The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-09
LOST IN THE DESERT.
The Pitlful Fate of Six Year-Old Boy
 Who Wandered Away

Who Wandered Away.
 The family of MT. Godfrey Hughes, q member of the firm of assayers owning the Customs Assay office, recently went 1 to spend the summer months visiting 1 friends who own a large ranch about | seventeen miles above Albuquerque The family consists of the mother, two sons and a daughter. Last Saturday | the children tsked permission of their mother to go to corral some three hundred yards away from the house and on the other side of a knoll that ob- scured the corral from view to play. Permission was granted and the youngsters bounded away for their af- ternoon frolic. Soon the little sister wearied and the elder brother proposed that they take her to the house. To this the younger brother, Emerson, who
 was only six years old, demurred, as he wished to play more. So the older
 brother took his sister to the house.
 Upon arrival there the mother asked, "Where Is brother?" "We left him
 playing at the corral" said the boy.
 The mother then sent him back for
 the little truant. Shortly the messen-
 ger came back, panting from his hur-
 ried running, and exclaimed that his
 brother was nowhere to be found; that
 he was not at the corral. The fright ened mother hurried over to the corral and there found the report of her boy to be true. She searched and searched
 but could find no trace of the missing child. At ast she came upon some lit- tie footprints showing that the child had taken q direction the opposite to what he should have taken, {and the harassed mother became more and more alarmed as the fact that her child had strayed and was in all probability lost became apparent She followed the footprints for three miles and only ceased because darkness was approach ing and she was powerless and had to call for aid. As rapidly as her nervous and exhausted state would permit she retraced her steps to the house and alarmed the household Immediately search party was drganized and despite the on-coming of night started out in quest of the helpless child.
 Through that disheartening night the weary search continued. And the next day the trained services of seventy-five Indians were impressed, and all that long and trying day the search went on and yet no clue to the wanderer. The grief and agony of the poor afflicted mother were beyond consolation. The continued discouraglng reports that were from time to time brought her only added to accentuate her suffering. The tracks could be followed for dis tance of twelve miles and then seemed to double upon themselves and finally became lost Without rest the search CTS continued in what seemed their hopeless quest. The thought of the poor little tot being out upon the dreary plains alone, without shelter or food wandering on with the helplessness of the lost, crying possibly with fright tormented by the bangs of hunger and thirst was simply maddening to the poor mother and friends seeming so helpless to terminate the trying situa- ton,
 All of Sunday night the search con tinued, and early Monday morning the father, who had been ignorant of the tragedy, was wired. He arrived that day and added his untiring efforts to those of the large party already out.
 To think of the dreadful pathos of 1t all The poor child was not found un- til Wednesday morning. It was then found by Mexican, who carried the exhausted little form to his cabin, where the child fingered for three hours and then passed away. The ordeal had been beyond the little ones endurance. The remains were taken back to the ranch and next day were inferred in the cemetery of the neighboring village. --El Paso Times.