The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-11
FORMS DEATH COMES IN
SOMETIMES LIKE 4 RUNNING
 RIVER.

Twice in the Same Form ?-Death the by Party of Adventurers in South l Africa.
 They wrapped Isdale in his blankets when they had outspanned, and placed l him under the wagon to shelter him from the night dews. He moaned lit tie, but seemed unconscious as to who | was about him and where he was. They made their fire near him and sat as close to him as possible, and hoped the boy would slip off that way quiet | ly during the night, without pain. Nothing more could they do to save 1 him. Their experience of the fever made them feel assured his death | would be easy, but the great horror was that he should perish in the veldt wilderness, and he but six months out from home. For the others, to whom | home was but a dim, retreating mem- ory, such an end at any moment would seem natural enough-the expected finale. But the boy! He had read them scraps of his sisters letters to him, be- cause he was so frankly enthusiastic about her and the fortune he was going 1 to astound her by making speedily, | that he could not keep quiet about it. | Lions and big game he had longed to meet beyond the Zambesi, but he had | left the fever out of his plans. No l doubt he had told his sister all about 1 the game. Which one of the party would have to write to her about the deadlier peril which he had not es- | capped?
 The great full moon, which seems to l gaze more nearly and more madly on Africa than on other lands, was direct l ly over the camp. In its light the thin pushed veldt glimmered as an ocean of | silvery pillows, close bounded by sol 1 emn shadows. From these shadows what would come to the men tonight, | stalking unseen through the midst of them, bearing the sword of death? Copeland laid his pipe down and knelt beside Isdale, feeling his pulse.
 How is it?" Paget asked when Jack came back.
 "Very feeble. He don't know me at all Smiles and whispers something about fishing with Judy in the river Wants to know why it's so cold to-day on the banks"
 "Judy's his sister" Paget said. "He showed me her photo. I fancy they were lonely pair-playmates."
 Fishin' in the river, eh?'' old Hannen grumbled in his gray beard. Then it's all up with the kid. It's always the river when they're goin' off. It was SC | With me- too"
 Somebody laughed grimly
 When did you die, Hannen?"
 T didn't. Might say I wouldn't. II was on the Northwest plains of the States, and was hunting with 8 par ty of Eastern toffs. Got typho- malaria same as Isdale got his, don't know how Nobody else got it. They dropped me at half abandoned army post. fol there was no town near, and put me in the soldiers hospital I was in an aw- full bad way-a most interesting case the bloomin' doctor told me after, and off my head most of the time, and thin I was afraid of the lookin' glass for g ] month after it was over They had swing doors at the end of the ward, an the bed at the doors was called the death bed, because it was handy, you know, to get a cold man out without disturbing the other patients So one evening when I was lying in cot neal a big box stove the doctor came round and Put him in the death bed says he to the hospital steward, he'll gc some time tonight They thought couldn't hear, suppose, but did, and | foo Io1 .ialx f, changed me, an put a screen round me an left me to die whenever got ready
 T suppose I went right off my head again. I had the queerest dreams, of through the prettiest green fields you ever saw, with hedges and daisies an children playin' in them, only I was cryin' all the time because I was SC cold. Somehow I got to a river, not g big one, it seemed, yet it was sort oi dark on the other side, and the water was tumbin' down, brown and noisily like trout stream in the Scotch hills l lay down about ten yards from the bank an it was awful cold. Years and years before a boy I'd been chums witt at school had died an I'd near broke my heart about it. Now, from the other side of that river that boy sang out tc me, only his voice wasn't very neal like: Why don't you come, Jim? Yor can wade across An somethin' seem. ed at the same time to be drawin' me to the water. We'll, I wouldn't; I was born pigheaded, I suppose. It was toe bally cold an that settled it. The more the boy called an the more it whatever it was, tried to push me an drag me to the water, the more pig. headed I got. I gritted my teeth an held on to the bank. Next thing I knew it was mornin' an the doctor was hust. lin me back to the box stove sayin that I'd wonderful constitution That's all But I tell you the people who made up these songs about The Other Side of Jordan and When We Meet Beside the River and all that knew what they were talkin' about
 He looked thoughtfully at the moon
 ''If I hadn't been born pigheaded,' , he added dreamily, "I might have beer havin' good times now with my ole chum instead of wearin' my heart out for years in this unholy country
 ''Well,' said Paget, Eff the end of 6 fever is as easy as that" and he glanc- ed at Isdale, with green green fields and trout streams, I shouldn't min6 that way so much, though I've always thought I'd prefer a bullet.''
 "But it isn't always that" sai6 | Cope1and 'T think soroetir,aS doofI