The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-05-06
BURYINC DODD'S
DEAD AT MINACA
STRANGE SCENE
BIeareyed, Ragged Soldiers
Weep at Heroes Graves.
Mules PaIIbearers of Victims of
TOmachic Fight.
WITH MILITARY HOk0RS
Seventh Cavalrymen Laid Away
in Shabby Cemetery.
Lieutenant Reads Ninety-First
Psalm at Last Rites.
WITH MILITARY HONORS
Seventh Cavalrymen Laid Away
in Shabby Cemetery.
BY DAMON RUNYON.


the town of Tomachio to the town OF
Miuaca, there passed last Sunday
weird array of bewhiskered, plear-
eyed ragged men astrtde stumolihg
horses and sagging burros, In what
was at once a funeral cortege, the
strangest and saddest funeral cortege
that could possibly be conceived and
procession
1t was the return of Colonel George
Dodd and his Seventh cavalrymen
from the victory over the Villa bandits
at Tomachic, bringing with them their
dead and wounded
At the tail of the column ploooeo
two weary mules.
Each mule bore a burden that could
scarcely be mistaken
Even the Mexican poems in the fields
along the road understood the slgnlfl-
canoe of those grisly bundles strapped
across the backs of the long eared ami
mails and lifted their hats respectfully.
Thrown lengthwise over the withers
of the dumb pail bearers and secured
neck to feet by ropes that ran IKE
girths under the bellies of the mules
so the poor torn bodies of the two
American troopers who died at To-
machic came to the town of Minaca,
with the dust of Dodd's victorious col
umn as their funeral Shroud.
A Dumb Procession.
There was no music. There was lit
tie talking. There was only the clump
of hoofs on the dusty road and the rat
tie of Announcements as the cortege
passed. Red eyes cleaned at the OBJ
server from behind masses of dusty
whiskers and there was an occasional
Subdued exclamation as trooper
spoke to a lettering horse and then
the procession passed on. ragged and
dirty, and their dead went on behind
them.
A captain, noted as he walks the
paths of peace and plenty for the i'm
peccability of his attire, wore pair
of Mexican teguas. or native shoes, not
really shoes at all, but wrappings of
leather, on his feet.
A lieutenant had a Mexican hat on
his head commissioned officers
and private soldiers wore Mexican
trousers and Mexican coats and all
wore trappings of rude patchings and
makeshift apparel
Thus they came and thus they
passed. fresh from their victory at
Tomachic, and behind them on the
plodding mules they brought their
soldier dead. They buried them Sun
day afternoon in remote corner of
the shabby little cemetery in the
shabby little town of Minaca-
Strange, Sad Scene.
That was the strangest and saddest
scene of this whole campaign.
Permission was secured from the
Mexican authorities at Minaca to give
the Americans a soldier burial, accord
ing to the code of the United States
army Most of Dodd's command was
present at the interment- A truck
train lust reached AIinaca that after
noon and the dust stained dare devils
of the gas hogs that ply the trails be-
tween the so-called American front and
the border. attended the services.
They stood in the group about the
graves, their dusty caps in hand and
the whites of their eyes showing
through their inevitable masks of
CRIME.
A wide trench had been dug in the
remote corner of the shabby little GEM
etery. well apart from the weed-grown
graves of the Mexican dead Rude
boxes had been knocked together by
the soldiers to take the place of cof-
fins. The dead men were wrapped in
their own olive drab blankets, which
were stenciled with their regiment and
with their company number, as are
the blankets of all soldiers. and be-
sides the blankets mantas were also
wrapped about each corpse A manta
is the section of canvas used to cover
the packs on the backs of the pack
animals
When all was ready and the boxes
were lowered into the trench, a lieu
tenant of the Seventh stepped forward
with a tattered little Testament in his
hand. They used to call him The
Millionaire Corporal" when he was in
the signal corps, and stopped at the
willard hotel in Washington as an
enlisted man, to the horror of the
elite, but he is a lieutenant now.
The Last Rites.
From his tattered little Testament
he read the Ninety-First Psalm, read
ing in a low voice, but it carried out
over the silent throng-silent save for
an occasional sniffle from some SOL
der In the background stood num-
Der of Mexican residents of the town
of Minaca, hats in hands, gazing won
deringly at the scene
When the lieutenant finished read
ing a trumpeter came up and from
the twisted brass tubes of his cavalry
bugIe flowed the sobbing notes of
Taps" beginning soft and sweetly
low, and then rising and filling until
the soldiers farewell carried up and
far away. Maybe it carried to the
dim hills that wall in the valley where
Minaca squats in dust and squalor;
maybe it carried clear to the spot
where poor Don McGregor lies buried
with a score of Carranza soldiers,
and, il so. maybe il carried to him
something of that hope for his eternal
peace that is in the hearts of all his
friends.
Don McGregor was a consumptive
newspaperman from Denver and Chi
cago. He was killed in Minaca by the
Villistas a few weeks ago, at the same
time they split Blankenburg. the Ger
man, wide open with a sabre, and he
is buried in the hills
They put a bottle containing the
names and the circumstances of their
death in the graves of the dead SOL
diers; they put up rude head boards,
and then Dodd's column remounted
their horses and burros and went on
down the road and the dusty demons
of the gasoline f1iers climber back into