Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1912-03-28
A. c. Mcclurg & Co.. 1907
:AfALE OF THE plains

sionally venturing to try open battle
with the small squads of armed men.
In this stress of sudden emergency
every available soldier on active duty
civilians had been pressed into serv-
ice, and hastily despatched to warn
exposed settlers, guide wagon trains,
or carry dispatches between outposts.
And thus our rider, Jack Keith, who
knew every foot of the plains lying
between the Republican and the Can
adam rivers, was one of these thus
suddenly requisitioned, merely be-
cause he CHANGED to be discovered I'M
, employed by the harassed commander
of cantonment just without the en-
virons of Carson City Twenty min
utes later he was riding swiftly into
the northwest, bearing important
news to General Sheridan, commander
of the Department, who happened at
that moment to be at Fort Cairnes.
To Keith this had been merely anoth-
er page in a career of adventure; for
him to take his life in his hands had
long ago become an old story. He
had quietly performed the special
duty allotted him, watched squad
ron of troopers trot forth down the
valley of the Republican, received the
hasty thanks Of the peppery little gen
eral, and then, having nothing better
to do, traded his horse in at the gov
eminent corral for fresh mount and
started back again for Carson City
For the greater portion of two nights
and day he had been in the saddle,
but he was accustomed to this, for he
had driven more than one bunch of
longhorns up the Texas trail; and as
he had slept three hours at Cairnes,
and as his nerves were like steel, the
thought of danger gave him slight
concern. He was thoroughly tired,
and it rested him to get out of the
saddle, while the freshness of the
morning air was tonic, the very
breath Of which made him forgetful
of fatigue
After all, this was indeed the very
sort of experience which appealed to
him, and always had-thS life of
peril in the open, under the stars and
the sky. He had constantly expert
enced it for SO long now, eight years.
as to make it seem merely natural.
While he ploughed steadily forward
through the shifting sand of the cou-
lee, his thought drifted idly back over
those years, and sometimes he smiled,
and occasionally frowned, as various
incidents returned to memory. 1t had
been rough life, yet one not unusual
to those of his generation. Born of
excellent family in tidewater Virginia,
his father successful planter, his
mother had died while he was still in
early boyhood, and he had grown up
cut off from all womanly influence He
had barely attained his majority, a
senior at William and Mary's College,
when the Civil War came; and one
month after Virginia cast in her lot
with the South, he became a sergeant
in cavalry regiment commanded by
his father He had enjoyed that life
and won his spurs, yet it had cost.
There was much not over-pleasant to
remember, and those strenuous years
OF almost ceaseless fighting, of long
night marches, of swift, merciless
raiding, of lonely scouting within the
enemy's lines, of severe wounds,
hardship and suffering, had left their
marks on both body and soul. His
father had fallen on the field at Ante
tam, and left him utterly alone in the
world, but he had fought on grimly
to the end, until the last flag of the
Confederacy had been furled BY that
1f
gray jacket appeared the furnished in
sigma of captain. The quick tears
dimmed his eyes even now as he re.
called anew that final parting follow,
ing Appomattox, the battle-worn faces
of his men, and his own painful Jour
ney homeward, defeated, wounded and
penniless. 1t was no home when he
got there. only a heap of ashes and
few weed-grown acres. No familiar
face greeted him; not even slave
was left.
He had honestly endeavored to re
main there. to face the future and
work it out alone; he persuaded him
self to feel that this was his para
mount duty to the state, to the mem
DRY Of the dead. But those very years
of army life made such task i'm
possible; the dull, dead monotony of
routine, the loneliness, the slowness
Of results, became intolerable. Az 1t
came to thousands Of his comrades,
the call of the West came to him, and
at last he yielded. and drifted toward
the frontier. The life there fascinat-
| ed him, drawing him deeper and deep
er into its swirling vortex. He be-
came freighter. mail carrier, hunter
government scout cowboy, foreman
| Once he had drifted into the noun.
tains. and took chance in the mines
but the wide plains called him back
once more to their desert loneliness
What an utter waste it all seemed
now that he looked back upon it
Eight years Of fighting, hardship and
rough living, and what had they
brought him? The reputation of a