Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1902-07-09
Fighting LIE ia the philippines.


nut, whittle a stick, and wonder
at the play OF cOlOrs in the grain,
and finally they find upon a small
bush q handsome fruit, and be-
cause II much resembles a persim.
mon, they promptly eat. Then
within easy earshot of the com
pany they stretch out upon the
moss and sleep, mol dream Of the
furtive, stealthy steps that encir-
Gle them as they lie.
The day comes crawling Grim
sonly down the lofty Pampyan
bOles accompanied by a madden
ing chorus Of chirping and song,
as the tropic woods awake. A
blaze Of yellow light, and it is
broad day. The sleeping COM
pany rises stifly; pipes are lit, and
the drowsy mess cooks kindle tiny
fires here and there. Coffee is
quickly over, and at rOll-call two
OF the company are missing.
Unanswered shoutings reechO in eerie
calls from the shadowy gorge below.
Louder cries are Knocked in the high
whispers over their heads. A purpose
less noise IN an awesOme place vi
brates the nerves that carry fear, so
the clamor is stopped, and hurrying
squads are sent TO beat the near by
thickets. 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, weltering
in a pool of blood beneath a fern tree.
There are other things about them that
are strange, things that are missing, for
a~bOrigines are queer collectors,
The men of the searching squad look
at them for a moment in silence, a
silence observant of every detail. One
curses softly, another bursts into tears,
not Of sorrow or sympathy, but the
tears that are displaced by IN under
lying load Of homesickress and past
fever. Another mar longs to grasp an
object that is lying near, and dance
and striek and rave. The corporal
says no word, but soon he shakes his
head and smiles, a smile to jar the rea-
son 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 orders, for
the evening before smokes were sighted.
Oh the orders. / want the
others to seel'
The others come-and see. The
hard .factd captain gives some sharp
toned orders, and the mutilated corOses
are quickly inferred where they lie. At
the conclusion a man has a chill, and
after the chill he raves Two men car
ry him bound to a stretcher until he is
able to walk again.
They cross the divide that rises be-
tween them and the sea beyond. then
down they go following the water
course which tumbles in their line of
march. Fresh waterleads to salt; their
destination is the sea, and the beach ia
easier to travel than tangled forest. Be
sides they have a horror of the place,
and because there is so much room for
noise they travel in silence and whis
pers. Men who laugh at the spit of a
Mauser, leap at the hoarss croak of a
Toucan. Swarthy cheeks that deied
the slanting rays of the tropic sun,
blanch at the rustic of a jungle monkey.
They trip on slippery boulders and
coast down slanting rocks upon their
heels. Their eyes are all abont them,
Down they go, slipping and falling,
bruising their bodies ON roots and
stones, stung by insects and poisonous
plants, choking with thirst flor they
have left the stream), and haunted by
the shadows now creapIng in from the
west. Then suddenly they plunge from
the tangle into a beaten path and see
far below them a vista Of sparkling
wave
The head of the column haults while
the stragglers come in. Down the
slope beneath them a smoke rises
straight into the breathless air. They
see it without heed, for the town below
is friendly, and it is at the earnest sup
plication Of its President that they have
come.
On they swing in column Of tours,
strongly but in silence, for their spirits
are as low as the sun that is dropping
in the sea beneath. At the bottom of
the hill a path turns sharply and winds
beneath zane and bananas. Here the
captain calls an other halt. while his
keen and restless eye roves searchingly