The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-03-22
Il BRAGGART IN LOVE.
Story Of an Army Tragedy in the
Southwest.

kOHOI " CSUs
The women had gone to the drawing
room, and we had finished our first CT
CARS, when the conversation struck on
matrimony. We were all married men
explaining how it happened. The
other guests had told in turn their little
story in the free confidence one easily
feels at the end of perfect dinner. |
had related my romance, and we now
turned to our host.
Marlin, how did you win your
wife,"
Its long story-began on hunt
ing pass in the Arizona desert, crossed
the water and ended in Colorado.
Light fresh cigars. No; III take Mex
lean. Butler, bring the Chartreuse-
green for me, if you please"
| think it was the summer of Sc.
Geronimo was not yet taken, and we
had been chasing in our turn until, for
lack of backs and feet, our horses were
tagging in the race, and we were set
to watch water holes in the San Simon,
SO polluted with alllali and arsenic a
sensible savage would have Stunned it.
as my dyspepsia, which dates from
that campaign, tells me failed to do.
~ Somehow the Geronimo campaign al
ways reminded me of a fox chase; the
Indian scouts keeping their noses close
to the scent like dogs toe slow to force
the bush into the open, while the vari
Gus troops, like hunters in different
wind, held and lost the place which
promised first at the finish. If you
know Arizona at all, you will recall
how sharp and rocky are the crests of
the divides; being lines of most re-
sistance in this land of deep erosion,
they retain the sharp, Jagged profile
often seen in the snow-ice of mountain
drifts as it disappears in early summer.
Below these scoops lies a colony of
rounded foothills, receding and grow
ing less until they end in broken bowl
der mesa which, with numerous drr0g08,
fades into the soft, level adobe plain
and blends, as unsupported as the can
vas walls of a cyclorama join the rocks
and logs in the pit below you.
The Indians preferred these sharp
watch towers and impregnable bas-
tons Occasionally they would strike
across the valley, kill a rancher, and
steal fresh ponies, and some troop
would cut in and crowd them in the
open till they took the next divide and
met some barrier that baked the pur-
suers and forced on them a detour,
while some other troop, through acct
dent of locality, would take the chosen
place on the trail, giving for a few days
its dust to the other pursuing columns.
1t was weary, stern chase, performed
under burning skies of cloudless blue
in thirsty land of heat intolerable.
And it was best expressed by our lieu
tenant, who, on being informed by
certain captain of "Nu bian Horse that
he was after Geronimo, replied: "Yes,
captain, long way after" 1t was
like cutting cards for an ace or calling
the turn at roulette or faro to tell
which one of some twenty-five troops
would be in at the death.
We had had our little squirt; had
brushed them off the divide, and for
three days led in the open across the
valley to the Sierra Madre, where
fresher horsetlesh cut in from our right
and took from us the place of honor ana
left us, foot-sore and back-sore and
winded, at the base of the mountains,
where we were ordered days march
back into the valley, near the border
10 guard water holes of the San Simon
in the sullen month of August. The
nights were getting bearabie, but the
day heat still held on with the stubborn
insistence of a southern summer. Our
camp was not happy-the water was
bad; our shelter halves, but little
thicker than cheese cloth, proved leaky
sunshades, and we reinforced them
with our saddle blankets; we had no
amusement except to growl, wish we
were in the chase, and wonder whose
blooming intellect had squatted us
down among ella monsters and sand
flies to watch water so foul neither soil
nor sun would drink it.
The local sports of the cantonment
were disguised. A week before they
were giving odds-ten to three-on us
In the race, and now used pool checks
to light cigarettes from the candles
about the cook fire. There was not a
drop of anything in camp. The to-