Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-12-24

time of 1t In this world that they were
indecently anxious to be sent to Para
disc. and in consequence inconvenient-
ly reckless.
So that on the whole It was only the
younger and rasher spirits among the
Berbers who tried much retaliation,
and the elders, with households to
provide for, generally found it profit
able to pay enough taxes to buy off the
rest Of their crops. But be it clearly
understood they did not one little bit
like paying, and never accounted them
selves the sultans subjects or even
his vassals. -.
Sings the long-bow and the cross
bow. had from time immemorial been
the Berbers' missile throwers. though
like the Baleares, they had always had
and have today for that matter, a
weakness for the sling. Black powder
and the short-stocked gun with five
foot barrel have crept among them
these latter years but owing to their
inefficiency and the difficulty of COM
ing by them, have achieved no vast
popularity. It remained for Saint
Ibrahim to discover and lust after the
rifle.
His holiness, as it happened, was
one day at the northern edge of his
marches. where the Atlas foothills
curve out into the plain, and the tenn
perate climate of the mountain verges
into a tropical heat. He was over on
that side on the matter of cohort Of
wild pig raiding among the tribal corn
and being keen sportsman, and find
ing the pig plentiful, stayed down
there a whole week. and slew fourteen
fine boars to his own spear (whereof,
the tusks, by the way, remain as hat
pegs In a set Of rooms In Trinity Hall
to this day..
Upon this innocent amusement there
descended without warning the adj
vance scouts Of sultan's army, and
the sportsmen and heaters ran or rode
for their lives in fourteen different
directions. Three heaters and cousin
of the kaids were captured, and his
highness the sultan, with that paternal
care for his people for which he was
noted, and which so endeared him to
them, cut off the hands and feet from
those and set them to crawl back to
the mountains as heralds of his ap-
proach.
The saint, however, willy old fighter
that he was. had rallied the rest of his
men, had swung round in cover, and
charged In most dashing style through
the sultan's rear-guard just as the
army had unsaddled for the midday
halt. It is estimated that he hustled
forty-seven true believers into Para
would annoy the hours hereafter. and
~ ~ - r,{v ~
the faithful that it would take at least
pilgrimage to the prophets tomb at
Mecca to cleanse away. Also from an
officer (deceased) he took gun, and.
as an afterthought, charged back
again through the scattered soldiers.
and obtained the ammunition that
served 1t.
This gun, which happened to be an
early pattern Of the Winchester re-
peater, pleased his holiness much.
Within five minutes he had grasped it's
mechanism, and proved it's value on
the target so satisfactorily, that three
more mothers in Islam were left to
mourn sons who had served among the
sultan's infantry: And these hits were
made at under two hundred yards
rise; it never occurred to the pious
man that gun could carry farther.
But in the pursuit. which was hot,
he tested the weapon at longer and
longer ranges, till at length (having
mastered the mechanism Of the sight.
ing) he sent his man to Paradise &C.
curately enough at eight hundred and
fifty yards, and felt that new ele-
ment had entered into the science OF
warfare. The trifling detail that the
long stock to which he was unaccus-
toned kicked violently on his cheek
and cut it to the bone did not concern
him in the least.
OF the sultan of Morocco, as 1t hap
penend, no more was seen that year.
It may be that business called him
elsewhere; it may be that the long
range fire of that desperate rear-guard
action put the fear Of Allah into him;
but the saint retired to his castle in
peace, and, what is far more to the
point, his fertile valley lands re-
NAMED unraided, and the decennial
blackmail was not asked for.
For many weeks thereafter Sfdf
Ibrahim drank his green tea and
smoked his pipe of keef with mind
that wrestled with big things. A new
factor had arisen in honest warfare.
The god OF battle, who was one Of the
old Berber mythology before the new
tangled Mohammedism had been
forced on the tribe, the god Of battle
had grown longer arm.
Yesterday, II you shot at a man at
hundred PAGES rise with all the good
will In the world, the odds were that
three times out of four you missed
him. Today, when the Yaiour gun with
the stripes inside the barrel had been
restocked and reheel-plated to suit
true believers grip. you could kill run
ming pig with it at six hundred yards
without a miss. And then, bism'illah,
there was it's damnable faculty for fir
ing ten shots in ten heart-beats-and
being reloaded in ten heart-beats
more.
The less the holy man thought over
the points Of the gun the less he liked
them: but he recognized facts when
they came against him: and when his
chief adviser in the elders council
suggested that the gun was produced
h., +ch craft and might we'll he sent