Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-06-27
LOST IN THE HILLS.
All Santa Fee Followed Little Jack
Downing to the Grave.

Downing to the Grave.
Santa Fe, y. NJ, dispatch to the New York Sun.
Two companies of regular troops. regi-
mental band, and all the wheeled vehicles
in Santa Fe escorted and followed to the
grave today the corpse Of a four-year-old
child, and the child was not the offspring
Of any civil or military official or dignitary
Of the town. 1t was little Jack Downing,
the son of a newspaper editor. and here was
more real. unaffected grief for his death
than would be felt for the death Of the most
eminent man in the territory.
Little Jack strayed from his mothers side
on the outskirts OF the city last Thursday
afternoon and disappeared entirely. Mrs.
Downing searched for a time in the unSys-
tematic half-frantic way of an alarmed
mother, and then came back for help.
About two hundred men went out and hunt
ed all night Two bloodhounds We're put
upon the trail, but arrogant human reason
presumed to be superior TO brute instinct,
insisted that the baying hounds We're at
fault and tried to drive them upon a false
scent. The dogs refused to go where the
men sent them. and they were returned to
their kennels In disgrace.
"A pack of foxhoundS was taken out dur
ing the night to beat up the brush and drive
away coyotes, wildcats and cougars that
might hunt down the little wanderer
When morning came. no traces Of little
Jack had been found, but his trail had
been crossed and tramped over 50 thorough
ly that nobody could follow it.
The country adjacent to Santa Fee is a
wilderness Of low. scrub-covered, sandy
bills and dry arroyos, the latter running
totally destitute of water at this season.
Little Jack crossed the first ridge near
town, and then fled westward not without
many turns and circuitous deviations from
the course, but all this was not known until
too late. On Friday morning at daylight a
battalion of the tenth infantry went out
from Fort Marcy, and found the childs
footprints two or three miles from town
The soldiers formed a skirmish line and
searched the ground until noon, when they
lost the trail, and returned exhausted and
discouraged.
Then the fire bell was rung to sumon the
citizens and the sheriff deputized the whole
population to join in the search. Judge
Seeds adjourned the district court, and d.
rected lawyers. officers, witnesses, grand
jurors and defendants to go out and hunt
fer Jack downing. Everybody went. Law
yers left their offices, merchants their shops
mechanics their benches. laborers their toll
and idlers their idlng, and all FASTENED out
to the hills, afoot, horse back burroback
and on wheels to search for the child. The
Indians of Tesuque Pueblo were out since
daylight, securing the country to the north
ward. and Apache, Navajo and Mexican
trailers were scattered in all directions
looking for signs. The pity of it was that
nobody believed the child could keep going
many hours and all expected to find him
lying exhausted and asleep under some
copse OF pinon not many miles away.
But little Jack kept toddlng along over
bills and down arroyos, falling into cactus
plants and over steep banks, logged every
f6ot OF the way by furtive coyotes. When
he sat down to rest the coyotes were en-
boldened to circle around him, and when
his hating places were found 1t was seen
that he had picked up gravel and thrown 1t
at the brutes to drive them away. He car
ried little stick in his hand. and, doubt
feeble i'm
soaring the cowardly animals.
While the main body of citizens and SOL
diers was beating about the country. finding
and losing the trail, Dewildered by it's doub-
lings and turnings. and refusing to believe
that the child could have gone much fur
Their, three men were making use of their
brains and their eyes and their legs to bet
ter purpose. One of them was a defendant
in case before the grand jury, a man
charged with murder. He and barber and
a miner took cart and drove far ahead of
the main body and looked for signs.
They found the childs tracks and follow
ed them on the run When they lost the
sign upon hard ground they made use of
experience gained in trailing deer and vast
ed no time there. but ran to the northwest
sides of the nearest ridges, where the
ground Is always soft. Finding the trail
again, they marked it's course and ran to
the next northwest slope. examining the m
tervening arroyo on the way.
Ten miles from town-twenty on the
tiail-the tracks became distinct and fresh.
Then one man trailed on the run and the
other two followed in the cart with the
horse on the lope. They took .,urns at run
ming and SO made rapid progress, and at
last they found poor little Jack lying dead
in clump of cactus. where he had fallen
after climbing up the bank of an arroyo.
For twenty-six hours the baby had wan
dered in the wilderness without sleep, with
out water, crying for his mother, and fleeing
all the time from those who were seeking
him so strenuously. He Travelled from
twenty-five to thirty miles. and he never
stopped until he fell dead among the cactus
spines. The poor little body was warm
when the men found 1t, but no sign of life
responded to all their efforts to revive il
with water and brandy
1t was night when the men got back to
town with the body. Everybody today
went TO little Jacks funeral-everybody but
the mother. who was brought in from the
hills delirious on Friday and has not yet re-
covered her reason