St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-08-25
A HEAD and A HAND.
A Story of Early Days in
the North Dakota
WildS.
Georgius Mercer, the Re-
eluse, and His Horrible
Find on the Banks
OF the Ripping, Purling
Goose, Now in the Heart
of a State.
The Love Of Twenty Years
Before Most Strangely
Brought to Life.

The nomination of John Flittie, of
Mayville, N. D., for secretary of state of
that charming territory, reminds me of
story connected with the Goose river
valley. with which John is probably
quite familiar. In 1870, in what is now
known as the Newberg district of the
valley of the Goose, there lived hunt
Ell and trapper by the name of GeOrgius
Mercer. He was an excentric individ-
ual, leading an isolated life and paying
no attention to the few whites who oc-
casionally invaded the land of the Sioux.
While he was on friendly terms with
the Pembina Indians and the Piegans
of the border, they, nevertheless, came
rarely to his cabin, and as rarely were
approached by him. Mercer was of
New England birth, having been
born in Worcester, Mass, and hav-
ing relatives in Springfield, Hampton
and North Wiibraham. A disappoint-
ment i'll love in early years had driven
him into the wilds of the West. In 1862
he was trapper on the banks of the
Minnesota river, near Redwood Falls,
but after the Sioux massacre he crossed
bllC leCu llNCl. anu lOullu q
lodging place on the banks of the
Goose, then quite large stream. The
story told of him, and as mysterious in
it's way as some deadly plot of Poe's,
dates from the year 1870, when the
Sioux were still lowering between the
Red and the Missouri, and the bones of
the dead at Abercrombie had not yet
changed to dust. He came out of his
cabin one morning in September, Just
at daybreak, and taking the trail that
led down the river, towards what is
now the Grandin farm, began to eX-
anime his traps and shares. The first
two that he reached were untauched,
but at the third, lying in the grass
close above it,
LAY A HUMAN HEAD.
He started back, old warrior that he
was, in horror. The eyes of a woman
were looking up at him, and the flowing
locks of a WOman'S hair were falling
about the pallid face and hiding the
grim, red mark at the neck where some
sharp instrument had severed the mem
Der from its trunk. 1t was some mo-
ments before he recovered his courage
and looked to find some trace of the
body. but there was none, nor were
there signs of struggle in the grass,
nor blood upon the ground, nor any indi-
cation as to where the strange thing had
come from, nor to whom it belonged.
He looked everywhere. but neither
mother earth beneath, nor the flowing
river, nor the wild prairie flowers.
nor the blue sky above, gave
him an answer. At last. discour-
aged for the moment, he lifted the head
carefully, concealed it i'll the grasses
TT ,n fnnrti, t,.an
and there he started back with almost
a scream upon his lips, for on the bank
beside it was lying the arm of man,
clearly severed from some unknown
and unseen body. The hand of this arm.
was tightly clenched, and just above
the wrist was tattoOed an anchor. Merr
Ger was man without physical fear,
but these evidences of murder and out
rage most foul almost unbalanced him.
He was inclined to turn bak to his cabin
and let the remainder of his traps go
for day, but on second thought con-
Guided to go Oh. The fifth trap was 10
Gated in bend of the Goose nearly OPP
posite to where the Grandin farm
house and it's red barns now stand.
Mercer approached it with some eau
ton, warned by his previous experience,
and sick at heart with dread. AS he
pushed the bushes aside he saw moth
ing, and felt relieved, but when he bent
over the trap, he turned a CHASTITY white
and clutched his gun with terrific grip.
for caught in the snare was
A WOMAN'S HAND.
1t was not the hand of frontiers
woman; the sun had not burnt into it
heavy brown, nor had toll in sod hut,
or beneath roughly hewn logs, scared
or defaced Its beauty. 1t was soft, white
and plump, and upon the fOrefinger
veins had run like delicate tracery
under the skin, and the nails were white
and tapering. How long Mercer sat
there and looked down Oh that sad
momento of life, he never could
tell. There was such story of
agony and woe told in the head
and arm behind him, and the delicate
hand that lay in the cool water before
him, that his own heart and mind
seemed to cease to act. He sat dumbly,
looking neither up nor down, emotions
long dead surging through him and
paralyzing action. The sun had climbed
high toward the zenith. and the morn
ing breeze had given way to hot bis
tering calm, when he came out of his
trance. Then he stopped over and took
the hand from the trap and retraced his
steps. He gathered up the arm and
last recovered the head, and, thus loaded
with a CHASTITY burden, went to his
cabin. There he decently inferred
them, and without cooking his monday
meal threw himself down on his rude
bench and began to speculate. He
knew that at that time there
we're no Indians near enough to
have done the deed, besides the
work had been too well executed to even
suggest Indians. From this line he
passed on to a theory as to what woman
this head had belonged to, and from
what shapely arm that hand had come.
He imagined that those locks of light
brown hair had clustered above eyes,
of blue, and that the eyes of blue had
fashioned we'll with the rosy cheeks of,
maiden, and the half-parted lips Of
youth. and the sensitive, quivering nos
trils of high-spirited young girl. He
imagined in his own way. that the face
as he remembered it, and the eyes,
which had no terror in their depths,
belonged to woman whom he could {
have loved; still more, as he thought
longer, he OWNED that there were
traces in them which reminded
him keenly of a long-lost love,
buried back in the hills of Mas
sachusetts. These thoughts took a.,
tremendous hold upon his im-.t
agination, they had him bound to his
cabin, he found it impossible to be out
of sight of the little mound of earth.
heaped over the grave which he had,
made. He was prompted to go to dis
tant settlements and arouse justice to a
FERRET OUT THE MYSTERY
of this tragedy, but he had scarce moved
a mile when something seemed to call
him back, and he ran like mailman to
the cabin, and lay alb of the day at its
door. The truth was that these incidents
had aroused I'M Mercer a train of
thought and class of emotions which
had held no sway over him for more
than twenty years. He was now pass
ing the prime of life, and the hard life
of the frontier had begun to make
marked ravages on his body and mind.
The tragedy, so strangely thrown
in his way, and rousing him
from the somnolecy of more than
two decades, had changed his entire be-
ing and made him another man. He
was no longer the hunter, eager upon
the trail, but heart-worn man, whom
a woman's hand and a woman's face