The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1886-12-03

Capt. "a Ras's Pretty Cracker Girl and Her Re-
markabls Career.

AEM
From the Atlantic Constitution.
When Capt. La Rue of Sherman's
army dashed into Blankville, at the
head OF a party of raiders, one fine
summer morning, his 6rst impulse was
to swear and his second was to laugh.
Being a versatile young fellow of in
finite resources he did both. The
tired troopers saw at a. glance that
there was nothing in this little north
Georgia mountain village. OF the
forty or fifty houses struggling around
the public square, not more than a
dozen were occupied. The majority
OF the inhabitants had fled to the
mountains.
"You, jimmie! You, Jinniel" shouted
an old woman who had her head poked
out OF her cabin window.
Capt. La Rue languidly turned his
head, and then q look of keen interest
flashed from his bold blackeyes. "Jin-
ME is worth looking at" said the
young officer, after a critical survey of
the young figure swinging on the gate.
jimmie had never seen any federal
cavalrymen before, and in her anxiety
to get a good view she unconsciously
perched herself upon the gate in a po-
sition which showed off to the best
advantage.
"Iook at that pretty cracker girl"
said e big fellow as he rattledh his sabre
to attract Jinnie's attention.
The girl was evidently not more
than sixteen. Divinely tall and di-
vinely fair, her lissome figure revealed
every line and curve OF it's graceful
contour through the soft, clinging
drapery in which she was attired, and
which seemed TO be q part Of her.
Under her rustic hat was a perfect
face. Her complexion was dazzling
and contrasted well with the scarlet
thread running through her lips, and
with her shy eyes of blush gray. Her
hair was a glory in itself. 1t rolled
down her shoulders like a flood ofmolt-
en- gold.
"Such a girl" muttered Capt. La
Rue, "has no Business here. If / am
not very much mistaken there is troub-
lie in store for her."
The raiders searched the house and
stole everything worth carrying off.
They burned the unoccupied dwellings.
and spent the day in making the vii.
layers miserable. The captain did not
find the time hanging very heavily on
his hands. He made his headquarters
at the house occupied by jimmie and
her mother, and his appearance was
SO warlike that the old woman busted
herself in the kitchen, leaving her
daughter to keep the self-invited guest
under surveillance. it was long after
midnight before the troopers rode out
of town on their way back to the main
body of the army. How it came
about was never fully explained, but
the captains spirited charger carried
a double burden, and one of the riders
looked w~ondrously like Jinniel
Among the Americans who did val
liant services in Maximilian's army, att
er our war was over, was Capt. La
Rue. The captain had a wife who
was the toast of all Mexico, from the
capital city to the Rio Grande. In
the American colony there were strange
rumors about this beautiful woman.
1t was said that she looked like an
angel and acted like a shedevil. There
were queer stories, too, about her
early life. 1t was whispered that La
Rue picked her up with a lot of other
plnnder in q mountain town In Geor-
gia, just for a lark. but it turned out
a serious business. 1t. seems that the
girl took it into her head to fall in
love with him, and she made life a
burden to him until he married her
and took her to Mexico.
La Rue was killed along with Prince
Salm-Salm, and when the princes wild
ow sailed for Europe, Mrs. La Rue
went with her. Almost anything can
be done with . girl, provided she is
caught young. A year DR. two more
in that bleak and poverty-stricken
mountain hamlet would have turned
jimmie into O. commonplace young
woman. As it was she was thrown
into a strange circle just at the time
when she was feverishly eager to imi-
tate those who were above her in the
social scale. She stripped of the pro-
vincial husk that enveloped her. She
studied men, women, costumes, man
ners, newspapers, theaters, everything
that could throw light upon the great
mystery called society. Fer such a
woman to learn to talk well in French
and Spanish, as well as in her own
tongue, was a small matter. With
her beauty and the subtle witchery of
her magnetism, what wonder is it
that Eugene La Rue was soon anathe-
matted by all the prudes in Paris?
1t was some time in 1870 that a
certain claim became the talk of hotel
circles in Washington. The claimant,
q charming woman, swore that she
was a Unionist, and that Sherman's
raiders had destroyed something over
a hundred thousand dollars worth of