The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-21

..
land and Russia have united and de-
clared war against the United States.
| New ork City is captured; San Fran
cisco is being bonbarded; Russian
troops are coming through Siberia to
Alaska. and down through British
America to Chicago the owners of the
North American whaling fleet have
paid this white man $4,000 TO bring
this word: Go north as soon as the ice
breaks; push north; stay north, as far
north as the ice will permit, for two
years or until peace has been declared.
Also avoid communicating with other
/ Ships
What Is the little matter of SWIM
ming a tropical torrent under fire as
compared with bringing news like this.
and being sound asleep and locked in
a captains cabin when it strikes 800
| homeSick Yankees who want to go
home and fight. Funston will never
again in his life make the sensation
he made in the Arctic ocean. Nor will
the devil and two captains ever have
so much fun over him.
When he returned to Rampant House
he had made a journey of 900 miles in
the dark night of Arctic winter. Peary's
first famous journey was made in an
Arctic summer. and it was not so long
as Funston's either.
When summer dawned Funston took
up his kit and left Rampant House and,
with two Indians, came down the Por-
cupine to the Yukon. There Funston
| left the Indians and, alone, in an open
boat, drifted down the length of the
Yukon to it's mouth, making a botani-
cal survey of the country. The pressed
| flora that he gathered are now in the
agricultural department at Washing
ton, and his report is a matter of rec
ord. He was picked up by the revenue
cutter Bear and came home in the fall
of "a. 1t was hard trip, but Funston
thought nothing of it and was too busy
to go to New York and get fame.
When he got back TO civilization,
Funston tried to establish a coffee
plantation in Central America, and
lived down under the equator for a
few months. Later he drifted into
New York, and was made assistant
| auditor of the Santa Fee railroad when
it was being reorganized. But the
task of signing his name to bonds eight
hours day grew irksome, and Fun
ston felt what he thought was his life
call to duty. and in August, 1885, he
packed his kit and went with a filibus-
tering party on the Dauntless to Cuba.
He entered the Cuban army under
Garcia. He was with Dana Osgood
when he fell, and Funston was pro-
NOTED to Osgood's place and rank an!
made commandant of Cuban artillery.
Now, Funston didn't know anything
about artillery when he began, but he
kept his ignorance to himself. He
looked over the guns as farm boy
looks over a cultfvator, and pulled
them apart and put them together
again, and then went out to fight.
Then they brought him a dynamite
gun-the first one that had ever been
used in actual warfare. This is his
90. 8 III -
and prodded around her for a day or
two. till 1 found from the printed direc-
lions that came with her which end
was the shooting end. l didn't let the
Cubans know that 1 was scared but
/ was; we got into a little mixup one
day and the old man sent for the
dynamite. / waltZed her out. kept the
directions in my head as well as !
could, and loaded her up. When the
go. For a second she seemed to
wheeze. It's all up 1 thought. The
CubanS ran, but / didn't dare to. 1t
was only a second and then she
coughed and the air in the Spanish
fort was filled with misfit logs. and de-
bris, and l knew that il was all right.
| turned around and grinned like the
cat that had swallowed the canary. and
no one knew that 1 had just finished
making four or five kinds of a fool of
myself. After they had set 'em up in
the other alley, we rolled 'em again."
Funston was wounded three times in
Cuba, once through an arm, once
through the lungs, and once his horse
fell upon him, fracturing his thigh.
From this wound he was lame when he
left Kansas with the Twentieth last
spring. He came home from Cuba on
sick leave; he had an order from
Garcia to the president of the Cuban
republic for his parole. but he was
captured by the Spaniards while max
ing his way across country to get the
order honored. His quick wit and
good nerve saved him. While he was
explaining to his Spanish captors that
he was coming in to surrender he
seemed to be hopping his face with
his handkerchief. but really was slip
ping the order for the parole from the
handkerchief into his mouth. The
Spariards did not discover the trick.
Funston stuck to his story of surren-
der and the court martial released
him. General FitZhugh Lee fitted him
out with his passage money and suit
of hand down clothes, and Funston
struck New York in the winter of
1878, racked with fever, broken in
body. and discouraged in mind.
This is briefly the Funston that they
knew out west, when the war broke
out, and this is why it was cool policy
for Governor Leedy to make Funston
a colonel. He did not apply for the
place, and did not accept it at once
He feared that he might not have mill
tary training-though he had expert
ence-enough to do the work. But
when he took his regiment into camp |
he took uD the gentle art of murder |
ing, and learned its theory as well as
one can in the few months during
which the Kansas boys were kept in |
the United States. In the dull time |
he met pretty California girl-Eda |
Blankert-and at the end of six |
weeks acquaintance married her. His |
wedding trip was a walk around the |
block, and a few hours later he sailed |
away with his regiment. A month |
later his wife followed him on Hong |
kong steamer and the interruption !
honeymoon began in thine Philippines, |
Just before the battle. The Kansas |
boys who write home say that Fun |
ston sleeps and eats with them on the |
firing line that he has not been in his |
tent since the outbreak began last |
February He is their idol. His lame |
ahead OF them when they charge. He |
was with them when they charged into |
Calocan. He was the first white SOL
died to enter Malolos. He was the first |
officer to cross the river at |
Calumpit.
The people of the Missouri valley |
knew he was a hero before the world |
found it out And it will be a happy |
day when the young man comes home |
with stars on his shoulders-back to
Grigsby's station, where he fused to |
be so happy and so poor"-and if the |
stars are not on his shoulders the
laurels will be on his brow and Kan