The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-20
CHAPTER XIX.

Of to Meet Strange Foo.
 A T earliest dawn our camp was
 N astir, and an, hour later we had
 A started li1pon our memorable
 expedition. Often in my dreams have thought that l might live to be 8 war correspondent. In what widest one could I have conceived the nature of the campaign which it should be my lot to report! Here, then, is my first dispatch from field of battle:
 Our numbers had been re-enforced during the night by fresh batch of natives from the caves, and we may have been 400 or 500 strong when we made our advance. A fringe of scouts was thrown out in front, and behind them the whole force in solid column made their way up the long slope of the bush country until we were near the edge of the forest. Here they spread out into long struggling line of spearmen and bowmen. Roxton and SummerIee took their position upon the right flank, while Challenger and were on the left. It was a host of the stone age that we were accompanying to battle-we with the last word of the gunsmith's art from St. James street and the Strand.
 We had not long to wait for our enemy. A wild, shrill clamor rose from the edge of the wood, and sud- denly body of ape men rushed out with clubs and stones and made for the center of the Indian line. It was a valiant move, but foolish one, for the great, bandy legged creatures were slow of foot, while their opponents were as active as cats. It was Aorri- AL el ing mouths and glaring eyes, rushing and grasping but forever missing their elusive enemies, while arrow aft CT arrow buried itself in their hides One great fellow ran past me roaring with pain, with dozen darts sticking from his chest and ribs. In mercy I put bullet through his skull, and he i fell sprawling among the aloes. But this was the only shot fired. for the attack had been on the center of the line, and the Indians there had needed no help of ours in repulsing it. Of all the ape men who had rushed out into the open do not think that one got back to cover.
 But the matter was more deadly when we came among the trees. For an hour or more after we entered the wood there was desperate struggle, in which for a time we hardly held our own. Springing out from among the scrub, the ape men with huge clubs broke in upon the Indians and often felled three or four of them before they could be speared. Their frightful blows shattered everything upon which they fell. One of them knocked Sum- merlee's rifle to matchwood, and the next would have crushed his skull had an Indian not stabbed the beast to the heart. Other ape men in the trees above us hurled down stones and logs of wood, occasionally dropping bodily on to our ranks and fighting furiously until they were felled Once ou!. al- lies broke under the pressure, and had it not been for the execution done by our rifles they would certainly have taken to their heels But they were gallantly rallied by their old chief and came on with such rush that the ape men began in turn to give way. Sum- nerlee was 'weapon1ess, but I was emptying my magazine as quick as could fire, and on the farther flank we heard the continuous cracking of our companions rifles.
 Then in a moment came the panic and the collapse. Screaming and howl in all directions through the brush wood, while our allies yelled in their savage delight, following swiftly after their flying enemies. All the feuds of countless genera tions, all the hatreds and cruelties of their narrow history, all the memories of i'll usage and per- secution, were to be purged that day.