Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1898-09-14
Il was only a boy, not yet six
teen. but they We're going to

- - shoot him. nevertheless.
The band of insurgents to which he
belonged had been routed by the Army
of Versailles and, taken red-handed
with some ten of his comrades he had
been conducted to the Marie of the
Eleventh ACCOMPLISHMENT.
Struck by his youthful appearance,
and also astonished at the boys cool
ness in this hour of extreme peril the
commandant had ordered that the fatal
verdict should, so far as he was con-
cerned, be suspended for the moment
and that he should be kept a prisoner
until his companions had met their fate
at the neighboring barrcade
Apparently quite calm and resigned
his great eyes and his face-the pale
face of Partisan child-showed neith-
er emotion nor anxiety. He seemed to
watch all that was passing around him
as though they held no concern for him.
He heard the sinister report of the
fusillade which hurled his companions
into eternity without moving n muscle;
ing into the great afterwards" which
was soon to become the Present to
him also Perhaps he was thinking of
his happy careless childhood-he had
hardly outgrown it; perhaps of his re-
lations and their sorrow when they
heard of the chain of fatality which
had made him fatherless and had toss
ed him into the seething turmoil of civ
II war, and now demanded his life at
the hands of ellow-countrymen; and,
perhaps, he wondered why such things
were.
At the time war was declared he was
living happily with his father and
mother, honest working folk who had
apprenticed him to printer; politics
never troubledshat little household
1t was not long. however before the
Prussians had slain the head of the
family. The priyations of the siege, the
long and weary waiting at the butch
ers' and bakers shops when the scanty
dole of food was distributed in the rig
ors of that terrible winter, had stretch
ed his mother on the bed of suffering
where she lay slowly dying.
One day when he had gone with 9TH
ers to dig for potatoes in the FROST
bound plain of st. Denis a Prussian
bullet broke his shoulder, and after
wards, driven partly by hunger partly
by fear of his companions threats, he
had enrolled himself in the Army of the
Commune. Like many another, fear
and fear only had led him into and
kept him In the ranks: he had no heart
life was about to pay the penalty he
was glad that he could lay no man S
death to his charge. He was innocent
of that, at any rate.
The things he had seen and suffered
during the few last months had given
him a dread of life. He hated to think
of leaving his mother in this terrible
world-his mother whom he loved so
dearly, who had always been so mex
pressibly good to him; but he comfort
ed himself with the thought that before
long she would come, too-she could not
have much more suffering to undergo,
she was so weak when he last saw her,
four days ago.
kiss me again, dear-again,' she had
said, for | feel that | may never see
you more
"Ah," he thought, sadly. ''lf they
would only trust him-would give him
only one hour of llberty-how he would
run to her and then come back and give
himself up TO the hands that hungered
for his life. He would give his word,
and he would keep 1t. Why not? Save