Ligonier Banner., Volume 35, Number 30, Ligonier, Noble County, 25 October 1900 — Page 7

; Y [y, r ‘/ 5 = %@% i i e O TR ; i & i')-"' o \ 7 <l [ \Nf) B - BY o A g W\ S ERIGADIER i ¥“\ : . GENERAL - I 3 : : &CHAﬁﬁz I 8 & AR [Copyright, 1897, by F Tennyson Neely.] CHAPTER V.—CONTINUED. “What on earth does John Folsom want of a housekeeper?” asked the helpmates of his friends at Fort Emory, and in the busy, bustling town. “Why don’t he marry again?” queried those who would gladly have seen some unprovided sister, niece or daughter thus cozily disposed of. 1t was years since Elinor’s mother's death, and yet John Folsom seemed to mcurn her as fondly as_ever, and except in midwinter, barely a month went by in which he did not make his pilgrimage to her never-neglected grave. Yet, despite his vigorous years in saddle, sunshine or storm, and his thorough love for outdoor life, Folsom, now well over 50, could no longer so lightly béar the hard life of the field. He was amazed to see how his sleepless dash to head off Red Cloud and his days and nights of gallop back had told upon him. Women at Fort Emory who looked! with approving eyes on his ruddy face and trim, erect figure, all so eloquent of health, and who possibly contemplated, too, his solid -bank account, and that fast-building house, the finest in Gate City, had been telling him all winter long he ought to have a companion—an elder guide for Miss Elinor on her return; he ought to have some one to preside at his table; and honest John had promptly answered: “Why, Nell will do all that,” which necessitated ‘their hinting that although Miss Folsom would be a young lady in years, she was only a child in experience, and would be much the better for some one who could take a mother’s place. “No one could do that,” said John, with sudden swimming of his eyes, and that put a sudden stop to their schemings, for the time at least, but only for the time. Taking counsel together, and thinking how lovely it would be now if Mr. Folsom would only see how much there was in this unmarried damsel, or that widlowed dame, the coterie at Emory again returned to the subject, until John, in his perplexity, got the idea that propriety demanded that he should have a housekeeper against his daughter’s coming, and then he did go and do, in his masculine stupidity, just exactly what they wouldn’t have had him do for worlds—invite a woman, of whom none of their number had ever heard, to come from Omaha and take the domestic management of hishearth and home. All he knew of her was what he heard there. She was the widow of a volunteer officer who had died of disease contracted during the war. She was childless, almost destitute, accomplished, and so devoted to her church duties. She was interesting and refined and highly educated. He heard the eulogiums pronounced by the good priest and some of his flock, and Mrs. Fletcher, a substantial person of some 40 years at least, was duly installed. Fort Emory was filled with women folk and consternation—most of the men being afield. The seething question of the hour was whether they should’ call on her, whether she was to be Teceived at the fort, whether she was to be acknowledged and recognized at all, and then came, mirabile dictu, a great government official from Washington to inspect the Union Pacific and make speeches at various points along the road, and Mrs. Fletcher, mind you, walked to church the very next Sunday on the honorable secretary’s afiat;sat by his sidewhen hedrove out to hear the bandat Emory and received witH him on the colonel’s veranda, and that settled it. Received and acknowledged and visited she had to be. She might well prove a woman worth knowing.

Within a fortnight she hiad made the new homestead blossom like the rose. Within a month everything was in perfect order for the reception of Elinor and her school friend—a busy, anxious month, in which Folsom was flitting to and fro to Reno and Frayne, as we have seen; to Hal's ranch .in the Medicine Bow, to Rawhide and Laramie, and the reservations in northwestern Nebraska; and it so happened that he was away the night Maj. Burleigh, on his way to the depot, dropped in toinquire if he could see Mr. Folsom a moment on important business. The servant said he was not in town—had gone, she thought, to Omaha. She would inquire of Mrs. Fletcher, and meantime would the major stepinside? Stepinside,and stand wonderingly at the threshold of the pretty parlor, he did; and then there was a rustle of silken skirts on the floor above, and as he turned to listen his haggard, careworn face took on a look something like that which overspread it the ﬁght he got the letter at Reno—something that told of bewilderment and perplexity, as a quiet, modulated voice told thé servant to tell the gentleman Mr. Folsom might not return for several days. Burleigh had no excuse to linger, none to-ask io hear that voice again; yet as he slowly descended the steps its Accents were still strangely ringing iy his ears. Where on earth had he héard that voice before?

CHAPTER VI.

The quartermaster’s depot at&tate City was little more than a big corral, with a double row of low wooden sheds for the storing of c¢lothing, camp and garrison equipage. There was a blacksmith and wagon repair shop, and a brick office building. Some cottage quarters for the officer in charge and his eclerks, corral master, ete., stood close at hand, while most of the employes lived in town outside the gates. A single-track spur connected the depot with the main line of the Union Pacific, only 500 yards away, and the command at Fort Emory, on the bluff < above the rapid stream, furnished, much to its disgust, the necessary guard: A mueh bigger “plant’” was in contemplation near a larger post and _ town on the east side of the great divide, and neither Fort Emory nor its ~was considered worth keeping in re-

pair, except such as could be accomplished *“by the labor of troops,” which was why, when he wasn’t fighting Indians, the frontier soldier of that day was mainly occupied in dcing the odd jobs of a day laborer; without the recompense of one, or his privilege of quitting if he didn’t like the job. That he should: know little .of driil and less of parade was, therefore, not to be wondered at. : '

But what he didn’t knowabout guard duty was hardly worth knowing. He had prisoners and property of every conceivable kind — Indians, horse thieves, thugs ‘and deserters, - magazines and medicines; mules and munitions of war. Everything had to be guarded. The fort lay a mile to the west of and 200 feet higher than the railway hotel in the heart of the town. It looked down upon the self-styled clty, and most of its womenkind did the same on the citizens, who were, it mustbe owned, arather mixed'lot. The sudden discovery of gold in the neighboring foothills, the fact that it promised to be the site of the division, ear shops and roundhouse, that the trails to the Upper Platte, the Sweetwater, the park country to the south and the rich game regions of the Medicine Bow all centered there, and that stages left no less than twice a week for some of those points, and the whole land was alive with explorers for a hundred miles around—all had tended to give Gate City a remarkable boom. Cheyenne and Laramie, thriving frontier towns, with coroners’ offices in full | blast from one week’s end to the other, and a double force on duty Sundays, '| confessed to and exhibited pardonable jealousy. Yet there was wisdom in the warning of an old friend and fellow frontiersman, who said to Folsom: “You are throwing yourself and your money away, John. There’s nothing in these gold stories, there’s nothingin that yawp about the machine shops; all those yarns were started' by U. P. fellows with corner lots to sell. The bottom will drop out of that place inside of a year and leave you stranded.” All the same had Folsom bought big blocks and built his home there. I't was the nearest town of promise to ‘Hal Folsom'’s wild but beautiful home in the hills, and, almost as he loved Nell, his bonny daughter, did the old trader love his. stalwart son. Born a wild westerner, reared among the Sioux with only Indians cr army boys for playmates, and precicus little choice in point of savagery between them, Hal had grown up a natural horseman with a love for and knowledge of the animal that is accorded to few. His ambition in life was to own a stock farm. All the education he had had in the world he owed-to the kindness of loving-hearted army women at Laramie, women who befriended him when well-nigh broken-hearted by - his mother’s death. larly he had pitched his tent on the very spot for a ranchman’s homestead, early he had fallen in love with an army girl, who married the strapping frontiersman and was now the proud mistress of the promising stock farm nestling in the valley of the Laramie, a devoted wife and mother. The weekly stage to the railway was the event of their placid days except when some of the officers would come from either of the neighboring posts and spend. a week with her and Hal. From being a delicate, consumptive child, Mrs. Hal had develcped into a buxom woman with exuberant health and spirits. Life to her might have some little monetony, but few cares; many placid joys, but only-one great dread—lndians. John Folsom, her fond father-in-law, was a man all the Indians trusted and most of them’ loved. Hal Folsom, her husband, had many a trusted and devoted friend among the Sioux, byt he had also enemies, and Indian enmity, like Indian love, dies hard. As boy he had sometimes tgiumphed in games and sports over the champions of the villages. As youth he had more than once found favor in the dark eyes that looked | coldly on fiercer, fonder claimants, and one girl of the Ogallallas had turned from her Lkith and kin and spurned more than one red lover to seek the young trader when he left the reservation to build his own nest in the Medicine Bow, and they told a story as pathetic as that of the favorite daughter of old Sintogaliska, chief of the Brule Sioux, who pined and died at Laramie when she heard that the soldier she loved had come back from the far east with a pale-faced bride. There were red men of the Ogaliallas to whom the name of Hal Folsom was a taunt and an insult to this day, men whom his father had vainly sought to appease, and they were Burning Star, the lover, and two younger braves, the brothers of the girl they swore ' that Hal had lured away. ; South of the Platte as it rolled past Frayne and Laramie, those Indians were bound by treaty not to go. North of the Platte Hal Folsom was warned never again to venture. These were the stories which were well known to the parents of the girl he wooed and won, but which probably were not fully explained to her. Now, even behind the curtain of that sheltering river. with its flanking forts, even behind the barrier of the mountains of the Medicine Bow, she often woke at night and clutched her baby to her breast when the yelping of the coyotes came rising on the wind. There was no woman in Wyoming to whom war with Red Cloud’s people bore such dread possibility .as to Hal Folsom's wife. And so when Marshall Dean came riding in one glad June morning. bronzed, - and tanned and buoyant,; and tossed his reins to the orderly who trotted at his heels, while the troops dismounted and watered-at the stream, Mrs. Folsom’s heart was gladdened by his confident and joyous bearing. Twice, thrice he had seen Red Cloud and all his braves, and ‘there was nothing. said he, to worry | about. “Ugly, of course they are; got ‘some imaginary grievance and talk big about the warpath. Why, what show would those fellows have with | their old squirrel rifles and gas-pipe Springfields against our new breechloaders? They know it as wéll as we ‘do. It’s all a bluff, Mrs. Folsom. You mark my words,” said he, and really ‘the boy believed it. Frequent contact in the field with the red warriors inHRS @3 vith Utilo sigpect Sl Shel skill or prowess until that contact becomes hostile, then it's time to keep. | Point mueovered. L tiGedd Eane e e e

she anxiously asked. *“You know that is Red Cloud’s demand.” . “0Oh,” said Dean, with confidence born of inexperience in the bureau ways, “they wouldn’t be such fools. Besides, if they do,” he added hopefully, “youll see my troops come trotting back full tilt. Now, I'm counting on a good time at Emory, and on bringing yvour sister and mine up here to see )'Ou." =

“It will be just lovely,” said Mrs. Hal, with a woman’s natural but unspoken comparison between the simplicity of her ranch toilet and the probable elegancies of the young ladies’ eastern costumes. *“They’ll find us very primitive up here in the mountains, I'm afraid; but if they ' like scenery and horseback riding and fishing, there's nothing like it.” “Oh, they're coming sure. Jessie's letter tells me that's one of the big treats Mr. Folsom has promised them. Just think, they should be along this week, and I shall be stationed so near them at Emory—of all places in the world.”

“How long is it since you have seen Elinor—‘Pappoose,” as your sister calls her,” asked Mrs. Hal, following the train of womanly thocught then drifting through her head, -as she set before her visitor a brimming goblet of buttermilk. ;

“Two vears. She was at the Point a day or two the summer of our graduation,” he answered, carelessly. “A real little Indian girl. she was, too, so dark and shy and silent, yet I heard Prof. M——’s daughter and others speak of her later; she pleased them so much, and Jessie thinks there’s no girl like her.” “And you haven’t seen her since—not even her picture?” asked Mrs. Hal, rising from her easy-chair. “Just let me show you one she sent Hal last week. ‘I think there's a surprise in store for you, young man,” was her mental addition as she tripped within doors.

The nurse girl, -a half-breed, one of the numerous progeny of the French trappers and explorers who had married among the Sioux, was hushing the burly little son and heir to sleep in ‘his Indian cradle, crconing some song about the fireflies. and Heecha, the big-eyed owl, and the mother stooped to press her lips upon the rounded cheek and to flick away a tear-drop, for Hal second had roared lustily when ordered to his noonday. nap. Away ‘to the northward the heavily wooded heights seemed tipped by fleccy, summer clouds, and off <u the northeast Laramie Peak * thrust his dense crop of pine and scrub oak, above the mass of snowy vapor that floated lazily across that grim-visaged southward scarp. The drowsy hum of insects, the plash of cool, running waters fell softly on the ear. Under the shade of willow and cottonwood cattle and horses were lazily switching at

ITE t’ o é%r ;AN — Lia . @\?: ,-> . . LR ”‘Y—ﬁ‘| D &(/ / ik g : i X Ase®| SN 75 T ez S Q\r’%ﬂv ] e £ \., £L “ “‘JJ 11 W - RS ra - 08 e //} e Z S Z : 7 ¢ Not even her picture?’’ the swarm of gnats and flies or dozing through the heated hours of the day. Out on the level flat beyond the corral the troopers had unsaddled, and the chargers, many of them stopping ‘ to roll in equine ecstasy upon the turf, were being driven out in one big herd lto graze. Without and within the ranch everything seemed to speak of peace and security. The master rode the range long miles away in search oi straying cattle, leaving his loved ones without thought of danger. The solemn treaty that bound the Sioux to keep to the north of the Platte stood sole sentinel over his vine and fig tree. True there had been one or two instances of depredation, but they could be fastened on no particular band, and all the chiefs, even defiant Red Cloud and insolent, swaggering Little Big Man, denied all knowledge of the perpetrators. Spotted Tail, it was known, would severely punish any of his people who transgressed, but he could do nothing with the Ogallallas. Now they were not 200 miles away to the north, their ranks swollen by accessions from all the disaffected villages and turbulent young braves of the swarming bands along the Missouri and Yellowstone, and if their demands were resisted by the government, or worse, if they were permitted to have breech-loaders ~or magazine rifles, then just coming into use, no shadow of doubt remained that war to the knife would follow. Then how long would it be before they came charging down across the Platte, east or west of Frayne, and raiding those new ranches in the Laramie valley? s \

[To Be Continued.]

Slips of the Tongue.

It is an invariable rule that members of the house of commons must address their remarks to the house through the chair, and, though in the flow of argument an orator is often allowed, without remonstrance, to. use the second personal plural in admonishing his opponents, the first words are always addressed to the occupant of the cnair. This, like many other rules of debate, has percolated from the house of commons down to all our minor assemblies, and the consequence is that few members find any difficulty in complying with the custom. Not infrequently, however, ruling habits prevail, and a new member involuntarily discloses the nature of the assembly to which he has peen accustomed. In a debate on the Irish land bill in 1894, Mr. Kenny, an Irish Q. C., convulsed the house by addressing Mr. Speaker as “My lord.” Mr. Powel Williams, in the same parliament, saluted him as “Mr. Mayor,” and an effervescent ‘lrishman, Mr. Bodkin, astonished the speaker by giving him | the dignity of “Your reverence.”—' Geutleman's Magazine, =~

MY LITTLE BOY AND I

We've found a city, wonderful! No clouds o’erspread its sky; *Tis peopled with the opes we love, My little boy and 1. :

Within its walls no sorrow reigns, . Bright birds so joyous fly, Oh; tender are.the songs we hear, My little boy and I.

Amid the roses beautiful -~ And sireamlets gliding by, We lose all time in golden dreams, My liitle boy and I.

Our friends are ever fond and true, Our loved ones never die, In this fair land wherein we dwell, My little boy and I.

If time too long and dreary grows, Or drags too slowly by, We’'ll haste away at eventide, My little boy and 1.-

All care we'll leave far, far behind, On Fancy's wings we'll fly, |, : To our dear land of Make-believe, - My little boy and 1.

When his bright hair is snowy white, And dimmed his laughing eye, : We’'ll' 2o no more to Make-believe, My little boy and I.

But when life's day is waning fast, Beyond the sunlit sky, Shal we inherit fairer lands, My little boy and 1?

And in a home forever blest, . Rest sweetly by and by, ‘With all our dreams come true at last, My little boy and I? —Dora Annis Chase, in Boston Budget.

$ AWar Office Secret 3 FHEEEEEE 4444 I 4 4 44T “WALLINGFOD shoot?” said Sergt. Harding. “Of course he can. A man on the staff at Hythe has a rifle in his hand all day and every day. Even you could shoot uns der such=well, perhaps not you, for you never know what you can’t do until you try. Do I know the school of musketry? I do know it—lock, stock, barrel and cleaning rod, or, I should' say, in these Lee-Metford uays, clearing rod, for the cleaning rod’s as dead 'as Queen Anne or the pigtails for which the Welsh fusileers still wear the ‘flash,” though the powder and pomatum from which the ‘flash’ protected the coatee has been gone for the best part of a century. “Now, you all know why foreign military attaches are in England. They are hére to see the rights of all improvements in the army—in men, in tools, in the handling of either. They notice a new explosive or a new drill movement, and if the horse guards gave me a commission I reckon they would notice that, and would tell their respective war offices that they had better look out now. Our military attaches are abroad for the same purpose. They're just spies in peace time. Why, I remember when cordite came out how one of the continental war offices sent a gunner officer over here—they said to learn English. I know ‘the man at Woolwich who gave him the cordite, and how much he got for it. I know the Englishman who found the man at Woolwich- who would do the job. I know how much morz he got for it. But woifld ' I breathe the name of that continental power, to make international complications? Not me. I know. better what's due to my country. All which leads up to this: When I was at Hythe ‘ quaifying for two guns and a crown ~over my three stripes there was a great mystery about the Maxim; in fact, we who were undergoing instruection as instructors were never shown the mechanism of the bloek. The instructor of the Hythe staff used always to take that out of the gun and hold it behind him while he ex“plained the other parts. And that was what made me curious to see the block.

I was working very hard in the evenings; -t for my health’s sake I had to walk now and then into Folkstone and along the Leas. And there I met a young foreign person, who told me she was a lady’s maid. How did I make her acquaintance? If you don’t know a simple little thing like that, you ought to. We learn in the army the art of mixing gracefully in female society. And the young foreign person, who spoke English beautifully, said to me one evening as we were sitting in a quiet spot away from other people and from gas lamps: “‘I do-love to hear about all that concerns you. Tell me all about what you do at the school of musketry.’ “ ‘Oh, it’s all very simple, ma’mselle,’ said I. Then, just to show her what a clever fellow I was, I hegan to give her a full account of all the difficult things we ‘had to do. And, of course, among other things I spoks of the machine guns.. * ‘Those are the horrid things that go crk-crk-crk-crk, are they rnot? asked she, as she imitated perfectly the venomous spit of the beasts. # ‘That's it. : “ ‘Tell me about them. I think théy are wonderfully interesting. How well educated a soldier has to be nowadays to understand such things!’ “‘lt’s quite true that a first-class certificate of education, which a sergeant is now bound to have, is not got for the asking.” Then I went on to tell her of the mechanism of the Maxim. | “‘But the funniest thing about it all is that they won’t let us see the works of the block, although we are to qualify for musketry instructors.’ “‘and of the most important part of the gun you know nothing?’ “ ‘I have a general idea.’ - “‘A man who is as clever as you in mechanics and mathematics ought to know all about it. I should be curious to know if I were you.’ ¢ ‘I could easily find out a.i about it if I cared to take the trouble.’ ““Trouble! What is trouble to a scientific man? If I were you I should think nothing ‘of any little trouble. Now, I will spur you for your own good and to advance you in the service. I am curious, for your sake, to know about this gun. I'll bet you what you like you don’t explain the mechanism of the block to me within a month. Your explanations make even dry old figures interesting.’ “‘And can I name the stakes? “‘Certainly.” e it %A kiss, thern.” : 7 Y oan't bet you thety = - “But I was to name the sfakes.’ _“‘Oh, I couldn’t think of it ~ “‘There’s no need for you to think | of it, ma’mselle. You've only to do it. | I have your word, you know. If you | ke BionoraßEC" (- i ded o _ “‘Then the bet is off?” | RS R e e st el B Bl e e iR e e

“‘No, I give you my word. It is ane noying. But I will keep my word.’ “¢And I can give you my word that I shall win. So, perhaps, in case you change your mind, I had better have the kiss now.’

“The rest of the evening has nothe ing to do with the story. *Now, I had been working hard at the mechanics of guns before I went to the school of musketry, so that I might do well. And I had a natural taste for such things in the bleod, probably because my aunt married a smith, to whom I was to have been bound apprentice, only I would none of him and his smithy. So you only had to show me the cocoanut in gunnery mechanics, and 1 tumbled to what kind of millkk was inside. The next Maxim day we were gathered round the instructor, who was reeling out his Maxim yarn. He had taken out the block, and was holding it in his fingers behind his back. I had my notebook in my hand, and I slipped behind him. In a very few moments I had a sketch of all that appeared on the surface, and a very good idea of what was beneath it.

“That very evening I was sitting among a lot of other men who were swotting for exam. I had a sheet of foolscap and was busy making a sketch of the action in Indian ink.

“‘Hallo, young man,” said the instructor, who had been looking over my shoulder, unbeknown to me, ‘what have you got there?’ ; ““You ought to know as well, if not better than I, seargent-instructor.’ “‘I do know. But where did you get 7 : “‘That’s my business.’ “ “Well, you must give it up.’ . “ ‘Oh, no, I shan’t.’ “ ‘But you must.’ » “‘lt’s mine, and you can’t take it from me.’ ' 4 “‘We'll see what Lieut. Brown says about that.’ “‘lf Lieut. Brown says I must. give it up, I will. But not unless.’ “‘Come along, then, to his quarters.’ “‘This is Sergt. Harding, duke of Cornwall’s light infantry, sir,” said the sergeant-instructor, when we reached Lieut. Brown’s room. ‘He has a sketch of the Maxim secret action and refuses to give it up.’ “ ‘How'’s this, Sergt. Harding ?’ asked Liewt. Brown. *“‘The sketch is my own, sir. I refused to give it up to the sergeant-in-structor, but said I would give it up at once, if you ordered me. But I have made one sketch, and if you take that away from me, I have the action in my mind, and can always make another sketch.’ 4 ““That’s quite true. Yet such things had better not be knocking about. You will destroy the sketch, Sergt. Harding? ° * ‘Yes,” thought I, ‘when I have shown it and won my bet.’ “‘And how did you get hold of it?’ - “‘Must I tell you, sir?’ “ ‘YeS.Q “‘I took it down in my notebook ~while the sergeant-instructor held the block behind his back.’ _ “Thesergeant-instructor looked foolish, and Lieut. Brown drawled: “I think, sergeant-insﬁ'uctor, you had better have settled this little matter without appealing to me. Good night, both.’ “The sergeant-instructor was too upset to want to see the sketch destroyed. I lost very little time in strolling down to that quiet. spot where I might light on mam’selle. Not that, in view of what is to come, I wish in any way, to say or to hint, or to imply that she was French. Far from it. I used the name ‘Mam’selle’ as meaning young foreign person, as a sailor uses ‘Dutchman’ to mean a foreign sailor, usually a Norwegian or a Swede. She was there. “‘Good evening, mam’selle,” said I. ‘Had you any idea of going on the pier this evening, or do you prefer to stop quietly here?’ *“‘“To stop here, I think; that is,’ she said hurriedly—l—wonder why—-‘if you're going to behave yourself properly.: - “ ‘Well,” said I, ‘as I've won my bet, Ithink I may as well collect the stakes.’ ““You've won? . You know all about the Maxim?’ asked she so excitedly that her words tumbled one over the other. il “ ‘I have told you so.’ ““Yes; you are quite sure?’ ‘Quite. I have an Indian ink sketch of it on me.’ “‘Let me see it—llet me see it,” she repeated, and her eyes gleamed. “ ‘Quite so,” said I. ‘Seeing’s believing; but-—I should like to collect my stakes.’ “No longer coy, she flung her arms around my neck and kissed me till I had no breath with which to repay her kisses. But she herself had breath enough to gasp: . “‘Give me the paper.’ | “I put my hand in the breast pocket of my serge, which I always used tol wear under my greatcoat. I began to pull out the drawing. Just then I heard the drawling voice of Lieut. Brown come from the darkness—for we were in a very quiet and cosy corner: “‘I thought as much, Sergt. Harding. You are under arrest. Follow me to quarters.’ ’ ~ “I turned toward the voice, and then toward mam’selle—or toward where she had been, for she was gone. “I rose and saluted. - “‘May I ask you, sir—" . ““You'’re a lucky man that I had a suspicion of the facts. You’re fool enough to do a lot of harm, but too big a fool to know you’re doing it. You Cornish chough, do you believe one of the prettiest women in Folkestone and one of the cleverest women in the world is in love with you? You were just on the point of giving a drawing of the secret action to the smartest unofficial military attache-——and that is a spy—of____.! L s s i k% : ““Shall I name the country which he named to me? Notl. No strained relations, no wars and rumors o’t‘warg, shall come upon England through me. I want no secret dossier — whatever that may be. But so long as I live| it shall be a secret for which war office mam’selle was collecting information, ~ “Her profession was bad, but her kisses!—ah, they were good.”—Corns | Bk Mapasine. - 712 il Lg s e ; _ Willie—Oh, wow! boo-hoo! T want| dessert now. I don’t want any old | %@3& e et 2 Sk i ”‘mﬁ“@«% Canhe iS s B S e

NOUTHSHE 3 -b 3 - - B\ L L‘ké'/ s‘ o W 2 } =, Badd NPT N>/ 4% e a.!cj == JME _::o. . L = 4 ¥ N A NeN I N NNN ISP TIPS LS YOUNG DEER HUNTER. Six-Year-old California Boy Performs. Some Wonderful Feats with His Little Gun. There is a six-year-old slayer of wild game in California. His name is Austin Otis, and he can bring down a deer with as clean and pretty a shot as any veteran hunter in the country. His home is in the wooded hills, about 15 miles back of Cazadero. He haslived among these hills all his life. . Until the other day Austin had bagged no game larger than rabbits and squirrels. Now, however, he is the most-talked-of youngster in the country, for around Cazadero are some of the finest shots in all the state. Having been refused permission to join a hunting party with his father, he shouldered his gun and started by himself down the creek. He tells of his adventure this way: T “I was wishing awful hard that I could (?e a deer,” he said, “when all of a sudden, after I had gone about 300 yards along the creek, what should 1 see but a beauty of a deer with its nose to the stream, taking a drink. 'I followed the creek on purpose, ’cause I knew that deer always come down toward night to drink, but I could hardly believe that my wish had come true so quick. “I stopped short and looked at him. I thought sure he would jump into the bush before I could take aim, but he didn’t seem to hear me. Pup, my dog, understood'just the same as if he was a man, instead of a dog, and stood still, except that he wagged his tail. I guess Pup was as excited as I was, but ‘he had sense and didn’t spoil things by barking. - ~ “I lifted my rifle, but my hand and arm shook and I couldn’t seem to lift straight at all. I was pretty much scared that the deer would get away, 8o I lifted the gun again and took aim. T ZS "' ) ~: /7 e\/;.’"; Tl/r’/,cv,, l {’ ‘ %;:'ré A 4 | @ i Il /v\&;\?\\u N 0K \j‘»@a&zg;; [;/ ’ | ) ) ] b 7 } TN 'ﬁh s I 3wl Y e cf"ﬂ’ 1 i 3///: // // ///é;z;’_— IR oo T || 7 %7 /A)’ / '// L W »:. /& | //;’ .ﬂ”%’; {/4;// N o QNG by Te e il v - Ed e Ael | e ! W /‘,‘; ],7[ /r% '{%’/ & T -z YOUNGEST DEER HUNTER. I remembered what papa always said about holding the sight on the point of the deer’s shoulder. - “Then I fired. The deer gave an awful big leap in the air, then ran. 1 guess he ran about 40 jumps down the creek. My, you ought to have seen Pup run after him! I didn’t know I had shot him until Pup caught up with him and he dropped. I ran as fast as ever I could and when I saw he was dead I cut his throat, ’cause that’s the way all hunters do. * : o “I like deer hunting. A fellow doesn’t want to kill quail and rabbits and bluejays and gophers and chipmunks all the time. If you're deer hunting you ought to shoot through the heart. ¢ brings the game down quicker and it doesn’t kurt so much. That’s what papa says, and he knows.”—Cincinnati Enquirer.

HORSE COULD COUNT. Understood the Meaning of a Fire Alarm as Well as Any Member of the Department. “If there is any animal that knows more than a horse,” remarked a member of the fire department the other day, “I'a like to see it. I mean one that knows more than a smart horse, for there are fool horses as well as fool people, and once in awhile we get ‘one of these fool horses in the fire department. But I will say that our horses as a rule are pretty smart and knowing. : “I remember one we had in this company some years ago that actually could count. George was his name, if I remember rightly, and George was one of those horses that never did any more work than they were gbliged to. Not that he couldn’t, but just because, like some people you run across, he was opposed to looking for work. Well, every company in the fire department has a certain districf to cover on first alarms. Well, sir, we didn’t have George many months before that horse came to know our district just as well as any of the men. He knew the boxes we went out.to on the first alarm, and it is a fact that that horse got so that he’d wait and count the first round before. he'd budge out of his stall. If the box was not in our district George would walk leisurely to his place, but if it was one we were due at on the first alarm he would rush down to his place. In those days we had to hitch up on every alarm that came in, whether it" was in our district or not, and stand ‘hitched for 15 or 20 minutes. George knew this, of course, ana that was ‘why he’d always take his time going to his place when the box wasn’'t in our district. And it is a fact that if he was eating when an outside box came in he'd just keep on eating until the foreman yelled out to bring him down to his place. =~ . - "Of course, now and then George would miscount the box and rush to his place on a box not in our district. ‘But when he did make a mistake like that, which was precious seldom, that | ‘horse would get o mad and feel so ‘bad about it that he wouldn’t get over it in a day or so."—Washington Star, . Dolly Had the Blues. . Mary and g«rﬁ%ew&mwm Mary. “Yes," rejoined Martha, “I'm

' THE BUSY MUD WASP. How He Builds His Pot-Like Home and Takes Care of Madam and L o Her Little Ones, Here is one of the oldest and most curious potters in the world—the mud ‘wasp. Just at this season he is very busy making tiny jugs in the corner of rooms and on the rafters of barns and outhouses. He is a very busy fellow and carries many loads of his pottery material in a day, preparing after a recipe of his own, and adding to it his little juglike nest. e : - This is but one of his curious trades, though. He is also a butcher. As the .cconstruction of the nest goes on he hunts spiders—brown and green, yellow and black, spiders of all sizes—andstings them to death. Then his wife, Mrs. Potter, lays an egg upon the fat body of each stark little fly-catcher, and Mr. Potter seals him up in his jug. By and by, after the sun has dried thae e \DU [z = =gyl #’MJ s f/f ‘ ; =" = % , = RN 5 | S E \g - THE MUD WASP AT HOME. : ' /) , gray nest, a family )of young mud wasps hatch out afd fall to eating their first meal, each devouring the spider: provided for him by his farsighted parents. ~Possibly baby quarrels take place in the little jug then, for some of the spiders are smaller than others. and one can easily fancy<a hungry little Potter seizing a leg of spider that does not belong to him. Both Mr. and Mrs. Potter'have formidable stings, but they are a good-na-tured, tolerant couple, and do not resent visits from sightseers provided they themselves are not molested. ‘They gather earth.from the edges of puddles and ponds, molding the moist building material very rapidly. The nest. from which our drawing was made hung in a country boy’s bedroom. The potter had nearly finished it, working briskly for several days, j carrying loads of earth in through an openwindow. The country boy watched ! the operation with great interest, and 'Mr. Potter seemed to like the supervision, flying close to the boy's head ~andeven lighting upon his jacket, never stinging- him.. One morning he flew ‘away for another. load and never returned. Possibly some boy who knew nothing of wasps killed him. The little jug was taken down and after our artist had made the picture it was broken open. Inside the little walls were the dead bodies of 23 spiders.—Chicago Record. . ‘

SOME DEADLY SNAKES.

United States Harbors Four Kinds of ; Rattlers and Three Other Venomous Serpents,

" In the United States there are four different species of rattlesnake—the ground or black rattlesnake, the Florida species, the mountain serpent, and that of the Staked Plains. .The rattlesnake found east of the Mississippi, and in the wooded district just west of that river, is essentially the same as the Florida species, although sometimes classed as a separate variety. .2 Of all these the Staked Plains rattlesnake is the largest, most active and most dangerous. Six feet is not an unusual length, while seven-foot snakes have on zseveral occasions been killed. These sérpents measure sometimes tenginch?s around the body, and recoveries from their venom are very rare. - TRt - ‘The Florida rattlesnake comes next in size, while |the short, stumpy ground snake, scarcely ever more than three feet long, is the Ileast venomous. |

- Besides the rattlesnake there are three other venomous serpents found in this country—the copperhead, the ‘moceasin, land and water, and a small and very rare snake found in Arizona, which is considered the most deadly o all. 5 ouve

* This snake lies in the dust, and strikes like a flash of lightning at everything that approaches. A peculiar fact about this snake is that it is nearly completely blind, and has the ‘keepest hearing of any snake ‘known. These reptiles are very rare, . and but half a dozen specimens are found in any of our museums. : 2 > 7 PERFUME SOOTHED THE DOG. Daint;; Lace HandKkerchief Acts as a - Canine Concilator and . Life Saver. : . “Look .at this handkerchief,” said a young society man to his professional friend. “That bit of lace and ruffle is worth its weight in gold to me.” ; ~ “Some connection with old associaticns—a mere sentiment, I suppose,” suggested the professional man, relates the Memphis Scimetar. ~ “Nothing of the kind. From a prac-' tical standpoint it is just as valuable as. I describe it to be. A sentiment enters into the case, however.” - “Well, tell-us about it.” i - “The handkerchief, then, is the token by which I am permitted to enter the house where my sweetheart Tives. Without it I should be torn to pieces by a huge bulldog there. The beast is as ferocious as a tiger. During the day he is kept in chains, but after seven o'clock in the evening his mistress releases him in the yard. No stranger . after that hour can enter the gate. The terrible animal was smsw&hﬁ! 5 suit until the lady hit upon the plar o givingt e ber Mundleriied o 5 ase aaint v - IEC SIHICLIS 10 o walks pendsfulle Beilto Nis Kennel oA :egs”’ s o “f“ﬁ;*-‘;’t S