The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-01-20

his wife. ! Will let MT. rario" leii LIS
W story, for ne can tell it better than
I could:
"You know my marriage all came out
of a South American trip that l once
made, and that is the interesting part of
the little romance. I was only twenty
me-, and in the employ of a shipping
company in San Francisco. I had been
with them about a year and a half, n
think they trusted me a good deal,-ln
fact, they must have done so to have
sent me on the expedition they did. A
captain and his crew had run away with
a ship that belonged to the company, and
they wanted me to catch him. He had
started with his booty toward Cape
Horn, and if he once fairly left the South
American waters he was pretty safe from
us. I boarded the swiftest schooner
that sailed out of Frisco bay, and we
stretched every inch of canvas for the
south. The runaway had a good two
DAYS the start of us, and was nearly as
good q sailer as we. But we resolved to
do our best and hope for luck. In any
kind Of an enterprise a man may always
hope for luck, though he can't really
count on it. At any rate, it serves 70
keep the courage up.
"In FIVE days we sighted the islands
off Colombia and stopped to make In
ouiries. The vessel we were after had
been sighted two days and a half before,
and was going straight for the Cape.
The news was not encouraging, but we
set off again, with two days and a half
instead Of two days to gain. But we
still hoped for luck or some happy
thought. It was not luck but q happy
thought that finally decided ne to cave
the ship at Valparaiso and strike across
country to Bucnos Ayres in the hope o.
heading off the robbers before they
cleared that port. Sailing round the
Cape I knew to be hard work and often
slow, and with good luck I could prob
ably catch the vessel, or at least have
gained in the chase.
"The trip across the Andes and the
vast plains beyond was a memorable n
to me. It took a fortnight of the hard
est tramping and riding I ever did in my
life, but I saw some things I have never
seen since, and never will again. The
guides that we started with were crusty:
malicious fellows, and made me wonder
every night when I lay down to sleep
on the open ground whether I should
not wake up to find my throat cut. For
tunately that never happened; but the
reason was that they had the better part
Of my money before we set out. Other
wise I think my life would have been
held pretty cheap by a life insurance
company.
cat last the mountains were passed,
and before US stretched a broad, level,
grassy plain, and twenty miles away,
though the distance seemed much less,
lay a city half the size of Boston, but
whose site was on no map in existence,
and whose name probably not ten edu-
Gated men in this country had ever
heard. But that was forty years ago.
OF course things have changed since then.
"Here my guides said they must leave
me, and though I entreated their COM
pany to the city, they utterly refused. 1
therefore set out alone.
"You can imagine my desolation at
being left, even by the desperate black
hued men who had been my companions
so far. Even they had some sense of
humanity in them, some sympathy for
my loneliness, though it was a moody,
silent sympathy. But nov I was alone,
a strange city that I did not know before
me, the Andes behind lie. If 1 was
ever homesick in my life it was on that
morning. If I ever wished l were at
home with a wife and children about me,
hat was the time. As I tramped on l
dreamed Of all these things. I carefully
recalled all the young ladies of my &C
quaintance, to see if any of them would
do for a wife. Some were more or less
attractive, but there were many difficult
ties in the way Of really marrying any
one of them. After a time I turned from
a consideration of the individual female
to a consideration of the money question.
That seemed less doubtful, for I had be-
| gun to know my own powers and to
trust them. I then and there resolved
that J. would work no longer for another
master, but 60 into business for myself
when ! returned to San Francisco. I had