The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-23


 bait. The sun glares down on the sands of the cheerless path like noon in the desert. The boys whose feet are thickest with callous can walk the hot rails longest.
 Our man of six has forgotten his mother and his home. By mighty efforts and by steady attention to di- rect and unornamented locomotion, he can keep we'll up with the rear guard of the army. Tine generals have hot seen him; the discipline of the host does not extend beyond them. Not one in ten of the party knows whither he is going.
 And now there comes a terrible event. It is time for Number Five. The leaders, who delight in wise phrases, have said it, and our man re- peats it. All right, if it be; but from the way the leaders scan the track as they near curve, it comes to our man that perhaps Number Five may be giant. It is pitiable, this being the littlest fellow, too, in an expedition into Ultima Thule. That awful law of survival puts him last as surely as Nature has dowered him with fewest years. What if they should pass the giant, and he should "come outw Surely he would like little boy who had run away from his mother.
 But here, boys. Look out for Num- Der Five! Git off the track there, you little shaver! Say, you'll git run over, you will!
 And now the expedition scrambies down the sides of an embankment for ten feet. Around the curve, with thunders harsh as the grating of Mill tons hell-doors, with fire and flame far too terrible to look upon, with rumblings come up from China, and earth-swallowings, and earthquakes, and all frightful things, flies the rail- road itself. The gust of air sucks at the group; the pebbles pour down on them; the spectacle is gone.
 The leaders climb up the embank- ment and set out with something of the inertia that went into them with the passing of so much velocity.
 To speed on, is to get away from Number Five, the first Reality that ever came out of his world of hobgob- lins. Oh, that man of six should cling to his mothers skirts and plead to be told of horrid things, and then, when confusion had made his master piece, and 1Macdyf,s tongue could hardly paint its fury, to be so far from that protecting heart! Long does the roar of Number Five finger in his ear. What were the boys do- ing Why did they go near the awful railroad?
 But now there comes back a word from the head of army-Kessler's Bridges! That is the place where fish bite! Fish all day-bully time! Bass, and pickerel! Yes, but All Day is longer than the rear guardsman had ever enlisted for before. Will they come back2 Oh, yes! Well, is not that some comfort? Suppose the gen. erals had said the other thing And suppose the generals had not told him to look out for Number Five! If he cannot have his mother, he must &C., cept the generals, who do not yet know he is along. Thus he feels some sense of security.
 Kessler's Bridges! Ay! there they are, ahead! Probably they stand side by side-seven bridges No, there is the first-flat, not to be seen, not arched, as bridge ought to be. They journey toward it; they reach it. Horror of horrors it is sieve, made to entrap men of six beams put apart, ones utmost stride each step a leap of Alvarado-a thousand escapes from death down in the green mass fifteen feet below!
 On go the generals. Chamber, clam- Der, follow The rear guard. Leap, leap, leap, sobs the man of six, in dire ex- tremity. Safe at last! Seven bridges, and this but one!
 A running, and soon a second bridge, long, beyond conception; almost forty rods of to-day-an illim- itable expanse in childhood. On go the generals, for time is precious. Chamber, chamber, follow the rear guard. Leap, leap, leap, persists the man of six, far up over the green scup of the stagnant waters, where little life battles with unnumbered invita- tions to death.
 It is fnished-it is crossedl Far ahead trudges the rear guard-all Vandals, all Goths-not one of them looking back to see if man of six had gone down to the blinking and silent frogs.
 A man of six cannot attend to many things. If death surround and men, ace him, he must live first, and think of his mother afterward. There are i've more "bridges." Why did they call them bridges? Did they build them 90 that little boys would keep away from thems
 So now they come to the third hrSdOe longer than the last with clear