The Brunswick times. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 188?-1900, 1897-09-05

his heavy cavalry boots were alongside,
where he had evidently pulled them off.
The major and l looked at each other
askance Neither spoke.
Five minutes later we had forged
through the drifts to the guardhouse,
and, while the major led the sergeant
and patrol of the guard across to the
officers line, reused the companies.
| Soon the barracks were ablaze with
| light, and the troops were quickly form
| ed in their squadrooms for roll call. A
| messenger had meanwhile been dispatch
ed to the colonel's quarters, and soon he
and his adjutant came stumbling
through the blizzard to the guardhouse.
1t did not take long to call the rolls,
I and in a very few minutes, down
through the binding mist, from the
right and from the left, came the first
sergeants to make their reports to the
adjutant. Only two men in the entire
command were shown by the reports to
| be missing and not accounted for, and
these were Private Hogan of Troop Q
! and Private Eckstein of Troop H.
Supplied with lanterns, one search
| party attempted to find the tracks of the
missing men around my snow bound
quarters while the others, keeping
we'll together for mutual protection,
made as thorough a search as was pos
sible, in such storm, of the barracks,
| stables and outbuildings. No horses
were found missing, but the most dill
| gent search failed to reveal anything
| else but the fact that few human beings
,, could live for any length of time i'll
such an atmosphere. And so the trum-
peters blew the recall, and the search
\ was postponed until morning.
The poor major! 1t was in vain that
we assured him that the money would
surely be recovered that no human be-
/ ing could escape through such biz
| card. He could not or would not be COM
\ forted. Theories were advanced that the
| two men We're confederates and had alb
! seconded together, using a relay of po
MES, but the intense bitterness between
! the men of the two troops seemed to
| overthrow such an argument, and |
| could never believe that Barney Hogan's
honest blue eyes We're those Of thief.
We sat around the fire until the gray
| dawn began to steal in at the windows,
| and our unobscured view of the men s
quarters proved that the storm had
abated. Our eagerness to resume the
| search then put an end to all speculation.
We breakfasted at reveille with our
troops and Immediately afterward a sys-
tematic search was begun. 1t hardly
! seemed possible that men could have
for fra1Do o1iya i,oc n
storm. Nevertheless details of mount
| ed men were sent out from each organ
| ization to scour the surrounding coun-
| try. All other available men of the COM
mand explored every nook and Granny
| of the post. At the noon hour nothing
had been discovered by any of the search
parties to account in any way for the
| mysterious disappearance of the two
| soldiers.
Mine were the first in the long line of
| officers quarters. Outside and beyond
lay the prairie, practically boundless i'll
extent. Straight away toward the west,
and not always following the rough
wagon road, ran the telegraph line, the
connecting link between the post and
the distant railroad station, its icy poles
the only dark objects i'll all the white
landscape After dinner at the sugges-
ton of tho major, the search was prose-
cuted in this direction. Doubts had
sprung up in the minds of many as to
the success of our labors, and it was a
| forlorn hope that caused us to turn to-
ward this eye wearying expanse of
snow. And yet men who were lost had
often before followed the friendly line
of telegraph poles, so that the search iii
| this direction was we'll worth the trial.
A skirmish line of soldiers was form
ed to cover 100 yards of prairie, and the
advance was begun. Occasionally a
larger rift than usual would attract the
attention of the men, and they would
rush forward with a shout, their brown
canvas storm coats buried to the arm
| pits in the yielding mass, and scatter the
snow in all directions. But progress
was slow and the labor fatiguing The
| enthusiasm which had been evineed in
the early part of the day hadsgradually
disappeared as the search went on, and
now, as failure seemed assured, disap-
pointment was universal and marked.
But suddenly the widest interest and
excitement were aroused by clew. A
| great shout arose at the center of the
long line. Disregarding military strict
ness, the men came hurrying in from
both sides, and we were soon gazing on
what proved to be the frozen carcass of
an Indian pony. 1t was tied to a tele-
graph pole, and the taut drawn knot of
the rawhide halter showed that the poor
animals struggle for life had been
brave one.
With the pole as a center, the soldiers
eagerly set out in radial directions to
cover the surrounding ground, while
little knot of officers stood by the dead
pony, our excitement reused to the high
est point of expectation.
Soon a shout from a tall trooper on
the right, not 100 yards away, brought
us to the spot with rush. Then, ex-
cept for the voice of a sergeant as he
directed the men in their labor of scrap
ing away the ice and snow, there was
dead silence Quickly the work pro-
crossed, and soon two frozen forms