The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-04-05
SIGN OF THE ARROW.
.Calkins' Tale Of Buried Ire assure
and a Strange Photographer.


The amateur photographer, the nat
-7lralist, Calkins and myself lonnged on
our blankets about the embers of the
.grease-wood campfire, silently enjoy
ing an after-supper pipe. An owl
.hooted from the rocks near by.
"Mcgdscops Asic Bendirei. 232. Bry-
ants schedule. Three dollars" re-
marked the naturalist, who viewed
nature from purely commercial stand
point as an aggregate of catalogued
specimens of more or less value in the
scientific market He was a sub-col-
lector for the "Johnsonian."
by the way, tomorrow I'll show
YOU blue print of the-what was the
name of the bird you got this morn
ing?" inquired the amateur pho
-tographer.
''Harporrhyncus Secontei Bryant. Alb.
Two dollars" replied the naturalist.
Yes, I'd forgotten. That's it, dare
say. There was a curious thing about
that picture. When l took the plate
from the bath, 1 noticed a line
down the birds breast which did not
remember to have seen in the original
when 1 propped him in position. At
first thought it must be some defect
in the film, but there really was the
line, plain enough, caused by a sort. of
;semi-bald streak through the feathers.
1t was so distinctly marked, Wondered
that hadn't seen it before. 1t merely
goes TO show how much more accurate
in matter of detail a cameras eye is
than ones own"
q seen that illustrated once in q
.strikin' kind of way" said the hitherto
silent Calkins, slowly tapping the up
turned toes of his boots with his empty
pipe bowl, while he gazed into the fire
in an absent-minded way, ''and I'd
have made my everlastin' stake out of
the business I'm speal1in' of if only my
fool nature hadn't been too confdin'."
Calkins paused, and sighed deeply at
this "Reminiscences of an injudicious
-trustfulness-
THE beginnin' of it happened nigh on
to twenty years ago." he resumed, in
response to our request for the story,
lone time when I'd been out prospect
in round about San Felipe, and
was on my way in for mere grub and
powder and a new outfit of tools 1t
was sizzlin' hot September afternoon,
and I was takin' it kind of easy, havin'
nothin' much to hurry me, and was
jogging along on my mule just fast
enough to keep my pack-burro movin'
on ahead of me. The sand was heavy
and the sun bore down like hot
hn
vibratin' up fIom the sand and rocks
all about in quivery, dancin' lines, and
way off, toward where the desert and
the sky come together, was little
patches of rock held up in the air by
the mire-age. The trail was travelin'
run along the base of sons steep, dirty
white limestone hills, all broke up and
.crumblin' from the weather, and as
dry and bare as an ash-heap. They
caught all the heat there was goin',
and jammed it over at you till you was
near gaspin'.
81 was gain up in the air, shadin'
my eyes the best l could, to find how
much the sun had dropped since I'd
looked last, when ! see, way up above
the trail, half a mile ahead, what at
first sight-with my eyes bein' daz-
zled-I took for little hoatin' cloud.
Then, next minute when see it keep
.sailin round in circle, and each time
it made round droppin' little lower,
I knew it want no cloud, but bird,
Just one of them big California vul-
lures, nine feet from tip to tip of his
wings, if he was an inch"
Really, now" interrupted the nat
-uralist, with the deepest interest,
'Pseudogryphus CaiiforHiGnus. 394.
Belcher's schedule - rare - no price
quoted"
Maybe" said Calkins, in tone of
indulgence, though scarcely needing
the interruption. He was fine sight
to see, can tell you, sailin' round up
there like he owned things in general
and was out inspectin' his property.
As I've said, he kept slowly droppin',
each time he swung round, and each
circle he made was narrower'n the last
one. knew from the way he carried
on there was somethin' dead lying
about on the line of the trail ahead of
me. Then all to once the pack burro
pricked her ears out forward, snorted
and crowded round back on the trail.
and my mule got to tremblin' and
come to dead stop. 1 hollered TO the
jenny and headed her off as she was
stampedin' back the way we'd come,
and when I'd got her cornered in
among some rocks, hitched her and
the mule short up to a bowlder and
walked back to see what had scared
sem-
81 didn't wonder they was ratified
when seen what it was. There, lying
sprawled out on his back across the
trail, shot through the head, was a
man with his face turned up to the
sun, his lips all turned blue, and drawn
back from what teeth he had, and his
eyes all glazed and starin'. One arm
was bent under him, and the other
stretched out straight, with the fingers
bent in clutch like a hawks claw.
he must have been lynn there stone
dead for week, just shrinkin' and
dryin' up in the sun, like all dead
things DO, out on the desert.