The Washington herald., 1915-10-03

yes, etnnolo2y. mat ue ART udt goes OdCk
and traces the descent of different races of
people. leading up from jelly-6sh through mon
keys and to the O'Briens. High Jack had took
up that line too. and had read papers about it
before all kinds of riotous assemblies -Chautau-
quas and Choctaws and chowder parties. and
such. Having mutual taste for musty infor-
nation like that was what made 'em like each
other. suppose But don't know! What
they call congeniality of tastes amt always it,
Now. when Miss Blue Feather and me was talk
ing together. listened to her aAidavits about
the first families of the Land of Nod being cou-
sins german (well. if the Germans don't nod.
who does?) to the mound-builders of Ohio with
incomprehension and respect. And when Id
tell her about the Bowery and Coney Island.
and sing her few songs that I'd heard the
Jamaica niggers sing at their church lawn par
ties, she didn't look much less interested than
she did when High Jack would tell her that he
had a pipe that the first inhabitants of America
originally arrived here on stilts after freshet
at NeanAy. N. J.
But was going to tell you more about High
Jack.
About SIX months ago | get letter from
him. saying he'd been commissioned by the
Minority Report Bureau Of Ethnology at Wash
ington to go down to Mexico and translate some
excavations or dig up the meaning of some
shorthand notes on some ruins-or something
of that sort And if I'd go along he could
squeeze the price into the expense account.
We'll. I'd been holding napkin over my
arm at Chubb's about long enough then. SO
wired High Jack 'Yes;' and he sent me ticket,
and met him in Washington, and he had lot
of news to tell me. First of all. was that Flor
ence Blue Feather had suddenly disappeared
from her home and environments.
Run away2' asked.
Vanished says High Jack. Disappeared
like your shadow when the sun goes under a
cloud She was seen on the street. and then she
turned corner and nobody ever seen her aft
erward The whole community turned out to
look for her. but we never found clew.
That's bad that's bad,' says |. She
was mighty nice girl. and as smart as you find
en-
High Jack seemed to take it hard. guess
he must have esteemed Miss Blue Feather quite
highly. could see that he referred the mat
ter to the whiskey Jug That was his weak
point-and many another mans. I've noticed
that when man loses a girl he generally takes
to drink either just before or just after it hap
pens.
From Washington he railroaded it to New
Orleans, and there took a tramp steamer bound
for Belize And gale pounded us all down
the Caribbean. and nearly wrecked us on the
Yucatan coast opposite little town without a
harbor called Boca de Coacoyula. Suppose the
ship had run against that name in the dark!
BETTER fifty years of Europe than cyclone
in the bay says High Jack Snakefeeder So
we get the captain to send us ashore in dory
when the squall seemed to cease from squalGng.
I'VE will find ruins here or make en- says
High. The government doesn't care which we
do. An appropriation is an appropriation
''Boca de Coacoyula was a dead town. Them
biblical towns we read about-Tired and
Siphon-after they was destroyed. they must
have looked like Forty-second street and
Broadway compared to this Boca place. 1t
still claimed | 300 inhabitants as estimated and
engraved on the stone courthouse by the CEN
sus taken in 1897. The citizens were mix
ture of Indians and other Indians; but some of
'em was ight-colored, which | was surprised to
see. The town was huddled up on the shore,
with woods so thick around it that subpoena
server couldn't have reached monkey ten