The daily Alaskan., 1910-01-05
THE WHITE SPY
ey NATHANIEL HURaARD.
tcOpyrlght, 1909, by American Press AssO-
 ciatlon.l

face. The friend without the counter sign passed him, entered the lines and walked hurrledly in among the tents.
 Great heavens, is that a ghost com ing?" exclaimed an officer to another, both standing outside one of the head quarters tents.
 "Or one of the men parading in his nlghtclothes"
 Meanwhile the figure came up, and as he did so the officer recoIled. He was in uniform, but in the moonlight bis clothes appeared to be made of white linen. The face, hands, hair indeed, every part of the person was white.
 ''w.h-o are you. and what the deuce do you want?" stammered one of the officers.
 "John Waters, and on my way to see the general"
 "What! In that makeup?"
 "Yes. have important information that should be acted upon at Once."
 "Is that you, John?" called the gen. erals voice from within the tent
 "Yes, general"
 "Come in here"
 The figure In white entered the gen. erals tent and was received with the same astonlshment as before. Ten minutes later stan officers were flying in every direction carrying orders to the subordinate commanders, and in the early morning columns were march ing by different roads to cut or the enemy that the white figure had re. ported to be in full retreat When bis information had been delivered and the orders issued the general called upon him for an account of how he had learned the facts and an eXplana- ton of bis strange appearance. This was his story:
 "I was scouting when I came sud denly upon a body of Spaniards. There was nothing to do but surrender, and this 1 did. l was carried along in their center right in among the main bodies of their troops. whom I saw always marching southward. It suited my purpose to appear not to understand spanish. and after awhile they talked freely among themselves in my hear ing. They did not know what to do with me, and finally their leader pro- posed the following plan: They would stop at the next house and get some thing to eat. While thus engaged they would pretend 10 leave me to myself, and if l attempted to get away they would shoot me.
 "Soon after they stopped at a house next to a -four mIll, Leaving me, they went Into the house and were rather more lax in their watch than they in- tended. Still, the ground was open, and if ran they would have free range at me. determined on a ruse, I hung my cloak on bush, put my bat on it and then rolled in among some flour sacks that were scattered about. crawling into one of them Presently one of the Spaniards came to the door of the house, and saw him looking at my dummy. He called to the others that I was about to run, and several of them, coming to the door, fired at my cloak. Both hat and cloak fell to the ground, whereupon the men went back Into the house.
 "There was a horse standing by the mill loaded with -four sacks. I rolled to this horse in my sack and managed to climb up and throw myself over his back among the sacks. After awhile the Spanlards came out. One of them went to my cloak, picked 1t up and, not finding my body, notified the others. They. much surprised, mount ing their horses and rode or in a d. rection they supposed had fied.
 "Then a man came out of the mill and, mounting a horse, led the one l was on by a halter. When we were on the road raised myself up, putting my head, white as 1t is now with flour, out of the bag. The man let go the halter and galloped away as fast as he could. Throwing or the -four bags, l rode northward with a view to reach ing our lines. Fortunately for me 1t was now getting dusk. l passed the men who supposed they had shot me riding a few hundred yards to my left. I saw by their looks that they took me for my ghost, so I concluded to play the part and rode right on rigid ly. Their captain hailed me, but l paid no attention to him and was soon lost to them in the darkness.
 q had no trouble in passing out posts. for they all took me for a spec ter. If any one was courageous enough to challenge me I invariably rode right toward him, making him think that l was about to ride through him. He al- ways got out Of the way, and only one man fired at me.
 "On approaching our lines dis mounted and, letting my horse go where he liked, walked. did not dare take such risks among the Spanish rear guard. considering that was moving toward our lines. I skulked through tbeir picket line and when