Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1886 — His Sixth Medal. [ARTICLE]

His Sixth Medal.

' He ha<J been thrown out as a vidette, and for hours he had peered into the darkness around him to watch for the slightest sign of danger—listened like one who realized that the wild Arab of the desert steals upon his prey with all the silent cunning of the American Indian. As the stars of night began to pale before the advance of dawn he felt like one reprieved. While he watched, the enemy had, for once, seemed to sleep. Daylight would bring a continuation of the march, and every hour would witness a skirmish, but even a battle does not unnerve a man like standing vidette on a lone and dangerous po t. What! Has he become blind? Daylight now covers the desert, and, the vidette is looking towards the camp of of the night. There is no camp. At midnight he left 800 of his comrades. This morning there is no sign of life. He looks to the right, but there is no vidette. He looks to the left—no living thing meets his eyes; He stands and peers and stares and blinks. Is he awake! If so, is he blind ? Has the night played some strange trick on him in this land of strange things and strange fancies ? He moves toward the spot where the night halt was made, but he advances slowly and cautiously, and he hesitates now and then as if to reason with himself. Ah! He is neither blind or daft. Here is a cap—there a belt—here a rope—there a sack, to prove that the camp had been here. Here are the tracks of men and camels, there a broad trail leading away to the south. In the stillness of night a messenger had come to the little band, ordering an instant change of march. Quietly and without alarm the men had been turned out, the beasts made ready, and the videttes called in. All but one! In the hurry and the darkness he had been overlooked.

Leaning on his carbine and looking over the trail left to show the change of march, the soldier reasoned it all out. His command had been gone for hours. He was alone and on foot. Overtake them! He smiled grimly at the thought. The sun and sand and thirst of Egypt were as deadly enemies as the spears, and bullets of the Arabs. He had neither food nor water, A "hundred miles of burning sands and hot winds lay between him and a blade of grass— : a single drop of water, The soldier turned to survey the desert plain. To the east, nothing but sand; to the north, nothing but sind; to the south—ah! He straightened up, shaded his eyes with his hand, and for a long minute continued his gase, then he let his arm fall. A score of Arabs were riding down upon him. Without undue haste—with the dignity befitting an old veteran —the soldier took from his breast and pinned to his coat a medal. Upon its bright side were the words: “The Boer War.” He pinned on another which said: “For Services in Zululand." There was a third—a fourth —a fifth. In his twenty years of soldier life the old man had a thousand times been a target for bullets. This was his last campaign. Death was riding down upon him, but he would die as a soldier—as a British soldier. When the savage horsemen were half a mile away they halted. The old soldier was ready and waiting. There was no thotight of making him prisoner—no thought of surrender. There was a moment for consultation, and then the bunch of horsemen deployed in line and advanced at a gallop.

Steady, now! Crack! Crack! Crack! Two horsemen tumbled from their saddles—a third reeled about in his seat like a man mortally hit. Before another shot could be fired the murderous lances drank blood and the old soldier lay dead. On the hot sands, his face upturned to his foes, and his medals shining as never before in a morning sun, lay the old man, dead. And then, not by the hands of friends -not by the hands of comrades —a sixth medal was placed upon his brawny breast. It was not of gold or silver, but something of more priceless value. It was the w’ords of an Arab .chieftain: —“Comrades a brave man lies here!” —Detroit Free Press. „