The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 12, 1903, Page 5

“Tell the General That the Reds—" He Had Flagged, and Then the White Waft Went Down. they raided the Kansas frontier when we found Wig-Wag concealed in the willows slong the banks of & creek. He was a boy ef 12, and his father, mother and two sisters had been massacred. He was banded over to & teamster and taken to Camp Supply, and but for the excitement of campaigning he would have been sent off somewhere soon. As it was, he hung about with the teamsters for several weeks, no one-giving him any particular attention, and then a sutler took him on. Wig-Wag was not enthusiastic over borses, guns or uniforms, but queerly enough he took to th the first moment he saw the men talking with each other through the medium of the signal flags his admiration was ex- cited and he began to pick up the system. He got little encouragement from any one, as all had enough to see to, but the Jad had & head for the work and he picked it up until within four or five months his flags could “talk” as well as any. Epring came, and we set off, 600 strong, to give the Indians a rub. No one was greatly surprised, after we had left the fort forty miles behind us, to find Wig- Wag on hand. He had “jumped” the sut- resting against a post face. 1spoke to him and the feet slipped his pa dled, leaving among other effects or other that the doctors sald was Incu mortgage on the old Briggs place, where able, and he didn't make a showing of trs zra was living, his parents botk being ing to keep up after: that; down witk the farmhouse wk economy, 1 was spe gone to a funer my own company. noon being too hot for fishing, T had come to Harleyville to seek companic 1l meself,” defunct, he foreclosed the thing and made & regular dickens of a bad muss. Ezra knocked him down into bed. the rest could have paid it If he’d had another six n't like, months, but Ike wouldn't wait. That much he may have been figuring on re- to close up the place on account of the was the beginning of a mighty hard time vhen the for Ezra. Nothing he touched after that sald the storekeeper, when I had explained thus to his understanding, “onl of the folks wanted to go and I postoftice. 1 was down to Tk great damp breath biew hi; set up wit at the last. “¥He was @ close friend of vours?” much doubt he was consi and we was always friends 1 had a feeling of sympathy for him dur- X wers Deading off the Indians as ler, “lifted” a mule and followed after, and there was no sending him back There wasn't a private soldier or teamster who wouldn’t have shared rations with him, and such officers as knew of his presence winked at the breach ‘of orders and sald nothing. The boy had made sig- nal flags for himself and had them with him, but they were looked upon as play- things by most of the troopers. ‘We swept across the valleys of the Big Fork and the Big Salt, scattering the hos- tiles whenever they made a stand, and at length crossed the Canadian River and forced the red men back on the Wichita Mountains, down on the Indian Territory shadow of the mountains, Wig-Wag was cut off and captured. His mule had gone lame and was lagging behind. An effort was made to rescue him, but his captors got away with their prisoner, and many THE SUNDAY a sche s mile of the entrance of the pass, and with his flags Whea every trooper knew that we had driven answered he went at it and spelled out at least 2000 warriors ahead of us. Would the wordst they continue their flight, or wait for us on the plans beyond and have it out? The the pass. Thers are & thousand Indians general idea was that the morrow would Iin ambush there. The whole force is witness & big fight, and daylight had about two thousand strong.” scarcely dawned after a night without alarm, when our camp was astir. for the Indians being too cute we should certainly have fallen into the trap they Indlans had set for us. We were almost ready no higher. for boots and saddles when a - warriors came riding out of the pass to move dety and taunt us. A troop was sent _‘“No; but I sball hide here untll the against them and they retreated in haste, Indians leave. but as soon as the bugle blew recall the line. We had them on the run and meant warriors were mocking us again. It was DPrepared?” signal corps. From ¢, keep them golng. Just at sundown one evening, &s we were almost under the the move and after them without having the pass. If you ride in not a man will taken due precautions. It was =o inter- et out alive’™ preted by the general, and he ordered a scout to climb up a spur of the mountain them?’ was asked. and see what could be seen. man had reached a height of fifteen hun- three miles to the left. If it is one It a heart sorrowed that night over the dred feet he signaled for a flagman to Will :bring you in behind the re boy's fate. Our long and flerce pursuit come uo to him. Looking away to the bad maddened the Indians, and they south he had caught sight of flags wi would certalnly put their prisoner to the torture. In flanking the mountalns the redskins stationed on another and higher spur, and Streamed out on the plain. must fall back through Trappers’ Pass in the foothills. We knew it to be a bushiine mysterious proceeding. gorge fifty feet wide and three miles long, and at the south end it debouched upon the plains. We made camp within half our Wig-Wag trying to get the entire command on for some time it was looked upon ore of ‘When the signal man look for Wig-Wag. but our had scarcely climbed up beside the scout In vain. We found, however, that his when the mystery was solved. to open a “talk his signals were got up here in the night. Don’t enter “Have you escaped?’ asked our signal But man. “No, not yet,” came the reply. “The below me, and I can climb “Can’t you get away to us defore we “What sort of an ambush have they “Indians in the bushes on both sides of “Is there any other way to attack “I think I can make out a pass two or It took an hour or more to get this information, and then we acted on it and wagging in the clear atmosphere of the flanked the Indlans out of the pass and morning. The person waving them was smote them hip and thigh as they When the a fight was over we went up the pass to arch was flags had prevented a slaughter. Every rock and bush for two miles had sheltered wIG wflG’J COUP D,ETflT—B’Y C. B. LEWIS. an Indian, and once into the trap we could not have retreated. Though we had to ride away without news of the lad we hourly hoped to be joined by him, but he did not come. It was a year later before we knew his fate. What we got came from one of the Indlans who was there. The only good news was that they had not tortured the boy, being too busy with other affairs. In the night he had managed to cast off his bonds, work hin way past scores of sleeping warriors with his flags under his arm, and kn~wing that be could not pass out of the gorge he had climbed up the mountain with the hope of opening communication with us when daylight came. This he successfully accomplished, and he had flagged the in- formation recorded above before the ex- cited Indlans below had caught sight of him. When they saw what he was up to a warrior was told off to bring the boy down with a bullet. They feared to dis- charge more than one rifle at a time, as we might suspect some ruse. The war- rior had a fair mark, though far above him, and he had coolly fired a score of times before his builet found Its billet It seemed as if Providence was shielding the lad until he could tell all he had to say. “Tell the general that the reds—" he had flagged, and then the white waft went down to rise no more. He had lost his own life, but he had saved six hun- dred men from slaughter. Rfl BRIGGJ" REUENGE_BY D. H. TALMAGE. HE postmaster and ing the last years of his life, too—sort of an admiration for him, because he took is medicine lilke a man. ’Tain’'t every out placesin women’s clothes. “It's my opinion that .artha wasn't & a big price for at the State Falr. real comfortable person to live with dur- general storekeeper of Harleyville was sitting on the front porch of his establ!s Iy puffing sma of blue smoke 4 blt bu fool encugh to get mad about it, and when somebody or other's disease of something staying alone with a disease while Mar- a thud = “Howdy, n't it?" ed, wiping from my face the per- advised s over a road unshaded The tamily at Wherefore, “I'd have went to lke's fune: h male human that does."” he said. ‘“Some warmish, E from mctives of | "hen he had been long an invalid?”’ 2 great while. The story dates back nigh life. was nip and tuck between 'em Ezra finally won the match. ke was had busted. poked THE SUNDAY CALL'S HALF HOUR STORIETTES him two or three nights along there wasn’'t no children—come at last to live in a house not much better than a shanty down by the mill yonder, and the “Well"—sighing explosively—‘“there ain't woman's love, so my wife and daughter able close. say, sort of took sick and died. I've heard him and me. tell there ain’'t much female love that's proof against poverty long drawn out, around venge, mixed into his figuring. and groaned the trouble rope to himself, and heaps of what passes for real honest and carried off a lot of live stock and affection leaks away through the worn- things, Including Tke himself, who was trying to rescus a valuable ram he'd paid ‘“He went along with the flood and that ain't the idea; he wusn't sick ing the last two or three years of Ezra's never stooped till he struck the branches I've got a suspiclon, more or less of a smadl tree about seventy or eighty twenty vears, when him and Ezra founded on fact, that she was sourer than feet from shore, near where Ezra's house iggs was rivals for the hand of Martha the dregs of vinegar and that her patience stood. And as chance would have it Ezra sort of shot off like & Gatling gin once it heard him yeiping for help and dragged Ezra took sick finally with himself out of the house, where he was tha washed dishes up to the hotel over at Bottom Village. ow, 'twould have been no more than natural for a man in Ezra's position to —¥* have done nothing but gloat over the sit- uation. But Ezra didn’t do nothing of the kind. He hustled around as fast as his disease would let him to save Ike be- fore the tree come unrooted. “He got a long rope and tried to throw one end of it to Ike, but it fell about five feet short every time, so he waded out into the water, though the doctor had «+ told him "twould kill him to get his feet wet. When Ike had tied one end of the Ezra tied the other end to a fence post and the current done the “But 1 was worrying unduly. However rest. “That wetting of his feet and legs was there wasn't no bloody violence the beginning of Fzra's finish. That night He did give the he had a chill and his disease simply got 1 seemed to prosper. Him and Martha— community sort of a shock, though, such rampageous. The doctor said 'twas hope- as ' Most of us couldn’t understand less the minute he seen him, and give him s to me now. nder five years ago last around penitent and humble as anything March got a ripping tear owing to a sud- the Old Testament ever produced, saying den thaw, and among other things it done Ezra saved his life, for he couldn't swim it swooped down across Ike's barnyard a stroke, and asking if there wasn't any- then why he done as he did, but It is as a week to llve—if he didn't drop off In clear as molas: ““The river y the meantime. And Ike—well, Ike come How MICHflU KEPT HIJ L’O_w-av CLINTON DANGERFIELD. thing he could do to make amends to him. There wasn't, of course: the time had gone by for that. But Ike hung around the place, clothed in figurative sackcloth and ashes, most of the time till Ezra passed along to the next world eight days later.” It seemed to me rather a pretty story of the greater-love-hath-no-man-than-this and heap-coals-of-fire-upon-his-head sort, and I said as much to the storekeeper. “Shucks! That wasn't Ezra's revenge at all, though I thought it was till I learned different. Ezra was simply sav- ing Ike for the torture, that was all. Two days before he dled he sent for me, and he says with a shivery chuckle when he’d sent the others out of the room, ‘Old friend, I've got to tell somebody this, and I've chose on you. It'll be easier dying If I know that somebody alive knows how I got even with that cuss. I've forgive him and all that—but say'— and he drew me down closer to him—I've made him and Martha promise solemnly with their hands touching mine that they’ll get married as soon as decent, and —Oh glory! won't she just knock the plaster off of him." He was chuckling hard when I left him and I reckon he died chuckling. My wife sald he looked real peaceful and contented and satisfied and sort of natural in his coffin.” “And Ike?" I asked, after a short in- terval, during which the storekeeper's gaze rested upon a distant hilltop where white stones gleamed in the sunshine. Once more he sighed, more softly this time. ‘“Poor Ike!" he murmured, * see a man who seemed so glad to die as him." HAT I sald to you then I say now cried Michau fierce- ly, an almost canine curl of his upper lp showing his strong, white teeth “] will never, par Dieu, set foot on your land—never!” “Then,” retorted Le Hardy, coolly, “’you are likely to remain where you are for- ever, monsieur; for how can you escape from your house without setting foot on my land, seeing that last night's ava- lanche has set your cottage in the very middle of my field?” I will dle where I am,” Ané he meant it. Never in the history of the canton had Antoine Michaur broken his word. When Le Hardy had besought Michau to give him the latter's golden-haired Jez Marie the angry father had not only post- ed the girl off to her aunt in the village below the great mountain on which Michau and Le Hardy dweit, but he had forbidden Le Hardy to be seen on his property. All of this because of an ancient feud between the Michaus and the Le Hardys. Therefore it may be fancled what fichau felt when fate, pleasantly ironie, rled Michau. nne sent an avalanche which deposited the Michan cottage in the center of Le Hardy's little farm It had happened just before daybreak that very morning. Luckily for Le Hardy himeelf his own cottage was not damaged, it being on the edge at one side. His as- tonishment when he discovered the plight of the irate parent soon gave way to glee when he thought how neatly Michau would be forced to forswear himself. But Michau had no such inter But Le Hardy, eating his own meals, could not enjoy them for of Michau's rapidly diminishing On the noon of the second day a tray with food and carried it to Michau's door. “Voila, mon voisin,” said the young fel- low good temperedl “Thou must !vfl[ starve. 1 will share with thee whilst thou remainest in thy chicken coop. Thou are welcome to it."” Au diable with thee and thy welcome velled the enraged Mich and there descended on Le Hardy's head a perfect shower of porridge, pcached eggs and bits of bread. Lempriere from a safe distance doubled himself up in his efforts to sup- press his convulsive joy. “Now wilt believe me asked he, as the lover hurriedly retreated. To his surprise the young man burst into a fit of laugh “What a tableau’ he said, holding his sides. “After all. though, one must ad- mit the old rascal has spirit!” Dawn came and the old man arose and tottered out on his tiny porch. There a surprising sight met his view. L.e Hardy was standing closs beside the steps, panting and resting on the handle of a broad shovel. From the steps to the outer edge of the field which marked the confines of Le Hardy's propertv, ran a narrow trail of fresh, soft earth, richly k and about an inch thick. What devil's folly hast thou done now?" snarled the gaunt old man, lean- ing on the nearest ralling to hide his weakness. “Vraiment,” smiled Le Hardy good humoredly as ever, “I have turned thief, mon voisin, and have been thleving all night! This trail of earth which you be- hol ' he waved a hand toward it. Nom de Dieu—of course I see it! What of 1t?” “It came from thy garden, mon voisin. I chose it there that you might see the difference in color distinctly. My land along here is lighter and not so rich.” The hunger-clouded senses of the pris- oner went aflush for joy. Here was a dignified method of exit—he was saved. Reaching for his cane he stepped coldly down and walked aléng the fresh trail, his feeble feet making irregular prints that stirred Le Hardy to fresh pity. At the edge of the path he paused and to the man who followed him. Vhy didst thou do this for me? Thou wouldst have had a clear coast to win the girl had I dled, and thou couldst have proved the offer of food to me.” cupboard. “And as a man fight, when fight I must. 1 shall strive to gain her. never stoop to take a mean advantage of onjons in thy digging. Thou canst not Marle hid her blushes in her lover's Joy~ one thrown at my feet by a force of na- deny the theft and shalt suffer unless—" ous arms. ture which not even a glant could have defeated.” He paused, then added a little wistfully: ‘“Hast thou nothing kinuy to say to me, vieux voisin?"’ The old man, now safely off the Le Hardy land, turned and grinned bitingly: “1 have thls to say to thee,” he snapped. hat thou are a vile scoundrel for steal- Ing my garden soil to fertilize thy barren vanished in the distance and Le Hardy, red and disgusted, went back to his work. It was sunset when Le Hardy stopped for that day and went into the house to get his simple supper from his bachelor He was setting out the viands, not a little sadly, when a rap on his door startled him. ‘“Tis Lempriere,” he muttered, as he hastened to open it; but it was not Lem- It was a slender, girlish figure with drooping head, that half whispered: “Mone pere would speak with The sweet tones were seconded by a per- emptory command from his late prisoner, who once again stood on the fresh trail and called to him, “Come.” Le Hardy came—doubting his senses. sald the old fellow brusquely, thee.” “I hope I am a man,” sald Le Hardy “I have arrived to give thes notice that 1 wage fair there’s but one e: I love thy girl— prison. Thou hast stolen my nice garden, “Unless,” repeated the bewildered Lg¢ pe for thee from Hardy. | ‘Unless thou dost instantly wed my Wil thy infernal shovel hath uprooted my best girl,” snapped the ex-captive, and Jeanns o+ e S FAIL BBY sat rocking by the south window, lis- tening resignedly to her mother's re- proaches. She had ss- rumed about as awk- ward and uncomfort- able a position as she could well have In- vented, with one foot drawn up and her hends clasped around her knee. “Another successful quest,” sald Roger Sterling to himself, with a satirical smile. *Nobody'd expect you'd get a position that took any kind of brains like Trix's and Mab's Gardener's energetic voice procl . “but a little old district school like that! I don't hardly see how vou could helped getting it if you tried to.” My dates g0 Wrong,” confessed Abby, m “The committee said that ac- cording to my information the Declaration of Independence must have been signed scveral years before America was discov- ered.” “Well! "Tain't any use 10 say anything more; if & body ain't got a brain you can’t give 'em one! You better gather up vyur duds and put 'em away. And I don't know as it's worth while to hunt another place for you. I reckon you was cut out for a failure.” Mrs. Gardener settled back into a dis- pleased silence, rather more depressing than her previous harangue had been. Abby arose with a patient sigh, gathcred 1p her hat, gloves and parasol and tralled lIimply away. Roger Sterling looked after her with more pity and less amusement than she usually excited in his mind. “jf she would only let me stay quietly at home and help her,” meditated Abby, “I wouldn’t always feel so superflucus and guilty. We don't need the money, and I'll never get a position in a century, Well, if 1 am a faflure, as mother says, I might as well make the best of it and be as good a fatlure as I can, 8o I guess I'll go to work and darn my stockings. Roger Sterling, passing down the walk on his way to town, saw her at the win- dow, rocking and darning. “Poor girl,” Le tnought, with careless compassion, “of all dismal and disconso- Jate beings T think an incapable woman is the most hopeless.” The afternoon was growing late when he returned. by way of tus pack porch, as lie was privi ~»d to do. Something un- usual seemed to be transpiring. The foot- £teps tripping about the kitchen were not those of the weighty Mrs. Gardener. e looked in the door and beheld Abby—poor, limp, incapable Auby; but she was nei- ther limp nor incapable now Her face, which usually wore an exoression of amiable discouragement, was beaming rosily through the hazy steam of some fragrant beverage she was brewing over the gas stove. Her slim figure, always at a disadvantage in lawn and lace, was shapely and trim in a tidily buttoned cooking apron; she was supple and springy and alert; she was brisk and alive with purpose and energy. She saw Roger all of a sudden gazing at her in wonder through the steamy mist. “‘Mother has a chill,” she explained con- cisely. “I've got to fix her up and then get supper for you.” In spite of her filial anxiety, her eyes shone. He came forward as she started away like & rosy spirit in a cloud of vapor. “Can’t 1 help you somehow?" g “Yes, bring that hot water bottle—and come quick.” ’ “Jerusha! She didn't asx me—she or- dered,” sald Roger to himself with a grin of amusement, as he tagged along after the skimming goddess-like form. ‘“More hot stuft!” groaned Mrs. Gar- dener, as the odor of Abby’s brew smote her from afar. 'm warmer now, Abby, in this mountain of blankets you put over one to de) Roger, who by's late flowering ever thought Abby' ‘‘Oh, n 'Yes, in a nafl, U REJ‘-—BY HARRIET WHITNEY. T R S S e s o L me, and with the hot iron. I think I'm getting over the chill, and I'll try and get up after a little and see about—" ““Not a bit of it you won't.”” Abby’s voice was low and tranquil, but Roger marked the firm undercurrent. ing to do one thing to-day, nor until you You must drink this hot lemonade and go to sleep if you can. Give me the hot water bottle, Mr. Ster- ling—there, now."” As Abby tucked down the blankets and patted them Mrs. Gardener settled sub- missively and sleepily into her pillows. After a week of Abby's care and cod- dling Mrs. Gardener was allowed to sit up on the shady porch. her big rocker with a delightful sense of some protecting influence about her. “How nice it is to think there nd on in a pinch,” sl was making a lattice bean vines. d turn out such a nd housekeeper after all her ures at everything else. I shall just keep her now to help me with th you can’t, ma'am, pausing suddenly in you see, she has secured a posl Hi xnred Mrs, Gardener, blankly. position!” are perfectly well. returned ““You are not go- She leaned back in sald to for Ab- “Who'd Abby myuun.‘ 1 have enga . C. McClure.) (Copyright, 1903, by 3