Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-04-29
.OODDS A PROBLEM.
RENEGADE Soldier From u. S.
Army Dangerous Datto
of the MaIayS.
TROOPS TRYING TO GET HIM
Remarkable Tale of Raw Recruit from
Massachusetts Who Deserted to
the Enemy.

Advices from the Philippines tell of
Datto Dodds, erstwhile Private Dodda,
who was for some ten minutes a mem
Der of the Nineteenth United States
Infantry. Until Dodds is dead or paci-
fed they say there will be no peace in
the Malay part of the islands, writes
the Washington correspondent of the
Kansas City Star
Once they were bending all their eff
forts toward catching and hanging
Private Dodds. Just now they are pa
tiently trying to negotiate with him. or
SO the story runs. Dodds was ordinary
/ enough appearing army material when
serpent tongued recruiting sergeant
enlisted him at Boston some years ago.
| Shock headed, dull eyed. bull necked,
| deep chested. shambling in his gait,
| DoddS attracted no attention on the
| transport beyond the small notoriety
or eating more and drinking more awk-
wardly than the rest
| But when he and his fellow rockies
| landed at Manila the Massachusetts
factory hand kept. right on marching
from the end of the gangplank through
Manila and out toward the violet green
mountains, where lurked the restless
| insurrecto
| a searching party found him and took
him back. 1t was not believed he in
| tended to desert. so he was not punish
| ed, but was sent. with eighty eight 9th
| er recruits, to join 4 battalion of the
| Nineteenth infantry. then stationed in
| Cebu. Dodds glanced into his tent
and kept on going. Another searching
party looked in vain for him, and it
was supposed he had been killed by
natives. \ little later there was a
night attack by natives, and the voice
of Dodds was heard urging the enemy
| TO their work. Time and again this oc-
Cured, and Dodds always managed to
| get away.
Why Dodds joined the insurgents has
| never been explained. He may have
been inoculated before enlistment with
the anti-imperialistic virus of Edward
Atkinson and other Boston friends of
Aguinaldo. or 1t might have been some
heritage of Morse pirate blood that
| blossOmed in his brain under the orien-
| tai sun. The deeper mystery is how the
| Untutored factory hand mastered a
barbaric people and more barbaric
| language in so short time. The sol
diers of the Nineteenth rcjOiced when
peace fell on Cebu and the insurgents
| agreed, as one of their terms. TO sur
render the white renegades and desert
ers among them. At last the outraged
. fo
Dodds, and q halter. too. but he was
not among the renegades surrendered.
/ While the exact movements of Dodds
from this point are Il mystery, he is
supposed to have fed by banca or lor-
cha to Mindanao or Sulu. Subsequent
ly he turned up in the household of
Datto Tantung, on Tawi Tawi island,
where he was said to have married a
daughter of that potentate and TO have
been initiated by him and to have been
raised to the rank of postmaster
among dattos..
Wore the Clothes.
At any rate, Dodds wore the silk
drawers. silver embroidered vests and
arsenal sash of the Malays. did little
cautious pirating with his adopted ma
ton perhaps and was satisfied to be
separated from civilization and the
cocktail, which. as George AIDE says.
follows the flag Dodds had the max
ing of good Utah Mormon of the last
generation, it seems, because in all
his wanderings the native institution
which he adopted first was the harem.
And everywhere he was the most
unrecOnStructed of all the rebels
against bis mother country. In time
; the deserter came to acquire some
thing like belligerent right and privi-
lege of treating with American author
ity like other dattos.
But the army has never lost its de-
sire to catch Datto Dodds in n fight
where the fierceness of the onslaught
will make 1t convenient to overlook
giving quarter. And Datto Dodds re-
ciprocates by stirring up the Malays
whenever expeditions and treaties
like peace. Just now he is kicking up
trouble again.
Meanwhile this hairy oaf of New
England factory town, silken clad
barbarously hung with pearls and
weapons, reigns like king or feudal
lord in an arabian Nights" setting,
with the soft southern seas murmuring
about his island and q host of fierce
eyed, brown faced subjects bowling at
his big feet.