The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1898-02-25
LETTER HE NEVER SAW.
"Stop him! Stop him! Ho, there, stop

oCop MIN! oCop nlin! 10, tnere, Sup
hm!"
It is midnight of a summers night. A
half-dressed man rushes out of quarters
ACROSS the parade ground-past the sentinel
and the gate, and is swallowed up in the
darkness outside. Three or four of his com.
ssdes follow, but cannot overtake him. AS
they return from the chase they explain to
the sentinel at the gate:
'It's Sergt. Tom, and he's gone at last.
We were watching him, but he got away in
pite of U.S."
Sergt. Thomas Wheeler, of company II
second sergeant and man who stood well
N the estimation of both men and officers
People who judged from the wrinkles and
eareworn look on his face said he was a man
II so. The muster roll of his company made
him ten years younger. Every man in COM
pany III knew that Sergt. Tom had shadow
On his life. He was true comrade, but
whatever his sorrow was he kept it to him
self. Some whispered of faithless wife
some of love affair-some said that his cap
ture and torture by the Indians rested a
horror upon him. 1t might well have been
the latter, for truly no man in the army had
ever had a more horrible experience with
red skins than had Sergt. Tom. 1t was dur
company had attempted to help capture the
marauders. The sergeant had been sent
with a small detail into mountain pass to
zee if they could see any signs of the Indians
when the little party were fired on from am
bash and but two escaped. Sergt. Tom was
one of these, but he was destined to expert
ence the worst form of Indian torture be-
fore he rejoined his comrades, and he often
said that he believed it would have been
preferable to have shared the fate of those
who were killed outright than what he
had to suffer at the hands of the blood
thirsty Apaches before he was rescued by his
comrades.
The Apaches are the cruelest set of red
skinned devils that ever roamed the west
ern plains, and the scars that the poor SER
geant bore, received while he was tied to o
stake, standing on what was intended to be
Gs funeral pyre, were sufficient evidence of
what he had to suffer at their hands Before
the torch was applied to that pile of brush
his comrades charged the Indian camp and
he was rescued.
But those who knew Sergt. Tom best
would not believe that it was this that had
unsettled his mind. He was too brave SOL
der for that. He had faced the hostile
red man on too many battlefelds to let such
IN incident, terrible as it was, unbalance his
mind 1t was something deeper; some in
5dent of his life which they did not know.
. Sergt. Tom had been off duty by orders
If the surgeon. He was not sent to the
Rospital-he did not remain in his bunk in
quarters. He simply sat for hours and
Enoped and held communion with himself.
His comrades whispered among themselves
chat he was losing his mind, and now and
chen he started up and looked away across
the plains at the mountain in such queer
way that it was agreed to watch him for
fear he would run away. On this day there
rad come a letter for him. He had sat
and scanned the envelope for an hour and
chen put the missive in his pocket un-
syened. They said he dreaded to open that
Artter, and was waiting until the feeling
should go away. At night he lay down
and slept and sighed and moaned. AT mid
night he slipped softly out and ran away.
The worst had happened-his reason had fled.
de might wander about on the sterile plain
drown himself in the muddy river flowing
past-reach the mountain ten miles away
and die among the rocks and cedars.
At sun-up next morning we started out in
scarch--l2 of us. There were no foot.
peints to be followed-no half-clad figure
Go be seen wandering over the barren plain.
Some one rememered that on day three
months before, when riding at the base of
che grim mountain, Sergt. Tom had halted
md looked long into the mouth of the
zreat canyon splitting the mountain in
twain for half its breadth. We rode
Straight away for the mountain. Before we
reached it we crossed spot where even the
sharp bladed grass could not take root in the
aIkali soil, and in the dust we discovered
suotprints Sergt. Tom had crossed that
zpot on his way to the mountain, and he
was making direct for the canyon.
"Get torches!" said the lieutenant, as we
issmounted at the mouth of the canyon, and
10 hunted about and nd.dead limbs and
soxrsl than together with living vines.