Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1902-07-28

A column of men winds out of the
long, cool avenue of cocoa palms,
pauses a moment and strikes across
the furnace of open meadow beyond
which lies the forest. In single file
they take the native wood-cutter's
winding path, which lies twisting
and turning up the incline where the
merciless rays of the afternoon sun
beat vertically, to be thrown CULVER
ing back in shimmering heat waves
that mask the outline of the dark
green wall beyond Here and there
they dip into a gully where a month
ago spring had been; now dry and
parched. The flaming rays have
scared the vivid green till it blends
with the desiccated meadow grass.
This Shows "War Is He'll"
Heat! Heat! Heat! Hot noises, hot
smells, dry hot baking vegetation
that rustles crisply against their
thighs. In the impalpable powder
beneath their feet creep creatures
sitting to see; lizards breathing dust,
insects whose lurid glow is like an
ember. Hot smells of dust and
scorched weeds burn their throats
and nostrils. Over their head comes
the droning hum Of insects that
sounds like and overdose of quinine
and might be. From dead tree
bellbug strikes his clear, ringing note.
The contents of canteens are filter
ed through their hides in the first 500
yards; after that they Stake their
thirst with thoughts of the cool
springs in the woods above.
Late in the day they dip into
ravine and cross a cascade where the
water, strange to say, is clear and
cold. Here they camp.
While it is still light, two privates
stray away. They poke and peer,
wonder at the play of colors in the
grain, and finally they find upon a
small bush a handsome fruit, and be-
cause it much resembles a persim-
mon, they promptly eat. Then with
in easy earshot of the company they
stretch out upon the moss and sleep,
nor dream of the furtive, stealthy
steps that encircle them as they lie.
i 4
The brother of one of the missing
men, and an old chum of the other
are in the party that finds them
finds part of them-headless weller
ing in a pool of blood beneath fern
tree.
The men of the searching squad
look at them for moment in silence,
a silence observant of every detail.
One curses softly, another bursts
into tears, not of sorrow and sym
pathy, but the tears that are dis
placed by an underlying load of
inconsistencies and past fever. An
other man longs to grasp an object
that is lying near, and dance and
shrek and rave. The corporal says
no word, but soon he shakes his head
and smiles, smile to jar the reason
of those that see.
Suddenly he whips his revolver
from the holster and fires straight
into the air. A man questions the
act and says that it is contrary to
order, for the evening before smokes
were sighted
Ashes to Ashes.
On the orders. I want the
others to see!"
| The others come-and see. The
hard-faced captain gives some sharp
| toned orders and the mutilated
corpses are quickly inferred where
they lie. At the conclusion a man
has a chill, and after the chill he
raves. Two men carry him bound to
a stretcher until he is able to walk
again.
| The cultivated fields are passed,
then the road dips through thicket
before coming out upon the town Ito
which the soldiers have come at the
| pressing call of the presidente).
Here the jungle advances impene-
| trably, thick as fog, darker than the
forest, for the light that they have
just left.
The last squad has entered, when
a rustling arises from the creepers on
both sides-the rustling of an ana
conda as it uncoils; the rustling of
king cobra, as, with sibilant hiss, it