The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-06-30
BY FREDERICK WALWoRrH

| theirs who would help him out. He re-
membered hearing that American cap
/ ital was pouring into the island. This
was blatant falsehood, but William
/ lacked means of verification.
! So he parted with cuff links, shirt
studs, stick pins and all like impede
ments and thus secured the price of a
seeOnd-class passage to Hongkong, and
thence of another and worse to the ISL
ands of his hopes.
1t was hot when he was dumped on
the wharf at Manila, and the divers
doors or the town rose up in his nos
trils. Somehow it did not look hope
full and Williams spirits sank. He was
acutely conscious that he was nearer
absolute restitution than he had ever
been in the whole of his twenty-five
years.
/ would willingly draw a veil over the
humiliatiOns that followed. By the end
of the week William was wildly search
| ing for something, anything, to do to
put bread between his teeth. With the
terTNr born of conscious weakness he
became a fawning, lean-jowled beggar
| in his desperation, and despite his
! hungry eagerness he was so utterly in
efficient that he got nothing. Twice he
found place where a white man was
needed, twice he was tried, found
wanting and discharged within the
| day.
Ultimately he came to thoughts of
suicide. He even sat on the wharf and
| looked down at evening on the black
waters of the bay, dreaming hungrily
| of peace and quiet. But he lacked the
courage for the actual plunge. There
were sharks in the blackness of the
I bay and that is a death one would
hardly choose even before starvation.
of elv4 ~. ~
water front that he stumbled, weak,
sick and trembling, back irto the town.
Here he ran upon an army officer and
abjectly begged the price of food. The
erect, clean-jaWer officer looked him
over with a cold eye. Beggars are
somewhat numerous in Manila.
Why don't you get work." he asked.
ana William poured out his remarkable
tale.
Il don't believe you, of course" said
the officer, and handed him a quarter.
which William accepted with almost
i fearful thanks. But if YOU are actual
ly starving you can enlist, you know
provided you are sound" and he passed
on with a stiff back
Next morning discovered William
standing before the recruiting office
| long before tho place was opened. He
was feverishly anxious What If it
! Why hadn't he gone in for athletics
and physical culture and that sort of
| thing when he could? You see the
| Nadir of the university was shrunk to
| sOlemnly, diminutive proportions.
When he stripped for examination
his body was a sight for a dime mu-
scum, and the surgeons brows con-
tracted.
What's the matter?" he demanded,
"starved?"
Yes, sir" said William meekly.
Luckily that was the worst that allied
him. despite his coddled youth and an
hour later he was clad in khaki, and
with a stomach full of hot food was
dreamily listening to the admonitions
of an elderly sergeant who was openly
disguised with his job. William Mont
gOmery Crimson Carhart had put his
hand to a three-year contract with the
government and was now rookie in
the United States army. He had sold
what was left of his birthright for a
badly needed mess of pOttage. 1t re-
NAMED to be seen whether the army
could do for him what parents, tutors,
university and Paris had failed to do
make a man of him.
For a time he had little leisure for
thought upon his misfortunes. He was
drilled and drilled and drilled till the
Elllc Oh Ills SllOulu6I WblSDeu ike d TELL
inch gun, and his back and legs ached
with a healthy fatigue His appetite
was a marvel to himself and his sleep
was dreamless oblivion.
At the end of week of this he was
herded on a transport with a dozen
others under command of the recruit
ing sergeant, and south they went to
join the regiment on the island of Ne
gros.
Strange things happened to William
then. His comrades in D company were
like men of another planet. Tough, in
the specialized sense of the term, is
perhaps the best way of describing
them. Their sole connecting link with
the civilization William was used to
seemed TO be the toothbrush which
each man carried and regularly used.
Williams first night in camp was an
experience to be remembered. He
awoke dripping from head to foot from
pail of water some one had distribut-
ed impartially over his extended per-
SON In this sopped and bewildered
condition he was seized roughly and.
before he know what had happened
was hurting skyward from a taut
blanket He came down whirling
windmill OF arms and legs, struck the
blanket on his head and shoulders and
rose again like an uncommOnly resi-
dent rubber ball.
Time and again he went UP and came
down. till he knew he was dying, and
when at last his boisterous tormentors
Ioosed him from the coil he sank to the
ground weeping like a baby. A face
bent down close To his and a rough
voice said tauntingly:
There, there, mama's pet. Don't
try"
Now in these circumstances there was
but one thing for William TO do. If he
had struck out in a blind rage at the
haunting face, if he had rushed his tor
mentor with the barbaric passion of a
breech-clouted savage, he would I'M
doubtedly have been soundly thrashed
but he would have gained mems re-