The chronicle=news., 1914-07-20

cidcd to wait until daylight to again
take up the hunt.
| A policeman found him aslccp on
a friendly doorstep and shook him
awake as he would have donr to n
plain drunk. 81 have been trailing
around through these ctarnal canons
all night" said Kit in explanation.
"and | want to find Bill tts
lodge" The officer saw that tho
man was wcstcrncr and knowing
that all such folks stopped At the
Planters took Kit there and It was
the right guess. They found Soul
lily. the landlord, and while protest
ing that he wanted his tccpcc on tho
ground iKt was towcd up to the third
floor whore Colonel Bent had turned
in for the night. After that they
stuck close together while in TOWN.
Field and Farm.
| The appetite of the American In
|dian remains to science as one pf the
|unCX planned mysteries of modern
psychology. The point is that no
one ever understood how the noble
aboriginc could eat so much arl do
so little. When General Grant was
president Il lot of puritanical Old wo-
men at Philadclphia, organized AS
one of those beautiful uplift apcic-
tiles, conceived the foolish idea AZ
they are always doing that the way
to civilizc the dear old American In
dian and his lousy tribcspen waE to
place the various agencies under the
Christian influence of the Quahcrs
| sol Mt hn vlitn
house fell for their silly demands.
The specimen which the commits
sioner of Indian affairs sent out to :
Camp Wichita or Fort Sill WAS tho
old scoundrel Tatum. He was the
most pious of all the Quaker contin-
gency the patcrnal government had
to unload on us and he was n bird In
a thousand cunning ways of his own
| invention. Proceeding under the mis-
taken idea that the indigenous red
| man was of the earth earthly and II
natural aSriculturist, Tatum ordered
a train load of seeds in the vain am
bition to put his Indians to work rs
farmers. The bug worked no better
than that of all the other misguided
| Indian agents who cschewcd to make
something oi.t of nothing by setting
up his charges rs grangcrs. They
simply rcbcllcd and would not stand
the gaff. The deck hands at Camp
| Wichita on Cache creek in western
Oklahoma acting under orders broke
cut fifteen hundred acres of the
the most generous prairie glcbc that
the unabaslicd sun ever shonc upon
In its placid nakedncss and Brother
Tatum. full OF enthusiasm and glist-
cning in the radiance of his antici-
patcd harvest, bcamcd forth his
smile. of self conccit when he OK
planned to the folks around the po t
what he expected to do with his
aboriginal farming partners.
The moral of the tale is too sad II
dwell upon other than In a few sor-
rowful -catastrophcs in our hmcri-
can annals. So far as the writer
knows the terrible story has never
been recorded In any Of the hist 1ricJ
and for the first time 1t is printed
here in cold type as the reflex Of un-
heard of stupidity. Five hundred
acres Of the big ranch were put Into
watcrmclons to satisfy the insa-
|
pondrou8 luxury. Just as soon a3 the
growing melons had acquired the
size of han Irislman's fist the whole
ca, auloran of ,Comanchcs. Mcg",l-
eros and kiowas at Fort Sill bcgnn
drawing on the green fruit of tho
crawlinS vine with the natural result
that they became sickcr than dcgg,
They slipped out at night to steal
the precious codlings in the big mel
ON patch and no earthly power nor
moral persuasion could keep them
from devouring the forbidden fruit.
Their illness began to take on such
serious symptoms that they were
soon dying like sheep in Slaughter
house. To make matters worse tho
medicine ran out and DIR. Toward.
the post surgeon and the only ply
sician within several hundred mites.
was in desperate despair. He sent
an order post haste with Jack Harvey
who drove stage to I!oGgy station i2O
miles distant, for apothccary sup
plies. On the return trio the STAGE
was swampcd near Anadarka while
crossing n swollen stream and all the
precious drugs were lost.
With no laudanum. paregoric.
quininc or even castor oil. DR.. Fo-
ward. good man that he was. found
himself distractinsly unable to stay
the ravaScs of the cholera morbus.
which by this time had become cpl
dcmic throughout the entire agency.
Indians fell dead in their tracks and
before the fearful scourge was
stopped by the tardy arrival of mcdi-
cinal supplies nine hundred of Uncle
Sans most priced wards at Fort sill
had scuccumbed to the contagion If
the watermelon malady and had gone
to the happy hunting grounds where