Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1895-12-20

enough: Meantime we managed to steal
an anger from the quartermaster, and that,
with two canteens made all the outfit we
thought we needed.
Fortunately it was dark night, and we
knew the lay of the land all right so we
had q comparatively easy time to dodge
the sentries. 1t wasn't really easy, but it
proved to be good deal easier than get
ting away from tho place afterward. It
took us half an hour Of hiding and dodg-
ing to get through the line, but we man.
aged it and found ourselves somewhere
about 10 O'Clock, under the storehouse.
1t was q rough sort Of a shanty, built on
the side of a hill, and there was room
enough to move around under 1t all right,
but tho trouble was, we had neither Of us
been inside the building and we hadn't
any notion where the things were packed,
SO we could only guess where the whisky
barrel was, and that was what we were
after.
We took turns boring holes in the floor
at random, and it wasn't long before we
found out that We had a pretty dirty job
on hand, to say nothing of a good bit of
hard work, but we persevered for some
thing like an hour before we could strike
anything that would leak through. We
struck all sorts of things that wouldn't
leak, but we had no means Of knowing
what they wero and no way of getting
them down If wo had known.
4 At length, af.er an hour, we struck
barrel out * which slow thick stream
began to trickle. We couldn't think what
it was till we tasted it, and then we knew
IL ~ II 1ov,r
for a minute or two, but even molasses
was treat and we couldn't afford to de-
spise it. So we filled one oanteen with
that and plugged the hole up as we'll rs we
could, SO as not to waste the stuff unnec-
essarily. I am afraid tho plug wasn't
very good one, but we did the best We
could.
Then we went to work again. 1t was a
little disoouraging, but we didn't propose
to give up We bored hole after hole. 1t
seems to me we must have bored so or
more before we got through, and it took
some minutes for each one. Sometimes
we would go through the floor and hit
nothing, and sometimes, as I said, it
would be something solid.
At last we struck something that spout
ed Ikea geyser, only it spouted downward.
I was right under it and I was flooded in q
minute. 1 scrambled out Of the way as
quickly as possible, and we Investigated. 1t
was yeast Well, yeast didn't seem to be
as near what we wanted as the molasses
was, but we didn't propose to lose any
tricks, so we filed the other canteen with
that, after we had had good drink apiece
It was not quite equal to the best beer,
but it was sort of substitute for it, and
we enjoyed it hugely.
We didn't succeed in plugging that up
as we'll as We did the molassos barrel,
though we did try. The yeast was too
much for US, and I am seriously afraid
that that whole barrel Of yeast was spilled
BY this time we had pretty well de-
SPARED of finding the whisky, but we kept
on trying awhile longer, until 1t seemed
as If we had ridClled the floor so complete
ly that there was no place left above where
q barrel could stand. Finally we gave 1t
up and began TO plan a retreat.
The side of the hill III tho rear Of the
house was covered with a sort OF ice for
nation that was 800 or 400 feet widc and
sloped downward at q pretty steep angle.
We had surveyed this carefully before 60
ing in. and said to Mason that If we
could make rush over to where that ice
WAS we could get down the hill a good deal
faster than any of the sentinels would care
to come after us, for all We had to do was
to Jump on the ice and slide down. That
seemed to DO about the best scheme we
could think of, so we watched our chance
and made rush.
We hadn't got to the edge Of the hill,
and that was only few feet from the
storehouse, when we heard the sentries
CIV. "Who goes there2" It really wasn't
worth. while for us to stop and answer
right on. There were two or three shots
fred after us, but we did not get hit. I
don't imagine the men on guard wero very
anxious to kill us, for they must have I'M
derstood in an instant what we were about
and probably stopped long enough to re-
member that they would have liked tho
chance to try the same thing.
So our Christmas extras that year were
pot of soup, little sugar, little mo-
lasses and a canteen Of yeast. And think
perhaps we enjoyed the yeast moro than
any of the other things. The real Christ
mas festival did not come for some days
afterward, when our boxes arrived, and I
remember that had glorious time, for
there was big Yorkshire plum pudding
in my box and three pounds Of killikinick
tobacco, and the tobacco was perfect god
send.
But before that, on the morning after
Christmas day, there was the very mis-
chief to pay in camp, and II Mason and
had been found out, we would have been
In for severe punishment, for we had done
q gfeat amount more Of mischief than we