. moment or 3o later a bit of rod flannel fluttered above the withers of another pony near the end of the string.” Instantly it flashed upon me that theywere hostile Indians_and that, they were stalking me. They could easily wade the river opposite the cut, where the hogback sloped down to the other bank, and, once across. they could, by a lvely spurt along the top of it, easily head me off. 1 did all T could to lead them to be- lieve that I had no idea that each pony had Its rider, while at the same time 1 kept zigzagging toward the cut. VWHEN within a few hundred yards of it I felt the time had come to have my horse do his best and make a run for it at full speed. In an instant every one of the seven was astride his pony and the bunch. with a fiendish vell. made for the cut, as T expected they would. and in the way I thought they would. My horse almost flew through that nar- row gap and I fully expected every instant to be riddled with Winchester halls before I could possibly reach the level tract that extended to the, post. | 1 had made about the first third of the distance when I glanced over my shoulder to see what they were up to, and 1 drew a long breath when 1 found they were not following me. Instead. they had dismounted at the cut and were peering up and down it, evidently believing that I could not have passed through it in so short a space of time. Now happened one of the most fool- hardy things I ever did in my life. Turning my horse so as to face my pursuers, T stopped to clap my hand on and off my mouth. letting go an old college vell that one could hear a mile. In a flash every Indian was off his pony and taking a kneeling| shot at me—the seven Winchesters cracked as though but a single ‘piece | had been fired. But not a ball hit| either me or my horse. though You | may gamble that some of that lead came mighty ¢lgse. T instantly wheeled about to make for the post. but instead of running in a straight line I zigzagged so that tkey were obliged-to take -an-oblque shot at me. I shall always believe 1 saved ‘my life in that way. Zip. zip. zip. came the balls! T began to think that I was about out of the serape when my horse all of a sudden gave a tremen- dous snort and sprang. horse-fashion. into the air. For a second T thought he bad received his death-shot, but 1 must believe that a ball had hit a gmall stone, which had flown up and hit him, as no sooner was he on his feet again than off he made, faster than ever, carrying his rider into the safety zone in a very few moments. As volleys of that kind were al- most a daily occurrence, no one com- mented upon it when I showed up. but it was not until a long time after- ward that I gave an account of the incident. Besides, the fact that some one got shot around Laramie in those days occasioned no spectal remark. The Indians had run down ‘and-shot our mail carrier the day before, while the stage was getting-it all the time, as it came over the old Chugwater road. * ¥ % % * ok k% TTHAT was my first experience with “the hostile Sioux.” A little while thereafter the 5th Cavalry expedi- tion came up and T joined it as its surgeon. The regiment was under the command of one Capt. Hamilton, and altogether:there were some five ‘or six- troops. The outfit first went into camp on the Powder river, be- yond which no one had ventured since the Custer massacre of the June before. Bands of hostile Sioux numbering from fifty to a hundred or more roamed all over that part of the country, appearing in the most tnexpected places and at the most unexpected times. For some reason or other Capt. Hamilton seemed. to dislike' ‘me from the very first, and he also had trouble with two othe! officers of the command—that is, Col. Kellogg and Capt. Rodgers. As soon‘as we had made camp Capt: Rodgers with his troop was ordered to scout up to a post at the mouth of Tongue river, and, contrary to the expectation of .every one, he got through. Col. Kellogg was ordered to scout as far as the Custer battle- fleld and return, and I was ordered to accompany him, leaving the main command without a surgeon. No one | (the 17th, 1877), and my escort had expected to see a single man of us get back, for it was well known that the valley’ of the Lit{le Horn was the” stamping ground ‘“for bunches: of Indians running all the' way from z few to several hundred. However, Kellogg was 2 cautious as well as a skillful commander, with & wide ex- perience “in Indian warfare. The troop .was practically up-to its: full strength of a hundred men; and it would be hard to beat- them as a fighting bunch of cavairymen. In ad- dition we had nine packers, seasoned plainsmen and crack - shots. . But. | strange to say, there was also. sent with us over a dozen Sioux Indigns, évery man of whom had helped:shoot down the men of Custer's command the summer before. Through skillful scouting and many a day's hard riding, we eventually reached the scene of the aforesaid massacre, the first troops on the ground since Terry's command came up to bury the dead the day following the tragedy. Just a vear and a day had passed and practically nothing had been disturbed. As we came into the valley of Little Horn, I was al- lowed to precede the troop by an hour or more and to take an Indian with me, selecting Bleeding Heart, a young Sioux buck who had been prominent in the Custer fight and knew every inch of the ground. It was an intensely hot day. in June gotten himself up in full fighting rig —“war Jjacket” and all. We ap- proached the scene of the nmassacre from the southeast side, a level tract, where the grass had grown more than knee-high and very thick. My guide exhibited symptoms of suppressed ex- | citement, and desired me to smoke with him. I knew what that meant. so I smoked with him and we passed the pipe to ,cach other. It was mot my “intention to kill. him, and I now had the assurance that he'd not kill me. He commenced humming a war dance, following it by humming a scalp dance. Indeed. his whole bear- ing plainly bespoke his approval of what his tribe had done to the Cus ter command the vear before. Suddenly he checked his pony. and. glancing down into the grass, signed | to me to look. which I did. There lay the skeleton of a cavalry trump- eter—one of Reno's men. Using the sign language. which- T understood, Bleeding Heart gave me to under- stand that this had been the first man of that part of the command to fall; that he had been in advance of the men. and that his horse had also been killed. Later the Sioux squaws and Indian boys had shot him full of arrows and finished him. Most of these arrows had been shot into his chest, and their heads were of hoop iron from sugar. barrels, filed down to a most wicked kind of arrow point. 1 took some half a dozen and kept them. * k * ¥ LEEDING HEART was familiar with everything that had happened on_that eventful day up to the moment when the big Sioux bunch pulled out of the valley and deserted their immense camp, where six thousand of them were strewn along the west bank of the Little Horn river. He pointed out the “scalp- pole " where they had held their dance after stringing up it over two hundred scalps of the Custer command—in short, Bleeding Heart took me to every point that had any connection whatever with the massacre and fully explained all that had passed. Several vears ago I published a full account of all this, so I will not repeat it here. In the course of another hour or two, Col. Kellogg came up with the troop and the remaining eight Indians. To my surprise, these latter had produced their war fackets and were now wearing full war-rigs, even their faces being painted as upon the day of the massacre. 1 shall never forget their appearance and I can hear the blood-curdling, monot- onous hum of their scalp-dance any time 1 choose to send my mind back to that day. . A e went into camp on the west bank of the river and in a little while the colonel expressed the wish to cross the then very shallow Little Horn to go. over the scene of the massacre. The Indians followed us and appeared to be very curious as fo how we would conduct ourselves. They seemed much surprised when they noted our coolness and our practical way of examining every- thing. - ~ Kellogg and I sat down on the ground where the Terry burial party had driven in the stakes that marked the graves of the officers. The, In- dians were standing up. about us. Reaching out the colonel took hold of one of the stakes and shook it, say- ing as he did so: “Who do You sup- pose is down here?” The stake was somewhat loose and ‘he pulled it up+ a cottonwood" stake, rather less than a yard long: pointed at one end and blazed flat on one side. Its lower end had apparently been driven into an empty cartridge shell, which lat- ter came off as we pulled up the On the blazed, flat side had stake. been made six vertical parallel marks, -the last one followed by a horlzontal ‘one, with finally another | vertical one. Col. Kellogg was:puz- zled and could make nothing of it. «What do”you make,out of it?” he queried. “Why,” 1 replied, “it looks to me ‘like C-U-S-T-E-R — L i. ‘e., the general. In other words, this s Custer's grate and Custer's body lies below.” The: solution was correct, as the empty cartridge shell proved, for it. contained the "gen- eral's name scribbled on a piece of paper from an officer’s notebook. Late that evening I went over there - again from our concealed camp. but the big. gray timber wolves nearly got me and 1 was obliged to fight my way back to camp with my revolvers. No sooner would I shoot down a wolf than the others jumped onto him, tearing him up and devouring him then and there. After examining everything the lo- cality had to offer—and there was a deal of it—we pulled out to return to Powder river and rejoin the main command. ] ASK my readers to bear in mind that I am writing about the Sioux Indians as they were in the west half a century ago. when many. in fact most of them. would not wear a single thing that had been manufac- tured by our people beyond a few beads in some cases. They wore buc! skin, eagle feathers, furs; they pain' ed their faces. chests and arms in various ways. sometimes daubing up their ponies with paint made of dif- ferent dyes. and they communicated with us by the use of the sigh lan- guage, a large part of which I still remember. I -was associated with them for several vears under all sorts of conditions, and on one occasion I was informed that if a second Custer affair ever came to pass I would not be shot. We came very near another twice during that summer—once much nearer than the commanding officer of our outfit ev:; knew. At one time our command consisted of the entire 5th Cavairy and part ef the 3d—one trooy. I believe. There were eighty Sioux “scouts” along, and one evening 1 neard a great hurraa going on dowa in their camp, to which no one paid any attentfon, as they were given to having various dances and so on. I shall always re- gret that T did not personally go down there on that occasion, as ] knew from the peculiar hubbub that something unusual was on. As a matter of fact, a New York res porter had Visited them “alons, to gt some news items. He got them all right! Some dozen or more of the * ¥ % % | voung bucks had got hold of him. had stripped him to the skin, tied him to a tree, built a fire uncomfortably close to him and were having a scalp dance about their “prisoner.” The man really never fully recovered from the shock. Once 1 was mixed up with a big bunch of Indians, nearly a hundred. l.at the head of a cavalry regiment. It was an intensely hot day on the prairies and the dust rose in great clouds, with gusts of variable winds to blow it aside from time to time. This concealed the soldiers in the rear, so any one in front of us might easily take the entire command te be several hundred Indians coming over the prairie. At a distance and coming our way I noticed an old man, a prospector, a woman in a sunbonnet and’ two boys. The man rode on a miserably thin razor-back horse; the woman had a somewhat better mount, while the two boyg were astride one pony. I noted four or five Indians trotting out toward them. The prospector halted, but only-for a sécond or so. He evident- Iy expected that we were United States troops. but when he saw com- ing through the dust a mass of ver¥ warllke-looking Indians, and that several of them were riding out to meet his outfit, he instantly turned and/made off as fast as his crazy old horse would carry him, his wife and boys keeping up as best they could. The poor fellow was without a sad- dle and-he bobbed up and down on hiswretched mount in a most pain- ful fashfon. The Indians yelled. and yelled and shot over their heads ag they were doing their best to get away. Presently the commanding of- ficer sent out some men and stopped the game, ‘or what the Indians con® sidered a- big joke. One young Sioux who was in it threw himself on thé ground when he came in and laugh- ed as though he would die. In fhe evening the old man came to me for treatment. * ¥ % % E had “Spider” out with us oné * eummer—a cousin of the fdmous Sitting Bull. Spider was a bit along in years, a very dark and very bravé Indian, with a decided cast of cruelty in his features’ -However; he was on very friendly ferms with me, though he never galked much. He hated the whité as a rule, and still more heart: ily. he hated white civilization cleaff through On one occasion Ke told me that I was the only white man taat understood an Indian—a Sioux Indian in particular. Once he saved my life, when 1 was ‘more than five miles from the column, and hunting win a young Indian who was not ‘i Hioux. We were jofned by Spicer and a’ parfy’ of four other Sioux and ‘a bit lafer by four more of the same tribe as (Continded on Fourth Page)