Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1923-05-23

or otherwise, have had more in
fluence in changing the course of
human history than any other one
thing in or out Of Webster's Una
bridged. Take for instance the
time back in the Stone Age when
a gang Of thugs and whatnots
were sneaking into one Of the
back doors of Rome. Italy and
the Romers were awakened by
one Of the invading rOughnecks
accidently stumbling into the sac
red geese corral and setting the
sacred geese to squawking.
Dame History mentions rO2ulsh-
Iy that it was an inspiring sight to
see the husky home guards swarm
out, clad in their Varicolored even
ing clothes and put the bushleag-
uers outside the fence. Then
there is the little known incident
of the famous English chieftain,
Johnny Walker who is assaulting,
in the dead of night, the High
land castle Of the no less famous
Haig Brothers, accidently set his
bare foot on a hea thy Scotch
bull thistle and so set the wild
echoes flying that in gratitude
and without expense the Scots
have placed the thistle in the
place Of honor in their coat of
arms. Not nearly so we'll known
but nevertheless just as we'll es-
tablished is the part played in
juggling history by the so called
ailments of the human physica
establishment. 1t is a proved fact
that the battle of Waterloo would
not have ended as it did had it
not been that Napoleon was suf-
fering acutely from the pip
brought on by eating too much
spaghetti the evening before, and
his mind was so occupied by the
shooting pains that he never saw
the famous sunken road-and so
passed the buck for his failure
to Grouchy who wasn't there to
defend himself. Then there is
the more recent example of Mar
shall Foch, walking the floor of
his railway coach with the jump
ing toothache, suddenly conceiv-
ing the coup that knocked Luden-
dorf for seven rows of Arabian
lighthouses. All this interesting
historical wanderings brings us
at last to the curious case of the
Duke and his lucky shots of
agony that go to make up his
story.
1t happened thus. The Duke
and | were parked peacefully on
the unsmoky side of a healthy
white mans fire waiting for the
sun to go down and the fish to
begin to bite and the Duke was
between trips to clean the ice out
of the holes, telling me about the
hair raising adventure of Mickey
Hayden and that grewsome spec
tire of the North Woods, known as
the Spotted Calf of the GoId-Dig-
gers; and he had just recited how
Mickey and the Calf had swum
the Deerskin for the tenth time
IN their famous Marathon to the
outside, when all of a sudden the
Duke hesitates in his pace and
stops. | looks over there to him
and he registers a dopeless and
goofy expression in his glims and
slumps down and gets as color
less as a slug Of bad moonshine;
never saying a word but gazing
Off into space as represented by
the other side of Eagle lake.
Then before | could get up from
the log | was sitting on and jump
across the fire, he flopped back
wards and stiffened like a frozen
fish and passed out. At the same
time six out of our lines started
bobbing. Torn between the lust
for fish and the excitement caus-
ed by the Dukes strange action,
| compromised by galloping over
to the nearest hole and yanks out
the little pike that was causing
all the ruction and then hurries
back to the old side-kick who
hadn't so much as wiggled an ear
since he stiffened out in the snow.
managed to bend him into
sitting position and poured a lit
tie liquid fire down his pipe line;
and with a half strangled grunt
he came out of it and grins kinda
toollsh-like at his graceful faint
ing act and points across the lake.
There in the dim uncertain light
| see a couple kids helping a third
one who was hurt down the slope
OF a peculiar moundshaped hill,