The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-13
A Mountain Siren.
BY JOHN WINTHROP GREEN.


Copyright, 1900 by John Winthrop
Green.)
When a man has a story to tell I be-
lieve he should be permitted to tell it
in his own way, and that the reader
should not sneer and criticise because the
teller must use the personal pronoun and
perhaps refer TO his perception or his
prowess. If it is his adventure how can
he avoid saying, Il did thus or SOP" If
his courage pulled him out of a tight
place why seek to demean it? A man
is what he is. If things have happened
to him which may be of interest to others,
let him write of them as they took place.
whether he was a hero or a craven.
Your atlas will show you that the
Eastern Carpathian mountains form a
portion of the boundary line between Ser
via and Bulgaria. If you cross anywhere
to the north of Prot you must cross the
range. In my wanderings afoot L had
planned to cross the range by the public
road between Pirot and Nissa, but for
three days l was a guest at a poor little
wayside inn in the shadow of the foot
hills. This inn differed in no degree from
a hundred others, being. only wretched
but l had made long tramp and want
ed a breathing spell before the long and
rugged ascent. The landlord was a
silent, morose man, giving me little at
tention, and his wife was a sloven with
a face which a man would look at twice
only for it's wickedness. The beds and
ahe fare were of the meanest, but, as 1
had expected nothing DETER L was not
disappointed.
On The second day of my arrival, as 1
was walking along the banks of stream
half a mile from the inn, an English pc
destrian came along. That is, he was
pedestrian in the sense that he was afoot.
AS soon as he learned who 1 was, he
told me that cousin of his had jour
neyed that way three months before, but
had mysteriously disappeared The miss
ing man HAD been traced as far as Prot.
He was known to have set out for che
mountain road, but he could not be traced
into Bulgaria. Somewhere on the noun
tain trail he had vanished from sight.
The story did not interest me overmuch.
American and English pedestrians abroad
have a habit Of disappearing from the
world now and then, and 1t Is learned
later on that they were tucked away in
some obscure inn or camped amidst some
old ruin The searcher passed on to my
inn and made inquiries, and two hours
later Informed me that he had secured
no news.
That evening a second searcher arriv-
ed. He was a native Servlan, living at Les
koyatz and had been hired by a French
man to prosecute inquiries regarding the
disappearance Of a young man of 20 who
was making a pedestrian tour. Indeed l
soon recalled the fact of meeting the
young man at Semendria two months pre-
viously. He had headed for the Carpa-
1hlans and Bulgaria. and he had also
disappeared on the mountains. Even when
the two disappearances were coupled to-
gether / saw nothing alarming. II was
not until the third day that l felt / had
cause for speculation. Then police Of
fetal. who had been sent out from Novi-
bazar by the widowed mother Of a young
man who had disappeared as mysteriously
as the other two, reached the inn. This
young man. who simply set out for a two
weeks tramp in order TO boast of having
crossed the Carpathians, had been traced
within five miles Of the inn, but the land
lord and his daughter stoutly denied that
he had ever reached It. There were roads
by which he could have branched off and
continued his way, but yet che official
was not satisfied He frankly told me that
he believed young Hull had come TO the