Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-07-08
A Wait Of the Plains.
tFrom the San Francisco Argonaut.)


and the larger camps had watched for
the coming Of the Apaches. who had
been raiding the outlying ranches and
the smaller mining camps by flying
forays Of small parties not known to
be absent from their reservation. We
had grown tired Of standing guard
and spelling our winter holidays and
our eyesight looking in the darkness
for the attack that did not come-al-
though the most recent .tenderfoot"
knew that 1t was more than likely to
come at the most unexpected time
when there came a courier from Silver
City to tell us that our camp was billed
for the next engagement.
1t came upon his arrival-Or very
nearly SO. This courier, who was a
cowboy from the "S-bar." thirty miles
north of us, had hardly gone to his
supper when the trouble arrived.
Within an hour 1t seemed as though
government-fed loafers had surround
ed the camp and every man who could
handle q rifle was needed.
Driven back from the surrounding
hills to the confines of the camp pro-
per-driven, by sheer force of numbers,
back, back into our very cabins, where
the women and children were-bullet
after bullet sent after an unseen enemy
who lay behind the rocks-then--
There came bugle call, of which we
knew not the technical meaning. But
we did know that the troops from Fort
Bayard had come to our rescue and
that we and ours were saved.
The troopers, used to this kind of
work, had dismounted and surrounded
the redskins, and when some of the
latter made break through the lines
they were followed by number of
soldiers, among whom. not leading.
but anxious to be lin the thick of it, .
was Lieutenant John Marcus Horton,
late of West Point, who found himself
unable to brandish q sword and shout
"Follow mel" at one and The same
time, but who sprinted admirably,
nevertheless.
Lieutenant Horton never knew what
did happen that night not exactly. He
remembered only when the trouble
was all over in this, his first engage
ment, he was the possessor of a shat
tered arm, a broken rib or two. cut
head, and small blonde prisoner.
whom he had captured at the point of
the sword when the troopers found the
obscure canyon in which the Indians
who had evidently proposed to emf
srate to Mexico, despite the season, had
concealed their families.
Horizons prisoner came along with
surprising willingness. Her complex
ion was tanned by the sun and winds
almost as dark as that of any Apache,
but the same influences had served
only to bleach her naturally light hair
to an Enthusiastically tow-and- molasses-
taffy color or two. She must have re-
tanned some recollections of her Scan
dinavian parents, else she had not
come along with Mr. Horton SO willing
ly for she had temper, as was pres
emily discovered by several persons.
Yet she could not, or would not, speak
word aside from the Apache dialect.
and we could learn nothing, through
the interpreters, of her origin or as to
the time she had lived among the In
dianS. 'a
1t was not embarrassing, merely; it
was distressing, really, to all of us, the
question of what we should do with
this waif. Those of Apache parentage
we could and would return to the reser-.
walton. But this one
The women had talked it over, with
doubtful shakes of the head, when John
Marcus Horton. with more apparent
bravery than he ever showed as a
"plebe," a cadet officer, or in actual
fighting service. STROBE modestly into
the breach.
"I'll attend to her case" he said
Then, seeing that the eyes of the assem-
bled mothers of the community We're
upon him, he blushed, but continued,
firmly: My people will see to it that
she lacks nothing in the way of educa-
ton or training. Why not send her to
my mother in Ohio? and / will attend
to the expenses of her chaperonage."
That was the end of Olga for the
time. Five years afterward she came
back to us and her re-advent was the
undoing of many susceptibles..
Meanwhile. there had been changes
while Olga was at school. John Hor-
ton was no longer in the army an un-I
Gle of his having died and left him his
interest in several valuable mining pro-
perties, the sole condition being that he
resign his commission as a titled de-
fender of his country; and Horton, it is
needless to state, exchanged his chances
for glory for this very substantial con-
sideration with all the alacrity that
army regulations would permit, there
by becoming Colonel Horton, by
brevet of his admiring and envious fell
low citizens.
That was three years back, and twice
during that time he had been in Ohio
to visit his people. only to return with
accounts of .he manner inl
which Olga was getting on with her
music. ner other studies and the ways
of polite society. After each of these
trips, it was "Olga this" and Olga
that" until we We're tired of hearing
of his little Norwegian Apache" as
one of the boys ungallantly dubbed her
one time when Horton was not pres
ent. Had Horton been anything but a
good fellow land wealthy MANI he|
might have been called down" scores
Of times by the bored ones. AS it was,
however, we listened to him with what
was intended to he an interested ex-l
preston, drank his wines, borrowed
his money and hoped we might neverI
behold olga in the flesh.
Jll1t when after his third visit east