The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-01-02


Corporal Wallace was doomed man,
Just as surely doomed as if a court
martial had sentenced him to death
and the president had refused to inter
fere with the findings. You will say
It was curious that we avoided him.
So it was, and yet we could not but
feel that he was a dead man walking
about among US. We heard him speak,
we saw him in apparent good health,
we listened to his songs and stories at
night, and yet every man who heard
over and over to himself:
THE corporal was bitten by mad
horse and sooner or later he will go
mad nd die"
The man sought to blind himself to
the situation, but he could not. We
had the feeling among us, and we could
not shake it off. Each morning we
looked at nim and wondered if the ter
rible virus would show itself before
night. Each night we looked at him
and wondered why he did not rush out
on the broad plains in the darkness
and try to run away from the specter.
He was big, brave hearted fellow,
carrying the scars of half a dozen bat
ties. He sang and whistleG and was
merry, and yet he did not deceive us.
We knew the haunting fear and terri
bic thoughts which came to him at
night when wrapped in his blanket and
the barracks were quiet.
Days passed away, and yet men whis-
pered when they spoke of Corporal
Wallace. Weeks passed away, and yet
men looked at him askance. and still
regarded him as walking in the shadow
of death. April, May, June, and then
the restless Indians broke away from
the reservation, and the troops were
sent out to find and drive them back.
When c company was drawn up in line
for departure there was Corporal Wal
lace in his proper place. Why not?
There was no bigger, healthier man in
the troop, nor one whose saber or car
bine could be depended on to do more
execution. And vet we wondered that he
should go. and there were murmurs Of
dissatisfaction as we rode away. He
was doomed man, dead man sitting
In the. saddle as if he were one of US.
Days and nights of hard riding and
hunger and thirst and we turned the
Indians back. 1t had been a week Of
wild haste and constant excitement,
and the troopers were bruised and sore
and exhausted as we made camp after
an all days ride. We had no fuel for
fires and little to eat, but there was a
grand spring at which man and beast
quenched their thirst The darkness
was falling and we had huddled to-
gether when someone whispered that
Corporal Wallace was sitting alone by
himself Then another drew US closer
together and said he had seen the cor
poral kneel down to drink at the spring
and started back as if he had caught
the sight of serpent. We whispered
and wondered and peered at him
through the gloom, but no man ap-
preached him. By and by he arose,
stood for moment as if undecided and
then walked with faltering step to the
spring. When he reach ed it he turned
his head away and knelt down. Tnel
he made as if he would drink, but
sprang to his feet, with a cry of horror,
and rushed away into the darkness.
SIT has come! The corporal is mad.'
was shouted through the camp, and for
a moment confusion reigned supreme.
Then there came a sudden silence,
broken after few seconds by the voice
of our captain making a detail to Sc
cure the man and by the blood curd-
ling yell of the corporal as he raced
away into the black night with death
keeping pace at his side.
Five, ten, twenty men pursued him
within the hour. He ran here and
there, lodged and turned, always es-
Gaping the hands which sought to
clutch him, and again and again re-
turning to the spring to quench the
awful thirst upon him, but always
shrieking at the sight of the water
bubbling up. For more than an hour
we pursued him as if he were some
wild animal we sought to capture.
Then at last lie broke through our
lines again, circled back to the spring,
and with a cry of agony, which was
heard all over the camp, ne fell down
and writhed and twisted about for a
moment or two and died He had been
a doomed man for weeks and months.
We bent over the body and saw the
look of horror on the face growing
pale, the hard-shut teeth, the blood
and froth on his lips, and we were glad
that death had come at last