The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-16
sTAY-AT-HoME REGULARS.


 About the lonesomest places in this country at present are the army posts of the frontier from which have gone the soldiers who made the life there so pleasant. By every post is town, and to these towns the absence of the regulars is like the taking away of the charter; it means loss of trade and of people on the streets that gives the place the appearance of having a fun eral. A few trades almost compensa- ted for the absence of the large busi- ness done just previous to the call for the movement to the front. For in- stance, the photographers took pie lures of the soldiers and of their fami- lies day and night that all might have remembrance. But when the trains pulled out there was sincere grief and longing that had not been assuaged by the passing of the long weeks
 And the lonesomest men in the na- tion are the dozen or so soldiers who have been detailed to watch the weedy parade ground and to keep in order the quarters of the troops who are at the front. One West Pointer detailed for duty at one of the far northwest forts when he expected to have a berth near Washington, had added to his dis appointment the task of staying with the Indians and feeding them with beef while the other troops went to Cuba. In desperation he offered his services in any capacity to his home governor, but there was such a pull for appointments that he was not eotisid- cred. 1t is on record that he wept some very salty tears as he read of the bravery of his comrades at the front, and had several periods of vigorous scolding of fate for the scurvy trick she played on him. He is but a type, for to every regular in the army and navy the war was the chance of life- time for promotion and experience. To be deprived of these was indeed hard, and the boys who are guarding the posts feel it. Somebody had to do it, however, and not always the high est honors come from service in the field.
 On the most prominent height of the beautiful Fort Riley reservation in central Kansas, and at what is called the geographical center of the United States, stands a monument to one of the bravest soldiers of the nations his- tory. He did not win his laurels on the battlefield-not his brightest ones. Major ogden was one of the military commissioners who selected the mag nificent nineteen thousand acre reser- vation. He went there with the | troops, and when one day in the later | sos the plague of cholera broke out among the soldiers he was one of the | men who did not leave. He stayed day after day nursing the dying sol diers and listening to their last mes | sages. It was weary staying, but he 1 did not finch, and when at last he | felt the numbness of the disease he l gave up his life as willingly as he had | his services They buried him there on the crown of a prairie hill, and ev- | cry visitor reverences the man who l died in so noble a cause. The men who are guarding the reservation while their comrades are camped at Fl l Caney, in sight of the spires of Santi- ago, look at the monument outlined against the sky and take new cour- age to meet their condition.
 There are other deserted forts and posts on the frontier that will never be occupied by troops again. They are scattered along the water courses of Kansas and Nebraska, where once the Indians were many, but where there is nothing more to be feared than the herds of the cattlemen and the families of the settlers. There are