Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-08
into loop and shot It upward. that time

fairly over Fftzpatricks head.
Make fast!" roared Siclone. Fitzpatrick
shouted back, and the two men above drew
taut. Hand over hand Siclone Clark crept
up, like a monkey, bracing his feet against
the smoking clapboards. edging away from
the vomiting windows, swinging on the SIN
gle strand of horse hair, and followed by
hundred prayers unsaid.
Men who didn't know what tears were
tried to cry out to keep the choking from
their threats. It seemed an age before he
above caught frantically at his hands.
Drawing himself over the easement, he
was lost with them a moment; then, from
behind burst of smoke, they saw him rig
Fitzpatrick lifted by Clark and the nurse
over the sill, lowered like wooden tie,
whirling and swinging, down Into twenty
arms below. Before the trainmen had got
the engineer loose, the nurse, following,
slid like cat down the incline; but not an
instant too soon. A tongue Of flame Lit the
gable from below and licked the horse hair
up into curling, frizzling thread; and 81
clone stood alone in the upper easement.
1t seemed for the moment he stood there
the crowd would go mad. The shock and
the shouting seemed to confuse him; 1t may
have been the hot air took his breath. They
yelled to him to jump; but he swayed un-
certainly. Once, an instant after that, he
was seen to look down: then he drew back
from the easement. 1 never saw him again.
The flames wrapped the building in yell
low fury; by daylight the big barracks were
a smoldering pile of ruins. So little water
was thrown that it was nearly nightfan be-
fore we could get into the wreck. The
tragedy had blotted out the feud between
the strikers and the new men. Side by side
they worked, as side by side Siclone and
Fitzpatrick had stood in the morning, striv-
ing to uncover the mystery of the missing
man. Next day twice as many men were
in the ruins.
Fitzpatrick while we were searching,
SiclOna
didn't tell him the truth; indeed, we didn't
know it; nor do we yet know it. Every
brace, every beam, every brick was taken
from the charred pile. Every foot Of Gin
ders, every handful of ashes sifted; but of
a human being the SearcherS found never
trace. Not bone, not key, not knife,
not a button which could be Identified as
his. Like the smoke which swallowed him
up, he had disappeared completely and for
ever.
Is he alive? 1 cannot tell.
But this l know.
Years afterward Sidney Blair, head of
our engineering department, was running
a line, looking then, are looking yet,
for a coast outlet.
He took only a flying camp with him,
travelling In the lightest kind Of order,
camping often with the cattlemen he ran
across
One night, away down in the Panhandle,
they fell in with outfit driving bunch
of steers UP the Yellow Grass trail. Blair
man of few words, but Of great muscular
strength. and, moreover, frightfully SCARED.
He was silent and inclined to be morose
at first, but after he learned Blair was
from McCloud he unbent a bit, and after a
time began asking questions which indi-
Gated surprising familiarity with the
northern country and with road. In
particular, this man asked what had be-
come of Bucks, and when told what a big
railroad man he had grown asserted, with
a sudden bitterness and without In any
way leading up to 1t, that with Bucks on
the West End there never would have been
a strike.
Sitting at their campfire while their crews
mingled, Blair noticed in the flicker of the
blaze how scanned the throat and breast of
the cattleman were; even his sinewy fore
arms were drawn out of shape. He asked
too, whether Blair recollected the night the
barracks burned; but Blair at that time
was east of the river, and so explained
though he related to the cowboy incidents
of the fire which he had heard, among
others the story of Fitzpatrick and Siclone
Clark.
And Fitzpatrick is alive and Siclone Is
dead" said Blair in conclusion. But the
cowboy disputed him.
You mean Clark is alive and Fitzpatrick
is dead" said he.
No contended Sidney, Kirkpatrick is
running an engine up there now. l saw
him within three months" But the cow
boy was loath to conviction.
Next morning their trails forked. The
foreman seemed disinclined to part from
the surveyors, and while the bunch was
starting he rode long way with Blair,
talking in q random way. Then, suddenly
wheeling, he waved a goodbye with his
heavy Stetson and, galloping hard, was
soon lost to the north in the ruts of the
Yellow Grass.
When Blair came in he told Neighbor and
me about 1t. Blair had never seen Siclone
tity; but Neighbor believes yet that Blair
camped that night way down in the Pan
handle with no other than the cowboy en-
gineer.
Once again, that only two years ago,
something came back to US.
Holmes Kay, one of our staff OF surgeons,
the man, in fact, who took care of Fftzpat-
rick, enlisted in Illinois and went with the
1st to Cuba. They got in front of Santiago
just after the hard fighting of July 1, and
Holmes was detailed for hospital work
among Roosevelt's men, who had suffered
severely the day before.
One of the wounded, a sergeant, had Sus-
tanned gunshot wound in the jaw, and in
the confusion had received scant attention.
Kay took hold of him. He was a cowboy,
like most of the rough riders, and after his
jaw was dressed Kay made some remark
about the hot fire they had been through
before the blockhouse.
1--WE. been through a hotter before ever
saw Cuba" answered the rough rider, as
well as he could through his bandages.
The remark directed Kay's attention to the
condition of his breast and neck, which
were a mass OF scars.
Where are you from?" asked Holmes.
EVERYWHERE"
"Where did you get burned that way?'
out on the plains"
"How?'
But the poor fellow went off into delir-
ium. and to the surgeons amazement be-
gan repeating train orders. Kay was par
alyZed at the way he talked our lingo-and
a cowboy. When he left the wounded man
for the night he resolved to question him
more closely the next day; but the next
day orders came to rejOin his regiment at
the trenches. The surrender shifted things
about, and Kay, though he made repeated
inquiry, never saw the man again.
Neighbour when he heard the story, was
only confirmed in his belief that the rough
rider was Siclone Clark. 1 give you the
tales as they came to me, and for what
you may make of them.
| myself believe that If Siclone Clark is
still alive he will one day yet come back to
where he was best known and in spite of
his faults, best liked. They talk of him out
there as they do of old man Sankey.
l say I believe if he lives he will one day
come back. The day he does will be great
day in McCloud. On that day Fitzpatrick
will have to take down the little tablet
which he placed in the brick facade of the
hotel which now stands on the site of the
old barracks. For as that tablet now
stands it is sacred to the memory Of Siclone
Clark.
CThe End)