Connecticut western news., 1897-10-14
when Osborne willed.

when Osborne willed.
 'I am going to get you into West Point at 20. When I say am going to do it, you know it is going to be done. Don't you? None of it depends on you except the study. I can't make you drink, but I'll take you to water and keep you there until you find it will be easier to drink You can go back to the ranch if you like, but I'm not afraid you'll like it. l don't want to treat you as a small boy unless you act the part of one. You can learn and you must learn or the theaters will stop, and the hops will stop, and the guitar will stop-also the tennis. You have been cutting time, but henceforth you will study four hours day and 1 will sit with you to help you and see that it is done.
 So four hours out of every 24 Osborne put to the use of teaching one who did not wish to learn. Density can be bored through with patience. It is the india rubber of indifferent cleverness that re- sists After some of the struggles Os- borne would lie awake for the rest of the night from sheer nervousness. The boy slept with unruffled brain. The lieutenant almost came to forget the girl, but never quite. A letter would come when Alexander was most inert. and Osborne would stare straight in front of him and grit his teeth and wonder that man could live with both sides of bis nature thwarted and put back. But he had his reward. Alexan- der went into the academy at 20. He was the handsomest and most popular cadet in his class-and he failed in the first year.
 Just how such things are done no one is ever quite sure, but in Osborne's case | it must have been sheer force of deter imitation. Alexander was reappointed, and he himself was made instructor at | the Point.
 He stood over the cadet with the stinging lash of his ambition, and Alex ander was graduated Osborne un- wisely took some credit to himself. "Nonsense" said Alexander "pd have done it alone The first miss was only bad luck Don't think it's your | circus.
 ''It doesn't make any great difference | to me whose circus it is so that you come out all right I'm only glad you re l getting some ambition.
 Ambition be hangedl It's the one word in your lexicon. I'm sick of the sound of it. It is the sin by which the angels fell. Look out you don't fall, angel brother. "
 I'm not likely to fall, but should not mind it if it put you on mountain height D
 "No heights for me. I can't breathe rare air" answered the younger. Now in the course of army events it came to pass that strange fate made Alexander Osborne second lieutenant iu the troop of which his brother was first lieutenant, and the first lieutenant continued his ambitious goading. Alex ander was independent at present and resisted to some purpose. He would not spend his nights in study and his days in wire pulling The war department did not reward that sort of thing, he said It was action it approved. Wait until his time for action came Then he would satisfy his brother
 And the time for action did come, but the action was disappointing. They marched 200 miles and then marched back again. Alexander complained loud | ly that he had had no occasion to dis. | play his prowess in battle.
 | He should have been quite safe iI this, for that evening they would be once more in Grant. But the Indian host is not to be reckoned with. At sun set, within ten miles of the post, tho | Apaches caught the battalion in a ra. vine and kept it there until well into the night.
 The moon came up and showed to tho bucks hiding behind the cedars and scrub oaks on the rise the soldiers pen ned in the gully below them. It wal merely for the latter question of hold ing out and having a few men killed The danger was not great unless tho Apaches should be re-enforced or tho couriers should not reach the fort. SC the men took shelter behind bushes anc rocks and fired at the flashes of light ir the darkness above them. The officers walked about in the deep shadows. fir ing, too, and giving orders.
 First Lieutenant Osborne was with his sergeant and another lieutenant when he came upon Second Lieutenant Osborne cIouched down between two rocks, his arms clasped over his bent head and his carbine dropped on tho ground beside him.
 There was no mistake to be.made The other lieutenant hesitated, the ser geant drew back. but Osborne went uI and touched his brother with his foot.
 Lieutenant Osborne," he said tc the junior, ''go and report to the officer in command, Captain Clarke 1 shall have preceded you and have reported you for cowardice. " ... ..-.
 He went in search of the captain ana made his report, and Second Lieutenant Osborne was sent under arrest back tC the dismounted horses in the rear. Ther the first lieutenant threw open hit blouse and covered his breast with ( wide, white silk handkerchief that gleamed even in the shadow and walked out into the full moonlight.
 It was matter of only a moment be. fore the hidden Apaches saw him with the white target on his bosom, and two of them at least took aim at the target and hit it full in the center, and Firs Lieutenant Osborne pitched forward or the stones. es.-Gwendolen Overton in Sar Francisco Argonaut.
 | Cat Baskets.
 Cat baskets are made especially fol tba convenient earryinp of cats in t1.ay.