The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-05-02
FUNsToN's LIFE
W. A. White Tells the New YORK
World the Story.

rV A White in the New York World
..BaIsac has written a story called
sThe Duchess de Langeais. The nero
of that story is NJ Armand de MONTH";
dean who had done marvellous things
he was all that a hero should be- ne
suffered long. and came into MS re
ward. and has been in q measure the
worlds ideal of a heroic man OF arms
Vet the things Fred Funston has
done in truth are as wonderful as the
things Montrideau did in fiction; IN
this age of the common place II Is haru
to fancy such a character as Funston
ITO realize his character one must
remember that the world is like a three
or four ringed circus, and that Whlle
the performance is going on in the
nineteenth century ring on Broadway
and in Wall street. there is an elgh-
+eenth ring giving an eighteenth-cen-
turv performance in the mountains OF
Tennessee and in the backwoods OF
Arkansas. and a seventeenth-cent
performance is going on around CTlPpIe
Creek while at the uttermost paris u
the earth. where boundaries OF hat!oiI9
are swaying upon the map, there IS d
sixteenth century performance, ana the
performers are just as truly OF thaI
age and time as though they wore ar
NOR and fired blunderbusSeS-
WENT FORTH LIKE A KNIGHT OF
OLD.
Fred Funston was a sixteenth-cen-
tury knight born three centuries too
late. He did the best he could TO rec
tify the error of his birth by prancing
up and down the frontiers of the world
hunting adventure.
He got as good an education as the
schools of his township and county ana
state could give him, and in 1880 set out
for the jousts and the tourney.
He began his career as a Santa he
train collector, and half a dozen cow
bows in New Mexico and Colorado and
western Kansas who laughed at the
little toy collector. as they called him,
put their faces in court plaster and
bought new guns. One OF his faVorlte
pastimes was to disarm burly cowboys
who insisted on shooting holes through
the roof of the smoker.
This sport grew tireSOme. and Fun
stOn went back and took years
schooling on the proceeds of his saw
ings. after which, having passed the
civil service examination, he got
place in the agricultural department at
Washington bOtanist, and went
into Dakota and Montana, collecting
grasses for the collection in the govern
ment museum.
BRAVED TERRORS OF DEATH
VALLEY.
"A year later Funston was assigned
to the Death Valley expedition which
was sent to survey that fearful alkali
waste in Southern California, where the
temperature ranges ABOVE Su degrees
Farenheit all the year round. It was a
fearful trip; a journey across the desert
of Sahara would have been a Sunday
school picnic in comparison. Every man
who went in that expedition except
Funston is either dead or insane.
-'One day Funston started across the
desert. one hundred and twenty-five
miles. after the mail; he got lost: the
canister of water gave out. his horse
fell under him. and for twenty-four
hours he walked without food or water
with the thermometer registering 10
and the sun beating down upon him.
He dared not lie down and rest and
his mind began to deceive him, but he
found the road and kept straight on in
spite of the calling voices in the air.
and booming of imaginary cannon and
the gurgle of deceitful water
Two days afterward he wrote me a
letter and devoted less than three lines
to the incident. and it was only by
prodd1ng and questioning that L ever
PEARY OUTDONE IN THE FROZEN
NORTH.
After coming baek from Death valley
Funston went to Alaska still working
for the government. collecting botanical
specimens. After fifteen months he re-
turned home and equipped himself for
another expedition which today is A
record breaker for all Alaskan travel
ers.
I'm April. 1898. Funston left Chilcoot