Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-01-12

but after Il glance at the wide, red
cavern of his mouth and the emptied
flask lying close to the frowzy head, he
decided in favor of the mule.
A short walk brought him to the side
CT the PROSTATE creature, and a long
pull induced his muleship to stagger to
his feet, but in his struggles he snapped
the old headstall, and the remnant of
the bit and bride dropped into the dust.
1t was not until the vagrant stood erect
that Lambert discovered from the U.
S. brand that he was, or had been, gov
eminent property. The saddle, too,
turned out to be one of the old-fash-
toned, black-skirted, pigskin McClel-
lans, SO familiar during the war days.
AS the mule seemed only Lalf awake and
unaware as vet of his freedom Lambert
first essayed to reset the saddle, towhich
he submitted without objection, and
then to replace the bride, to which he
! would not submit at all, but with low
cred front and menacing hoof turned
him about and logged over to where
some wisps of hay lay scattered in
front of a shanty labeled Post Office"
For ten minutes Lambert exercised his
arts in vain effort to recapture that
mule, and then, in sheer disgust, threw
the bride on the sidewalk, picked up an
abandoned half brick, and let the mule
have it:n the flank. He merely twitched
his scraggy hide, raised one instant the
nearmost hoof, but never lifted his
head. The brute was hungry from long
fasting, and did not mean to be dis
tnrbed, and Lambert, who had eaten
nothing since the previous day, was
presently in full sympathy. Once more
lie looked around in search of some
human being, and found himself con-
fronting a citizen in shirt sleeves and a
tangled head of hair, who, leaning out
Ct q second-story window. wasneverthe-
less not 20 feet away. For a moment
each reg ,rded the other without a word.
Then the native spoke:
what ye tryin' to do?"
ST was trying to catch that mule"
"Want him FIR a%nything?"
NO; only I found him tangled in his
reins, and he got away after I loosed
kim"
The native regarded the newcomer
%curiously. Lambert had slung his
blue cape over the hitching rail during
his brief pursuit of the ungrateful
least and his neat-fitting suit of tweed
was something new to Tugaloo eyes.
So was the jaunty drab derby.
"Youdon't b'long roun' yere, do youe'
queried Tugaloo next
81 don't; and the Lord knows I don't
want to; and I'd be glad to find some
way of getting myself and my trunk
yonder, out to camp. Can you suggest
any?"
"We-ell, you might walk. Don't reck-
on your trunk kin, though. Know the
way?"
"No."
"Foller the track down thar a piece
an you'll come to a path along the
branch. It'll take you right in 'mongst
the tents. 'Tain't more N a few rawds."
'"Thank you, my friend. You're the
first live nan I've found. I suppose
can send in for my trunk"
"Reckon We can. They've gawt mule:
an wagons enough"
Lambert gathered up his belongings
and trudged away. He did not mea:
=. " SlSid " liC ISciluS u depression tlid
was struggling to possess him. yet the
blue devils We're Juggling at his heart
strings. Wasn't this just what his class
mates had prophesied would happen j:
he went into the infantry? Could any
service be much more joyless, unevent
full, forlorn, than this promised to be
shark Tapley himself would go t;
t pieces in such q place." he had heart
3 some n at headquarters say of Tuga
Q loo, but he meant to out-I'apley Marl
ifneed be, and nobody should know how
0 much he wished he hadn't been assigned
{ to this sort of duty and to this particu
lar regiment-certainly not his class
O mates, and, above all, not the loving
mother at home. Heavens! how unlik'
e was this bleared, wasted. desolate LAM
to the sweet and smiling New Englane
3 vale where his boyhood had been spent
to the thickly-settled, thrifty, busting
t shores of the Merrimac!
He had walked nearly a mile and ha,
seen no sign of camp or sentry, but OF
u sudden the path left the brushwoo,
beside the sluggish "branch," rounde,
n o projecting knoll, and was lost in
$ rough, red clay, country road. Afence
t with II thick hedge of wild-rose-bushes
! WAS to his left-leaves and roses lon,