The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-03-09

started In to take sides in a murder
case, and Judge Parker, a famous
hanging judge" who had sentenced
over 100 murderers to death, called
Funston into his study one evening
ostensibly to talk about the case in
Question. The judge opened the con-
versation by telling Mr.. Funston in
confidence that journalism wasn't his
profession, and closed the incident by
intimating that the climate of Ar
kansas was very, very unhealthy at
that particular season.
Not desiring to go to Jail for con-
tempt, Funston got out of town on a
night train, and the owner of the
paper found a new man the next
morning. But Funston had enough
money saved up to go to school an
other year, and so went back to the
university.
Altho he did not move to Kansas
until he was 16 years old, the people
of the Sunfower state have vigor-
ously maintained that he was educat-
ed in Kansas, got his ideas from
Kansas, and came at last to be type
of the brave, adventurous, hardy
Kansas man. At the end of the
school year succeeding his giving up
the newspaper business in Arkansas,
Funston took the civil service exam
ination and got place in the Agri-
cultural Department at Washington.
He was sent to Montana to collect
botanical specimens. such as flowers
and grasses. The work served the
double purpose of educating his mind
and training his body. He tramped
many miles over the hills and plains
and thru the most rugged mining
country. AS reward for good work
done in Montana the government ap-
pointed him as one of party sent
out to explore Death Valley in Cali
fornia.
The experience was said by his
Kansas friends to have been the
cruelest in all Funston's life, and it
so nearly proved fatal that he always
spoke of it afterward in amazement
that he did not die or become mad.
10 Kansas friend he described the
experience in vivid, picturesque Ian
guage. He had started out one morn
ing to ride 100 miles down the desert
to mail some important letters and
packages at a post office. All day
his pony trudged along over the
desert, its hoofs breaking thru the
crust up to the fetlocks, and the pow
dered, white alkali sitting up like
clouds of smoke, getting into his nos
trils and nearly strangling him.
The thermometer went up that day
to lat degrees, a height no one there
had ever seen it reach before. The
hot air blew across the wastes SO
dry, so penetrating, that it pealed the
skin from his face, parched his lips
and made them bleed, stung and
burned his nostrils, and put into him
a thirst that nothing could satisfy.
He had only quart of water in
his canteen and no forage for his
horse, when he saw that to go on
further meant certain death, so he
decided to return. He picketed his
horse in the evening, slept till 3
O'Clock in the morning, and then
mounted and started back. When the
fiery sun rose over the mountains his
horse gave out and staggered weakly,
so Funston dismounted and led it.
For many miles he walked, determ-
ined, in spite of his agony, not to
give up until the life left him.
Suddenly he stopped, for he heard
two distinct shots. He could see no
smoke nor sign of anything human
on the desert. Three times he heard
shots, and then it dawned upon his
faculties that they did not come from
the desert nor from the mountains.
The fever brought on by the terrible
heat had caused the swapping of the
nerves in his head to sound like rifle
shots. At 4 o'clock the next morning
he staggered across the doorway of
ranchmans house and weakly cried
for water. He had walked 40 miles
thru the desert in night and day of
such fearful heat as even Death VAL
From one of the hottest countries |
in the world Funston, after long
rest, passed to one of the coolest. In
March, 1898, he set out on an Alas
kan trip on a commission given him
by Secretary J. Sterling Morton to
collect botanical specimens.
Nothing was said about his go
ing" said William Allen White of
Alaskan trip; mo bugles
were sounded on his return. Yet for
continued hardship, inceasing danger
and uninterrupted adventure prob
ably this trip has not been excelled
by any other on the American CONT
nent in this country"
Today the trail over Chilkoot Pass
Is familiar. But in 1898 the pass
was known only to Indian guides,
and it's devious ways had been found
only by the feet of few daring min
srs and fugitives from society. Then
it was that Funston and two miners
went up the pass and over to the
Yukon. The Indian guides struck
one day, and Funston wrote to the
folks in Kansas about what happen
as follows: f.,
"The Indians carried the loads
while we dragged the empty sleds
and did the swearing. The snow fell
for five days. and it lay
along our route from five to fifty
feet deep. 1t was day after day Of