Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1898-11-22
How . CaDtiv0 InAlAa - HOBt Lew
eAwOFth MAAO HiS DDO0OO
While "HuADinG" .
Les AAONt.

~ read the other day." 0aid an old
soldier of the regular army, "that one
Of the districts lads in blue down in
Tampa was given bit of log-shoulder-
ing to do as punishment. This is the
first time I've heard of that old-time
army punishment being revived. It
used to be a regular guardhouse pun
ishment when was in the regular out
fit. A man sentenced to ten days in
the guardhouse would either be sent
out to work in the morning, policing
around the post, or he would be given
his two hours on -and-two-hours-oh
tours of log-humping. He'd have to
carry his logs just as the men on guard
carried their rifles, in so far as hours
of duty were concerned, except that he
was permitted to sleep in at night
The logs weighed from 80 to 100 pounds
when the punishment, was first en-
ployed in the regular army, but this
was finally considered too much of
good thing, and when log-humping
punishment was abandoned, the
chunks of trees only weighed some
thing like so pounds. But it was no
soft snap to pack even 50-pound log
up and down in front of guardhouse,
III the hot sun especially, for two hours
at stretch, as happen to know. In
truth, the punisime mt was CALLING, and
rot so many men drank and fought
themselves into the summary court
martial when The log punishment was
in vogue as is the case now, when polio
ing around posts IS the guardhouse
punishment of military offenders on a
minor scale.
when I was stationed at Fort Lcav-
enworth in IT, Chief Douglass, one of
the high muck-a-mucks of the frac-
tiouS Nez Perez tribe that had recent
ly been rounded up, was put in the
guarGhouse for safekeeping. The
whole tribe of Nez Perces was cor
rallied and under q strong chain guard
back of the post, and at first Douglas
was permitted to remain with the
tribe. But he was IN Indian of the agi-
tating kind, was Douglas. and he
caused so much mutiny among the
Pent-up bucks That the commanding
officer thought it wiser to put him
away from the tribe. So he locked
him up in the guardhouse. Douglas
was a magnific ent big specimen of a,
brave, and after he had been in his
guardhouse cell for q week or SO the
officer of the day recommended to the
commanding officer that the Indian
be given some log exercise to keep him
from pining away. The commanding
officer agreed and Douglas was led out
of his cell to the porch running around
the second story of the guardhouse
and shown the .og he was to carry.
Four or five soldiers, serving guard
house sentences, were humping their
logs some distance away, under the
eye of a sentry. Douglas looked at the
| log with an expression of contempt,
grunted as If to say: Not much, I
won't!' and the officer Of the day, see-
ing that the chief didn't want any ex-
ercise, had him taken back to his cell.
AFTER thinking it over, however,
| Douglas sent for the officer of the day
and told him that he. was not only will
ing to pack log tip and down the
| porch, but that he was anxious to do
it. So he was given an s0-pound log,
and began his march up and down.
The sentry patrolling No. post, in
front of the, guardhouse, was told to
watch the Indian, but the sentry didn't
anticipate any treachery, and so he
didn't pay much attention to the
strapPing chief walking up and down
the porch above with the log on his
shoulder. But about ten minutes
after Douglas had begun his long pa
troll the sentry saw a dusky figure fly
ing through THE air from the porch
above, and by the time he had got his
wits and saw that the duslxy figure was
Douglas the Indian had picked himself
up and was off for the woods, only 100
yards or SO away, like deer. The
sentry gave whoop, and he yelled
after the flying Indian to halt. There
wasn't any halt in Douglas, however,
and he kept right on like race horse
The sentry fred after him twice, but
the Indian chief disappeared in the
brush. Fort Leavenworth was a big
post at that time, for 1t was the nation.
al school Of application, and there
were over 1000 troops there. They