The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-14
HE DIED FOR HIS CHUM.
An UnTCCOrdGd Episode in Mexican
History.
In the Lottery for Life or Death One
Drew the Chance Which Meant His
End-the Other Without a Word
Changed Places.
From the Omaha Bee.


rail of the balcony were smoking their
evening cigarettes.
The dusk lay above them like a bats
wing, ready to fall swiftly and suddenly,
as it does in southern ATTITUDES.
Both were young and of goodly presence.
Western suns and winds had tanned their
checks and burned in the red of youth to
a rich topic hue.
Across the brow of one-a brow whose
boyish contour moved women with mother
instincts to sudden longing to caress-lay
loose waves OF soft yellow hair. Beneath
looked Gus eyes of dark gray, heavy with
the long thoughts of those early, desper-
rate dayS-days when a republic worked
out in blood her long probation. The
other had fairer countenance, more
llPhtSome and full of happy promise.
No dark prophecy brooded in the sunny
shadows of the bright blue eyes, and
laughter sprang as lightly to the lips as
the blush to the cheek OF a maid
Superadded tonight to his native eXU-
b9rance was some foreign element Of
joyousness which seemed to masters spirit
and muscles alike. He was full of move
ment Tossing away half finished cigar
cite, he clasped his curly head and broke
the silence with sudden speech.
Ned, am too happy to smoke. l am the
happiest man in all this border land.
Nellie HerndOn has promised to be my
wife. It's secret yet, but | couldn't
keep it from you any more than l could
keep my love from her There is not
another woman like her-nOrth, cast,
south or west. Did you ever notice the
gold of her hair? 1t is like sunshine spun
into threads. Whenever / look at her
think of some quaint old words my mother
used to read out OF book long years ago
when l was boy back in my old Geor
gia home. They went this way: Whose
shoes latchet | am not worthy to un
loose / suppose the preachers would
call that irrevcrent, but God will bearme
witness there's no irrevcrencei in my heart
when think of her.
At Harvey Armstrong first words the
color was washed out of Ned Fosters
face as with spoung his very ;eyes seemed
to pale.
Bringing the chair to the ground, con-
cealing his face with his hands, he
leaned over the railing and looked down
into the sluggish waters of the river flow
few feet below.
How old and wise they looked, those
waters, in their calm unfretted flow.
Good for you, old fellow" he said, as
he extended his hand. May you have
centuries of happiness. If any man de-
serves her it is you, Harvey"
This was in the summer of lS4l.
In the autumn of 1S42, when President
Houston ordered out Gen. Somervell to
the Rio Grande to organize troops and
ayenge the insulting raids of NasqUez
and Vol, Ned Foster was among the
first to respond to the call for volunteers.
About $50 miles south of Saltillo, on
the road to the city of Mexico is an old
fort, known as the Hacienda Salado.
TO this place, March, Doth 1843, were
brought the recaptured remnant
of the unfortunate Mier expedition, that
gallant band of 800 men, the flower of the
western militia, who went forth to do
battle for the honor of the young republic
and were so treaCherously dealt with by
the followers of Santa Anna, to whom they
surrendered as prisoners of war. All
readers of Texas history know how the
terms of the treaty were broken and the
betrayed men shown no mercy, but
marched into the interior, subject to in
credible hardships, and finally imprisoned
miles away from home and friends
Feeling keenly the indignity of their
treatment, and fearing worse at the hands
of such pertidious foes, they overpowered
the guard and escaped, to be retakcn ten
DAYS later and returned to the same in
closure whence they had fed.
All this is history, but we have no
written record of the interval between
the escape and the recapture. when the
the little company wandered, lost and
helpless, among the Businesses of unfamil-
lar mountains; no record of those ten
days and nights when the sun rose and
set but to mark another and darker ex-
perience in the calendar of human pain.
Ned Foster and Harvey Armstrong
were among the number. Stronger than
the multiplied threads of the cable had
grown the bond of friendship between
those two men in the awful realism of
danger and suffering
For four days the weary and fOOtsOre
had Travelled down steep canyon whose
steep sides narrowed until they closed
and barred them in Then the retraCing
of those same steps.
A few, sorely weakened, gave up the
struggle and dropped out of the ranks.
Some became deranged and. wandering
off, slipped down the rocky ravines and
were killed.
On the evening of the tenth day they
were met by a body of Mexican cavalry
and hidden to halt and give up their
arms.
After three days rest, in which their
half-spent lives were restored by those
art of healing the Mexicans know so we'll,
they were carried, handcuffed in pal RS,
into Saltillo and thence to Salado.
The hoary walls of the old hacienda
looked down into sinister strength as the
thinned ranks filled in. Eight Mexicans
were outside digging a trench Ned ex-
changed d look with Harvey, his compan-
ion in irons, and whispered: "That means
death" He was not wrong At2 o'clock
of the same day the prisoners were
ordered out and ranged in double line
against one of the walls.
The officer then read the written decree
of Santa Anna, president of Mexico, a de
cree which pronounced for three men a
fated so ingenious its torture to mind
and body that it might have been con
ceived in the subtle brain of a Herod.'
Every tenth man was to be killed, the
decision to be made by lottery.
Into a jar were to be dropped 40 beans
-153 white and II black.
Every man was to take out a bean.
Those drawing the black ones were to be
shot before the sun went down; the rest
spared death, but retained as prisoners.
II was a dark and cloudy day, this 26th
of March, with high winds that whipped
the sand into great waves and blew it
across the plans.
Beyond the door of the court yard moth
ing could be seen but the flying sand.
Over all spread the dusky canopy of
the heavens
A Mexican soldier mounted a stool and
held aloft the fatal pitcher.
The roll was called.
As each hand was slowly lifted and
poised for one single instant above the
mouth Of the iliu life and death must ha w