Poker Jim, Gentleman, and Other Tales and Sketches

by G. Frank Lydston

TOMMY THE OUTCAST

“Hello, Fido!”

“I beg pardon, sir; did you speak to me?”

“Why, don’t you know me, Fido?”

“Great heavens! Tommy Baker, as I’m alive! Why, what on earth—?”

“I don’t wonder that you are surprised, Fido, old boy—for I’m not the same Thomas Baker as of yore. Four years away from the old farm have wrought great changes in me. Four years of life in a large city, with its ups and downs, its luxuries and its hardships, are enough to demoralize anybody. And still, you look sleek and comfortable enough.”

“Oh, thank you, Tommy,” replied Fido, “I am doing tolerably well, that’s a fact. You see, I’m living with Mrs. Geeswillem—she’s the wife of old Geeswillem the brewer, you know, who bought me just after you ran away from home. I’ve got a mighty soft job, and don’t you forget it. I have only one complaint to make, and that is that my mistress insists on making me wear this measly red blanket, and this stiff collar with its confounded bells. Then, too, I have to ride out with her every pleasant afternoon, and she stuffs me with bon bons and such truck until I feel like a corner in sugar stock. Why, Tommy, old chap—do—you—know—I haven’t even smelled a rat since I took my present place!”

“Ah, me!” said Tommy, “I haven’t had many chances to smell anything else for the last two years, and the rats I have had, haven’t been the corn-fed article we used to hunt together down at Baker’s farm, I can tell you. How I miss ’em! And the cream, and buttermilk, and sausages and—”

“Great Scott! Tommy,” cried Fido, “don’t ever mention sausage to me again! If you only knew—!”

“Pardon me, Fido. In my glowing recollection of pleasures past, I forgot that you have been living in the city for some time and have probably long since discovered that all is not gold that glitters. There’s many a tragedy imprisoned within the cover of the city sausage. And yet, Fido, such reflections should be valuable to you as inculcating a lesson of Christian humility. If this be not enough, look at me, and think how ephemeral is terrestrial glory. I was once as thou art—fat, pampered, happy, and with never a thought of the morrow. Ah, my boy! who can control his own destiny; who can govern the mysterious workings of fate?”

“Well, Tommy,” said Fido, “you evidently haven’t regulated yours to any large extent. If you have, you’d better let somebody else take the job, for you don’t seem to be making a brilliant success of it. But tell me, what has brought you to this? You were as sleek and dandified a fellow as ever wore whiskers when I saw you last. Don’t you remember the time the boys got up that serenade for you and sang ‘Oh he’s a dude, a dandy dude!’ until the roofs were covered with boot jacks a foot deep? Whew! but weren’t you mad though?”

“Heigho!” sighed Tommy, “if anybody should serenade me in that fashion nowadays, I don’t think I could accuse him of being personal—I look like ‘the last run o’ shad.’ But you have asked me for my history since we were on the farm together. If you have patience to listen to the yarn of a miserable outcast, I’ll gladly tell you my story. My appearance makes it unnecessary for me to remark that I am no longer Thomas Baker, Esquire, but Tommy the Tramp, as the haughty young Duchesse de Maltesa, who lives in the next block, calls me, and you are likely to lose caste if you are seen talking with me in public. Let’s make a sneak into the alley over yonder. There’s a big dry-goods box over there behind that brick barn where we can talk without fear of interruption.”

“Why, Tommy Baker!” said Fido indignantly, drawing himself up to his full height, his eyes flashing fire. “What do you take me for—a man? I’ll have you to understand that I never went back on a friend in my life. Do you suppose I care a straw for other people’s opinions? Not a bit of it! I’m all wool and a yard wide, and don’t you forget it. If it wasn’t necessary to wear this dandy trash in order to hold my job, I’d tear it off in a holy minute. Not another word, sir!—or I’ll roll in the mud and prove to you that I am your old pard—semper fidelis, and all that—even if I go to the pound for it.”

“Dear old Fido!” cried Tommy, his eyes filling with tears. “You are indeed worthy of your name. Greater love than this hath no dog, that he loseth his job for a friend. But, old fellow, to be candid with you, I don’t feel as easy as I might. An awful accident happened this morning to some dear, sweet, tender little chickens in that big yard on the corner, and while my lean and hungry appearance shows my innocence only too plainly, it’s best not to take any chances. Besides, I couldn’t talk freely in this public place.”

“Well, Tommy,” said Fido, “if that’s the way you feel, we will do as you suggest. So far as the chickens are concerned, however, I don’t think you need any X ray to prove an alibi.” And Fido glanced pityingly at poor Tommy’s spectre-like frame and diaphanous hide.

“A little slower, please,” said Tommy, as he limped along after his friend. “You see, my left fore-foot is a bit lame—I cut it on a piece of broken glass the other night. There’s a lot of miserable, depraved, medical students in a boarding house over on Ashland Boulevard, who amuse themselves by throwing beer bottles at respectable people on the roofs. They never throw any full ones at a fellow though, you can just bet on that. It isn’t really safe to venture out on a roof after dark in that neighborhood. Why, those cruel devils struck a lady friend of mine, Mrs. Felida Black, the other night, and almost broke her tail off!”

“Horrible!” cried Fido. “Why is it that those two-legged brutes can’t be suppressed? Well, that comes of being born without a soul. Such fellows really don’t know any better. There is a so-called Humane Society here, the business of which is to look after decent four-footed people, but it doesn’t do much but pay big salaries to its officers. The society winks whenever a ragamuffin throws a brickbat at a fellow, but just let some doctor operate on us under chloroform and—My God! Tommy, old fellow, what’s the matter? Here, lean on my shoulder. Never mind the blanket—who cares for that?”

“It’s nothing, Fido, just a little temporary faintness, that’s all. You see, I—well, I’ll tell you all about it by and by.”

“Well, Tommy, your dry-goods box is quite cozy, after all.”

“I fear it hardly comes up to your usual accommodations,” replied Tommy, “but it is at least safe, and that’s a very important point with me. Take a seat on that piece of carpet over yonder; it’s clean and may be homelike to you. I? Oh, this straw will do for me. It’s a trifle musty, but we can’t be too particular in these democratic times. Are you comfortable?”

“Yes, thank you,” replied Fido, “You must remember that I am a country dog in spite of my cloth.”

“Very well, then,” said Tommy, “not being habituated to that nasty tobacco used by humans, we will, not light a weed first. I will begin my story without any such offensive preliminary.

“As you are well aware, my dear Fido, I was a decent enough fellow in my youth, save for my somewhat foppish tendencies. Being—ahem!—a rather handsome chap, you will recollect that I was quite popular with the ladies. As is usually the case with such young fellows, I was at first pampered and then—spoiled. I remember with keen remorse that practically all my friends eventually became estranged from me through my self-conceit. You alone were loyal, and always ready to defend and advise me. As for my own family—they had long since ceased to recognize me when I left the old place.

“It was the old story—I became very unhappy, and felt that no one understood or appreciated me. I did not have sense enough to understand that it was my own failings that had caused me to lose my former popularity. I believed that the coldness of my friends was due to their jealousy and malicious envy.

“It was not long before I determined, with an ‘I’ll show ’em’ desire for revenge, that I would leave the old farm at the first opportunity, and seek a field where my talents would be appreciated at their true value. And then came the tempter.

“One day while you were away with little Tod Baker on a fishing excursion, I received a call from Pete Tucker of Posyville—I don’t think you ever met him. Pete had seen a good deal of the world, and his stories of adventure were perfectly fascinating to me. He had been to sea several times, had spent a couple of seasons doing the happy family act with a circus and, at the time of his visit to me, was living in Chicago—having come home for a few days’ vacation. He said a great deal about the pleasures of city life, and informed me that he had a most delightful situation where he mingled with the best society and had very little to do to earn what he described as an enormous salary.

“‘Tommy, my boy,’ he said, slapping me familiarly on the shoulder, ‘you are a blamed fool to bury yourself out here in the country! Come back to the city with me, and I’ll get you a nice soft berth where you can make something of yourself.’ I yielded only too readily to the tempter and long before you returned home, my dear Fido, I was on my way to Chicago.

“I had never before been in a large city, hence Chicago unfolded a new world to me—a world that seemed as fair as I have since found it to be corrupt.

“Pete had told me the truth, in some respects, regarding his situation. He was employed as chief mouser in the bar-room of a fashionable hotel, and living on the fat of the land. I was soon installed as assistant mouser, the rat department being under the management of a terrier gentleman named Foxy. And now came my initiation into the mysteries of office-holding.

“It was with all the honest enthusiasm of youth that I began my duties, and without noting the methods of my superiors in office I worked hard day and night in the conscientious effort to secure the approbation of my employers. Pete and Foxy observed my industry with great curiosity at first, and then seemed to be somewhat amused by my actions. I finally discovered that they were actually laughing at me. This bewildered me, and I finally ventured to ask for an explanation.

“‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed my colleagues. ‘What a young innocent it is, to be sure!’ ‘Why,’ said Pete, ‘you couldn’t see through a millstone with a hole in it! We used to work ourselves to death just as you are doing, but we’ve got a little sense nowadays, eh, Foxy?’

“‘You bet your boots, pardner!’ replied the terrier.

“‘Now, see here, Tommy,’ continued Pete, ‘I’ll tell you just how the thing stands. We found out long ago that hard work didn’t pay, and made up our minds to do as little work and have as good a time as we possibly could.

“‘Among the patrons of this place is a number of politicians and policemen. I tell you what, Tommy, those are the boys who are on to their jobs! Chancing to overhear some of their conversation at various times, I speedily discovered that I was making a blamed fool of myself. I then resolved to hold my job just as politicians and policemen do.

“‘Foxy and I have come to an understanding with our rodent friends, and with a little care on their part, we have managed to avoid all suspicion that we are not attending strictly to business.

“‘Once in a while I pick up a dead rat or mouse in the alley somewhere, and leave him around where the old man is sure to notice him—see? Sometimes a strange rodent blows in here, and forgets to bring his pull with him, and we nail him to the earth in great shape. I tell you what, Tommy, work was never made for gentlemen—and Foxy and I are gents from way back. We’ve got a soft thing here, and you’re in on it. Plenty to eat, drink enough to float a ship, and a soft warm bed. What more could anybody ask?’

“Alas! Fido, old friend, how alluring to unwary youth is gilded temptation! I followed the dishonest advice of my companions and fell into their evil ways, and like most young persons of little experience, I was soon anxious to outdo my models in the extent and variety of my dissipation. I ate, drank and made merry with all the abandon of an old timer.

“The example of my associates, bad as it was, could not be compared with that set for me by some of the two-legged patrons of the place. Pete may have been right about their social position, but of all the vulgar, profane, beastly fellows I ever saw, the young bloods who frequented that bar were the worst. But my prejudices were soon overcome, and I came to believe that such qualities were absolutely essential to fellowship in the smart set of a great city. And so I continued in my evil ways, my life being one continual round of hilarious and intemperate pleasure.

“The outcome was precisely what was to have been expected. I fell seriously ill, and had it not been for a splendid constitution derived from my early life in the country, I most certainly would have died. I finally became convalescent and was speculating on how soon I would likely be able to get to business again, when an unlooked for complication set in. I caught the mange, and in a few weeks was a perfect fright. My hide looked as if it had been plucked out in spots. It was not long before some of the patrons of the place noticed my condition and commented sarcastically upon it to my employer. One man said I ought to go to the Springs and boil out, whatever that may mean.

“I received but little consolation from Pete and Foxy; indeed, they were quite shy of me after my skin trouble developed, and, as you might suppose, my life was most miserable.

“But my troubles had only begun. A short time after this I overheard my employer conversing with a rough-looking man, who used to hang about the place doing odd jobs for drinks. To my consternation, the boss was making arrangements with that infamous rowdy to take my life that very night! I listened to the foul plot with my heart in my mouth. I nearly fainted, so great was my horror and agitation. What to do I hardly knew at first. I no longer had confidence in Pete and Foxy, and would not ask their advice. I finally determined to try to make my escape before the fatal moment should arrive.

“Evening came, and with it my opportunity to escape. Just at dusk, before the gas was lighted, I sneaked out of the alley door between the heels of a customer, and arriving in the open air, ran as fast as my trembling legs could carry me until I reached a part of the city far distant from the hotel where my would-be assassins were probably even then searching for their intended victim.

“For some weeks after my escape, I led a paw-to-mouth existence. Half-starved, despondent, set upon by strange dogs, stoned by cruel vicious boys—I often regretted that I had not permitted my life to be taken by that ruffian at the hotel. He would have drowned me, most likely, and death by drowning would have been far pleasanter than the life I subsequently led. You may wonder why I did not commit suicide, but frankly, I hadn’t courage enough for that. Some folks say that only cowards commit suicide, but don’t you ever believe it.

“The horror of my transition from the easy life at the hotel to that of a homeless, despised wanderer, was something of which you can have no conception, my dear Fido, and I sincerely hope you may never pass through so terrible an experience as I had at that time and have been having since I—but I am getting ahead of my story.

“I don’t know how I lived through the terrible ordeal of starvation and abuse to which I was subjected. I was inexperienced and very sensitive to hardships. Nothing could disturb me now, but then—ah me! How tender is youth!

“After some weeks of terrible privation and physical torture, I began to believe that the fates were against me, when the tide of my affairs unexpectedly turned.

“I had crawled into an open basement window in the rear of a modest and unpretentious-looking house over on Adams Street one stormy night, hoping to find something to satisfy my terrible hunger. To my despair, everything was under lock and key. Noticing a number of rat holes about, I determined to make an attempt to capture a rodent or two for my supper, and posted myself at the hole that looked most promising.

“Game was scarce; in my then weakened state my vigil was too fatiguing and I fell asleep at my post. When I finally awoke I was horrified to find myself in the hands of a woman!

“You better believe I was frightened! Why, my dear Fido, I never had such a scare in my life. But fortunately I had no cause for alarm; my captor—who proved to be the cook—was most kind to me. She took me up stairs to the kitchen and gave me a good, substantial meal and a warm, soft bed. For the first time in many weeks I passed a comfortable night, free from the pangs of hunger and unrest.

“When morning came, I of course supposed I would be told to go. To my delight I was not only given a sumptuous breakfast, but nothing was said about my departure, and I began to hope that I might be able to secure a permanent position with the family.

“After I had finished my breakfast, the cook disappeared for a few moments. She soon returned accompanied by two children, whom she called Johnny and Ethel. They spoke to me kindly, and Ethel said:

“‘Oh, Johnny, let’s ask mamma if we can’t keep the poor thing!’

“‘Let’s do,’ cried Johnny, delightedly, ‘and I’ll ask papa to give us some liniment for him, too, he looks just like he was havin’ the measles.’

“‘Pshaw! me darlints,’ said the cook, ‘d’ye shpose yer pa’ll be afther docthorin’ cats?’

“‘Of course he will,’ replied Ethel, ‘didn’t he fix Willie Thompson’s dog when he broke his leg?’

“Sure enough, my dear Fido, the children’s papa was a doctor, and he soon cured my skin trouble. After I was myself again, there was no longer any danger of being asked to leave, for the children became very fond of me; even the baby seemed to take a great fancy to me.

“I got along famously with the children, although they were a little rough at times. Johnny was somewhat inclined to be gay once in a while, but I came out all right. I remember one close call I had, though. Ethel wanted to play I was sick one day, and that Johnny was a doctor. They gave me some of the worst stuff a fellow ever tasted—just held me and poured it down my neck! Then Master Johnny suddenly discovered that I had ‘tonsillitis,’ whatever that is. He’d heard his papa use the word, I s’pose. I must be ‘operated,’ the little rascal said, and going into the doctor’s surgery he got a vicious looking instrument. Ethel held me, and the amateur doctor proceeded to plunge his devilish contrivance down my throat! After fishing up a few chunks of spleen, and liver, and things, Johnny let me go, saying, ‘Madam, your child will get well now.’ I did get well, but my internal revenue and things have never since felt just right.

“But Johnny was my friend just the same. Gosh!—how he did lick a rude, vulgar boy who threw stones at me one day! ’Twould have done your heart good to see him.

“Ethel and I used to have some awfully nice times together. She used to dress me up in doll’s clothes and play I was a baby. And then she would put me in a little cradle and rock me to sleep. The dear child used to be so pleased because I lay so still, and she used to say I was ‘a dear, good, sweet little kitty.’ To tell the truth, though, I just had to lie still, for those long clothes used to trip me up every time I tried to walk. I did try to sneak away one time, and fell down stairs and almost broke my neck.

“But the baby was my special delight. He was a fat, roly-poly, sweet faced youngster as ever you saw. His skin was like a pink rose-leaf, and his mouth was as fresh—well, as fresh as new milk. Whenever the folks weren’t looking, I used to climb into the crib and little Harry and I would have a high old time, I tell you. He would maul me about for a little while and then hug and kiss me just awful nice. And then when we’d got all tired out he would snuggle up close to me and go to sleep—and I would lie there quite still and watch him while he slept.

“The folks would catch me in the crib sometimes, and whew! but then there was a row, and no mistake! They used to just paralyze me—said I’d suck the baby’s breath, you know. The stupids! Why should I do that? I like babies, but lunching on babyfied air wouldn’t do me in those days, though it might be substantial enough now. Human folks have some queer notions, eh, Fido?”

“Oh, well, you know, Tommy,” said Fido, “that out-of-date ‘sucking the breath’ business is an old woman’s notion, but humans don’t seem to have much judgment. They still believe in miracles and all that, and the breath-sucking theory shouldn’t surprise you.”

“Speaking of the peculiarities of humanity, Fido,” said Tommy, “isn’t it queer that humans don’t like music?”

“Yes, I have often noted the fact, on occasions when I have sung to the moon,” replied Fido.

“Well,” said Tommy, “the folks at the doctor’s house used to play on an old rattle-box of a piano till they fairly made me sick, but just let me sing ever so little and there was trouble at once. You will recall that in the old days I used to be quite proud of my voice. I supposed that I had some vocal talent left and I have done a little singing since I came to the city. I fear however, that my voice is not appreciated here. My city neighbors were the worst kind of kickers, and caused me no end of trouble. You see, there was a young lady cat who lived near us and—By the way, I didn’t tell you about how I first fell in love, did I? Well, it was just—the—richest—thing!”—

“No doubt, no doubt,” exclaimed Fido, hastily interrupting, “but just hear that bell. It’s nine o’clock and—”

“Oh, well, I was digressing anyway,” said Tommy.

“As I was saying, there was a young lady cat living near us with whom I will confess I was somewhat smitten. I used to call on her evenings. I was too busy to call day-times, and besides, a tin roof is just awful on a fellow’s feet when the sun’s out. I often used to serenade her, accompanying my singing with the violin. She was very fond of stringed instruments, and especially the violin. She used to say there was no musical instrument that was so cat-like and natural in its tone and feeling. The dear girl—what exquisite musical taste she had! Ah! how I loved her! Why, I felt, when in her presence, as though I were full of vibrating E strings—au naturel, but none the less vibrating. And I mind me well that she was not unresponsive. Shall I ever forget that mellow September night when she first confessed she loved me? ‘Ah! Thomaso,’ she cried—(Thomaso, by the way, was a feminine conceit of hers; she had been abroad, you know)—‘Ah! Thomaso, how bleak and drear were the most pretentious roof without thee! Where is there such another form, or voice so sweet as thine? The girl who did not love thee would be lost to all appreciation of the feline form divine. I love thee, Thomaso, oh, how I love thee!’

“Of course, I blushed, my dear Fido—I knew only too well how undeserving I was.

“But, to quote an old chestnut, the course of true love was by no means smooth with me. It chanced that the attic room of the house next to the one in which my charmer lived, was occupied by a young man named Jenkins. Now that fellow Jenkins had the fool notion that he was musical. That wouldn’t have been so bad, though his singing was vile, but he wanted to monopolize the singing business altogether. You never saw such an envious brute! Just as soon as I began my lovely serenades, that despicable counter-jumper would begin throwing old boots and chunks of coal at me. But I kept my temper and said nothing, though I was mad enough to claw the face off him.

“Not content with his vicious assaults, the murderous brute finally attempted to assassinate me, and very nearly succeeded. I had composed a madrigal for my sweetheart, and had just finished singing it to her one evening when that calico-vending dude fired at me with a pistol and narrowly missed cutting me off in the flower of my youth. The ball lodged in my shoulder, and gave me no end of trouble. Did you ever hear of such a cold-blooded attempt to—”

“Pardon me, Tommy,” said Fido, “but what was the song like?”

“Let me see;” said Tommy, “perhaps I can remember it. Oh yes, it ran like this:

“‘When the silvery moon doth brightly beam, after the toil of day is done, how fair my darling dost thou seem, as thou climb’st the fence, or on the ridge-pole swiftly run. Thy form is sylph-like in its grace; thy voice seraphic sweet and low; how soft the whiskers on thy face, that in the moonbeams brightly glow.

“‘Miow, miow, miow, miow, ’iow, ’iow, ’iow!’”

“Um-ah,—” said Fido. “Your song has one very admirable feature—it has but one verse. I am not sure, however, but that I shall have to acquit the young man who shot you. Self defense, you know, my dear Tommy is—”

“Oh, stow your sarcasm, Fido!” cried Tommy. “It isn’t at all becoming to you, my boy. If you don’t want to hear the rest of my story, just say so.”

“Oh, well, Tommy, you mustn’t be so sensitive to the raillery of an old friend. Go on with your yarn. It is highly interesting.”

“Well, as I was saying, the ball lodged in my shoulder and nearly killed me. I was sick a long time, and the doctor finally took me to a veterinary for consultation. Of course I couldn’t say anything about the bullet—on the lady’s account you know—so the doctor was stumped for once. The veterinary pounded me black and blue from head to foot, and after gouging my belly full of finger holes, said—‘He’s got appendicitis, and we will have to operate.’ That settled me—I just jumped through the window, sash and all, and weak as I was, succeeded in escaping. A man who doesn’t know lead poisoning from appendicitis, can’t monkey with Tommy Baker’s domestic economy, you can just bet your life on that!

“Through the kindly offices of one of my friends I succeeded in getting accommodations in a stable near by, where I lived on mice and wind for three weeks, at the end of which time my wound was entirely well. I had more wind than mice on my stomach most of the time, but the dieting evidently did me good. I finally went home, and you never saw such rejoicing as there was among the children. They hugged me ’most to death.

“The doctor was always kind to me, but at times his attentions were quite marked. He often kept me in a little room by myself for days and days at a time. He fed me with his own hand, and was very careful of my health. He took my temperature and pulse, and looked at my tongue twice a day. Sometimes he put a little needle in my back and seemed to be squirting something under the skin. It didn’t hurt much, but I felt mighty funny a little while afterward. Queer, wasn’t it?”

Fido, who had had diphtheria once and was up on toxins, smiled rather pityingly and said, dryly, “Rather.”

“I never doubted the doctor’s honesty of purpose but once. There was a little room just off the library that he called the laboratory. He used to shut himself up in that little closet—that’s about all it was—for hours at a time. Now it wasn’t any of my business, but I couldn’t help being curious to know what he was doing in that little den. Then, too, I was certain that I smelled nice fresh meat just as he came out one day. Of course that completely demoralized me and I determined to look into the matter. Ah me! why did I not remember that old story about Bluebeard?

“Well, I watched my chance, and one night when the doctor had his back turned I sneaked into the laboratory, the door of which was slightly ajar. Noticing that he had left the door open, the doctor came back and closed and locked it, leaving me a prisoner. I was not frightened, however, for I was sure the doctor would soon be at work in the laboratory again and give me an opportunity to escape. I chuckled to myself, wretch that I was, to think that my curiosity was at last to be gratified.

“Jumping upon the table that the doctor used as a work bench, I saw a sight that froze the very whiskers on my cheeks! There, spread out upon the table lay the ghastly, mangled, lifeless body of a cat whom I recognized as one of my best friends! I fell in a dead faint.”

“Sort of a cataleptic fit—eh, Tommy?” said Fido, with a sly, humorous twinkle in his eye. Tommy disdained to answer, and continued:

“How long I lay in my swoon I do not know. When I awoke, the doctor was standing over me and saying—

“‘I wonder how the devil that blamed cat got in here! He seems to be sick.’

“Sick? Ye Gods! I should think I was sick!

“I never became quite reconciled to the doctor after that, and when, some time afterward, he forbade the children to kiss and hug me any more just because I ate some pickled stuff that stood on a shelf in his office, I actually grew to dislike him.

“But everybody else loved the doctor, and I have sometimes thought that perhaps I didn’t quite understand him. He was certainly good and kind to everybody about him.

“Taken all in all, my life was a very happy one, and I not only had a pleasant home, but after a time I got a real jolly old chum, by the name of Towser. When Johnny first brought Towser home he ‘sicked’ him on me, ‘just for fun,’ he said, and the old dog and I had a terrible scrap. But I swiped him a good one under the eye, I tell you, and he treated me fine after that.”

“Scrap? Swiped him? Why, what on earth do you mean, Tommy?” asked Fido.

“Oh! I forgot that you were an aristocrat, my dear Fido. I meant that I had a fight with Towser and struck him under the eye. See?”

“Ah! now I comprehend,” replied Fido.

“Well, as I was saying,” continued Tommy, “I enjoyed life immensely. Towser was a fine old fellow, and he and I used to romp and play with the children most of the time.”

“Your life must indeed have been very happy, and I wonder that you could ever have left so pleasant a home, friend Tommy,” said Fido.

“Ah! my dear old friend, there was never dream of bliss so fair that no cloud e’er came to mar the beauty of its skies. Trouble came to that happy household, and within a few weeks all was sadly changed, and I was again a waif of the streets.

“The baby had been ailing for some time, and we could see that the doctor was very uneasy about him. The poor little fellow finally developed some brain trouble or other—I can’t remember the Latin name of it, but I believe it was what old Dr. Cochran over at ‘The Corners,’ used to call ‘Water on the brain,’ or Meningeetus,’ or something like that.

“Well, the poor little fellow didn’t stand his sickness very long. It was just awful to see him wasting away, getting weaker and weaker every day. He used to notice me quite a little at first, but after a while he didn’t seem to know me any more. I had suspected this for a day or two, but it seemed too horrible for belief. It was soon plain, however, that dear little Harry no longer recognized those who loved him, and for the first time it dawned upon me that my darling playmate was soon to be called away forever. Baby dropped off to sleep one night, and the doctor said that he thought the little one was better. He deceived everybody but me—I had seen babies go to sleep that way before, lots o’ times.

“As I feared, Harry never awoke again in this world. I heard Ethel say the angels had taken him away to Heaven—a grand, beautiful place that human folks say is up yonder some where beyond the clouds. If that was true, the angels were mighty mean—for we were all broken-hearted.

“If Ethel was right about Harry going to Heaven, I hope there’s room for dogs and cats up there. Poor old Towser fell sick and died soon after the baby went, and I would feel better about the little one’s death if I knew that Towser was with him. The faithful old dog used to take such good care of the dear little pet. Then, too, I might see them again some day, and we could live the old happy days over again. Don’t mind my emotion, Fido, I loved Harry very dearly. Bless my whiskers, old chap, if you are not crying too!

“After they had put our sweet little blossom into a cruel white, frosted looking box and taken him away, the house seemed as gloomy as an old cellar. Nobody ever seemed to be happy again. Ethel and Johnny mourned after little Harry all the time, and many a time I caught the doctor crying softly to himself when he thought no one was looking. He didn’t think I understood, poor fellow.

“The doctor appeared to be more like his old self again, after a time, but he seemed to work harder than ever before. He sat up very late o’ nights reading and writing—that is, when he had no patients to attend to. My! how he used to slave over those people! And half of ’em never paid their bills, either. The doctor didn’t mind the poor ones, but he used to say that ‘God’s patients’ never gave him half so much trouble as ‘the devil’s patients.’ Sometimes I half suspected that the doctor was working hard just to get little Harry off his mind, but perhaps I was not a good judge of such things.

“Well, a man is not a horse; he can’t carry a big load very long without breaking down, and the doctor soon showed signs of exhaustion. It grieved me to see him going to pieces, but I was helpless. I felt that it would be a very delicate matter to even attempt to advise him. And so I was obliged to watch my unfortunate master dying by inches before my very eyes.

“The end was not long delayed. The doctor finally contracted an attack of that new-fangled disease—let me see, what do they call it? Oh yes, ‘La Grippe.’ Instead of going to bed, as he should have done, he slopped about in all sorts of weather until he got pneumonia. It was all up with my poor master then—he died within a week.

“I had always supposed that doctors were all rich men, until I lived with one. My master left a lot of bad accounts and a little life insurance; that was all. Why, his wife even had to sell his books and instruments to defray his funeral expenses.

“After the doctor died, everything was changed. The end of my happy home-life was not far distant. The children were sent away to boarding school after a while, and their mamma soon went to live at a fashionable hotel. The home was completely broken up. I can’t tell you how bad I felt when I saw all the furniture and things that the doctor used to prize so highly hauled away to be sold.

“Heigho! ‘How soon we are forgot,’ as old Rip Van Winkle so truly said. Well, I soon found myself homeless and a vagabond once more. I have since had all sorts of luck—mostly bad, however. I have tried my hand at almost everything, but have never been able to secure another comfortable position. I was a lawyer’s cat for a while, but my family pride came to my rescue after a time, and I quit the job. There is blue blood in my veins, Fido, and though I may be down on my luck, I have not quite lost my self-respect.”

“Ah! you are boasting of blue blood nowadays, are you, Tommy? How does that happen?” asked Fido.

“Why, don’t you know about the cats that were found in the pyramids along with Rameses and his folks?” asked Tommy. “You ought to read up, my dear Fido.”

“Have you ever heard from the doctor’s folks since their home was broken up?” asked Fido.

“Oh, yes; I have kept track of them right along. The doctor’s wife finally married again and the children came home to live with her soon afterward. I called at their house one night, and was unceremoniously kicked out. Johnny and Ethel were grown-up folks and had no use for cats any more, besides, they didn’t know me from Adam. I was just a tramp cat, that was all, and was treated like any other vagrant.

“But I have got used to hard lines, and so long as I can capture an occasional rat, I suppose I will be able to live. Once in a while a nice pet canary or toothsome young chicken comes my way; then there is great joy in the department of the interior.

“My health is none of the best, at times, and I don’t believe I shall live many years, but the sooner to sleep the sooner to rest, and I know that brave old Towser and dear little Harry are waiting for me up yonder. Towser is still a loyal old dog, and Harry is not grown-up folks, like Johnny and Ethel, but a sweet, winsome little baby boy as of old.

“Well, Fido, old comrade, I have told you my story, and it is now nearly midnight, so we must say good night. There is nobody to complain when I keep late hours, but it’s different with you. Good jobs are scarce, and I don’t want you to risk losing yours. I will see you next Tuesday evening if you like.

“Hello! it’s raining. There’s a cold wind blowing too. Awful weather for the rheumatism and mange, isn’t it? You’ll get that pretty blanket wet, Fido, my boy.”

“Oh, drat the blanket!” said Fido, “I’ll hurry along though. Good night, Tommy.”

“Good night, Fido, good night.”

---

JOHNNY
A STORY OF THE PHILIPPINES

Johnny was a typic gamin from the Chicago slums. He never denied it, and it would have been useless if he had; the ear marks were too plain. What had impelled him to enter the volunteer service was a mystery. Some of the men in the —th Illinois had been heard to say at the company mess, that a difference of opinion upon matters ethical between Johnny and the police was the main-spring that had worked the little tough army-ward. Pertinent inquiries directed at the boy himself had ceased abruptly when big Tom O’Brien, the battalion sergeant major, got through swearing, and rubbing the bump on his head with which Johnny, through the medium of an accurately aimed canteen, had decorated him. Tom wound up with, “Byes, the little divil is too small to lick, an’ too big to monkey wid, so I’ll sarve yez notice that Mr. T. O’Brien, Esq. will attind to his own business hereafter. An’ be Jasus,” he added significantly, “the rist av ye’ll do the same, for be the same token, I notice yez all be bigger than Johnny.” It was obvious that the boy did not need a protector, but nevertheless, the warm-hearted Irishman’s attitude toward him was a peace promoter in no mean degree.

No one had ever accused Johnny of patriotism. He knew all about the blowing up of the Maine and thought it was a shabby piece of business, the perpetrators of which should be punished. “But,” he added sagely, “they ain’t hangin’ none o’ them strikin’ railroad guys, fer wreckin’ trains and sluggin’ scabs, an’ I guess there ain’t much difference. There’s a lot o’ dead an’ smashed up folks, any way you fix it.”

It was evidently a hopeless task to try and elucidate for Johnny patriotic reasons for the war with Spain. His philosophy was too strong to cope with.

When Johnny first joined the regiment he was not a creditable specimen from a physical standpoint. A subtle sympathy with the under dog in the breast of the regimental surgeon, Major Brice, was mainly responsible for the mustering in of the unpromising recruit. Slouchy in gait, under-sized, weazened, lanky and round shouldered, with the air of one pursued, the boy was as unsoldier-like as could possibly be imagined. He said he was nineteen, but it did not require a professional eye to detect the fraud—a fraud of several years—without much doubt.

The captain of K Company was very particular about the physique of his men, and the surgeon and he had a confidential arrangement which had kept out of the service many a man who might have passed a fair examination before the army board. When Captain Harkins saw Johnny in the ranks of the “rookies,” he gave a gasp of horror and ran post haste to the surgeon’s quarters. He entered the tent rather unceremoniously, somewhat ruffling the self-composure of its occupant, who was rather austere and dignified at times.

“Ah, Captain,” said the surgeon, “what’s the trouble, somebody hurt?”

“Hurt!” exclaimed the captain, “Hurt! Great Scott! I’m paralyzed. How in Heaven’s name did you ever pass that little degenerate shrimp of a gutter snipe that came in with that last batch of rookies? Is this a practical joke?”

“I never make practical jokes,” replied the surgeon, serenely. “I had a little whim of my own to gratify. Didn’t know I was whimsical, did you? Well, I am, and that boy is my latest whim. I fancied the service would be better for him than the jail. I had him assigned to your company—well, because you and I understand each other pretty well, and because I want him myself. Just reassign him to me for special duty, and I’ll do the rest.”

The captain roared. “Well,” he said, when he had caught his breath, “you have perpetrated a practical joke all the same, and landed good and proper. You had me well nigh scared into a fit.”

Johnny, inscribed in regulation form as John Blank, on the muster roll of K. Company, was formally assigned to duty in the hospital department, and the following morning found him standing at the door of the surgeon’s tent, a full-fledged orderly, with a rudely extemporized cross of red flannel upon the arm of his “big brother” blouse. There was a little quiet snickering at the surgeon’s expense, but this soon died out, for the man of saws and pills was sensitive, somewhat muscular and, above all, wore the maple leaf on his shoulder straps.

The colonel was very indulgent with the surgeon; he knew his failings, and when his eyes fell upon the new orderly, he smilingly remarked to the adjutant, “I hope the major will be able to raise that slummy looking chap to be a soldier, but I’m afraid he has a big contract on his hands.”

But the surgeon was a practical humanitarian who believed in a physical basis of things moral. He had a hobby, as the new recruit soon discovered. Johnny was daily put through a course of physical “stunts” that made his life something more than a glad, sweet song. He was a little rebellious at first, and his instructor had hard work to keep him from deserting. Through the connivance of the colonel, however, who had the boy brought before him after some very flagrant act of insubordination and depicted to him in vivid colors a vision of an early morning firing squad, Johnny was brought back into line again and went on with his stunts. He was just a little suspicious of the “Old Man’s” seriousness, but after the major had informed him that the colonel was a man of great earnestness of purpose and absolutely devoid of regard for human life—blood-thirsty, in fact—he became in a measure reconciled to what at first seemed to him a hard lot.

But as Johnny’s training proceeded, he was conscious of a new and unwonted interest in life. He began to have a sense of physical strength, and felt an increase of energy that made his course of physical training pleasurable. His shoulders were beginning to set up and back. It was no longer necessary to either drive or coax him to his task of self-development. The surgeon was meanwhile devoting such time as he could steal from his daily routine of antidoting the endeavors of the government to prepare our soldiers for Cuba by killing them in Tampa, to stimulation of the mental side of the neglected boy of the streets. Johnny had innate capacity enough but, as the major said, he had never in his whole life had any healthy blood to feed his brain, hence the development of the latter was not possible until now.

The men of the regiment scarcely appreciated the gradual change in Johnny. He unfolded just as a plant unfolds. Growth was there, steadily going on. The major knew, and the colonel remarked upon it, but the rest did not comprehend until one day the street boy stripped to the buff and, urged on by the mock encouragement of some of the privates, entered an improvised ring for a “friendly” contest with an ex-professlonal, who had entered the service chiefly in search of novelty in the way of recreation. When the affair was over with, and the amateur referee had finished the rather prolonged count over Johnny’s opponent, Tom O’Brien said delightedly; “Begorra, the byes didn’t get a run fer their money. Yez kin all poke fun at Johnny now, an’ ask him all the sassy quistions ye loike, an’ divil a wurrud’ll I say to yez, unless yez go in more than wan at a toime.”

It was evident that Johnny had become soldierly timber, and it was not long before the captains vied with each other in coaxing him to apply for a transfer to their companies. Captain Harkins alone refrained from urging the boy to return to the ranks. He might simply have assigned him back to company duty, but as he remarked to the colonel, he felt that “Johnny belonged to the man who had made a soldier out of him.”

The major was not ignorant of the change in sentiment regarding his protegé. Desiring to be fair with him he said, “Johnny, some of the officers are beginning to think a little better of you than they used to. Captain Harkins is entitled to you, but seems to think you ought to have a chance to use your own discretion in the matter of going back to the ranks. Taking care of my horse and tent, and rolling bandages for me is possibly not so much to your liking as being a real, fighting soldier. We shall probably go to the front soon. The war isn’t over yet, and they can’t keep us in Florida forever, so we are likely to see some pretty hot times in Cuba. If you want to go back to the company just say the word, and back you shall go.”

Johnny stood at the door of the major’s tent for a moment looking at the gorgeous southern sky. When he turned toward his patron his eyes were wet.

“Did you think I’d do that, sir?”

And the major replied, “No, Johnny, I didn’t think you would.”

But the war did end very soon, and the pride of the Brigade, the —th Illinois,—athletes, every mother’s son of them,—did not get out of Florida and into Cuba until there was nothing remaining to be done save policing that fair and unfortunate island. As soon as orders came to leave for Cuba, Major Brice tendered his resignation, intending to return to civil life and resume his practice. Johnny was disconsolate. Police duty in Cuba was not an inviting prospect—he recalled that he never did like the policeman or his works, on principle. Chicago had no attraction for him. He had been born in the army. His previous existence, he said, “didn’t count.” He had begun life in the major’s tent, and when that tent came down there would be no longer home life for him. The major was deeply touched by his protegé’s devotion, and, quite alive to the fact that Johnny would be a pretty helpless member of any society but the army, interested the brigade commander, who had been assigned for duty in the Philippines, in his case.

Through the combined influence of the general and the major, the boy received his discharge, and was immediately reenlisted in the —th Montana, then preparing to start for Manila. The bluff old general said: “Everything’s over in Cuba, but I suspect that nothing’s begun in the Philippines; In my opinion, h—l’s brewing in Manila, and unless my experience in fighting Indians is worthless, I feel pretty safe in saying that those d—d brown-skinned fellows out yonder are going to give your Uncle Samuel a devil of a lot of trouble before we get through with ’em. Dewey didn’t do a thing to us, not to the Spaniards, when he took Manila. That Montana regiment is as liable to get into a mix up as any of ’em—they’re scrappers all right—and it’s just as well for that orderly of yours to get in on the ground floor. But, Major, will he fight?”

The major’s eyes twinkled as he replied, “Don’t worry yourself about Johnny, my dear General. He’ll give a good account of himself. He is a good soldier by profession, even though I could never cure him of profanity nor teach him what patriotism means. He regards fighting as a vocation, but believes in attending to it for all he is worth.”

As the general had said, trouble had not yet begun in the Philippines. It came soon enough, and Johnny got in on the ground floor with a vengeance. When the fighting finally began he was, to use his own vernacular, “on the spot,” which fact, as he jestingly remarked, gave him for the first time the privilege of enjoying “the luxury of more name than ‘Johnny’.” His comrades exclaimed, apropos of his new cognomen, “Holy smoke! how it fits.”

The —th Montana had its troubles out there in those tropic isles. Few realize what it means to plunge a raw volunteer regiment from a temperate climate into tropic wilds infested with a foe that recognizes no rule in warfare save implacable, relentless murder of the enemy, by hook or by crook, by fair means or foul. A foe that fights manfully and fairly, whether at long range or close quarters, is bad enough for “raw ones” to face, even though they be the best in the world—the which is stenographic for American boys.

Bullets and bayonets are integral parts of the soldier’s life. Familiarity breeds contempt for these—they are his own tools, the tools with which he blazes his own road to glory or to a hero’s death. But those terrible bolos, and the Moro swords—those cruel knives that shear a man from crown to waist, or lop off heads or limbs as though they were chalk, wielded by little brown fiends who care naught for rules of fence and are willing to mix it when you compel them to close with you, just as a rat will set his fangs in your flesh when you corner him—they are different, quite. And when your soldier boy thinks of the newspapers that are preaching the milk of human kindness at home and watching like so many harpies for the slightest mishap from which political capital may be made, whilst he is wallowing in the blood of comrades upon whom nameless mutilations have been inflicted, he has hard work to keep his courage up to the fighting pitch.

Then the dread plasmodium-bearing mosquito of the swamps, with its trail of death dealing chill and hemorrhage, the hellish amœba of the foul tropic streams, that are so often the soldier’s only source of water supply, and that awful typhoid, hovering like a somber-hued, gigantic bat over an army camp—selecting as its victims the very flower of the soldiery—these be things, not of glory, but of death, with no sublimity save that of noble self-sacrifice. And that dreadful nostalgia, that sickening yearning for home, which so often kills, or, aided by the pitiless torrid sun, beating down upon devoted heads unused to a foretaste of hell, sends men with brains awry back to Frisco by the ship load. Were not these terrors an awful crucible in which to try the metal of men whom their friends, at home, who do not know gold when they see it, are wont to call “tin soldiers?”

What a lot of maudlin sentiment the home papers and builders of political issues lavished upon those Filipino fiends who, it was alleged, were given more water than was good for them! The soldier at the front knew the mockery of it all. He had felt the bolo of the treacherous “amigo” at his back, the while he parleyed, friendly-wise, with the aforesaid amigo’s snaky comrade in front. He had seen the pitiful remnant of what were once white human forms, the forms of his own comrades and friends, still living, perhaps, fresh from the torturings inflicted by their savage captors. He had seen the dismembered bodies of children and old men who had been slain in cold blood because they or their friends had been friendly to the Americans, and he had heard the wailing of women who had suffered shameful outrage, aye, a living death, at the hands of our “little brown brother.” What wonder that the boy in khaki grew tired of making prisoners of fiends from hell, who deserved nothing better than a short shrift and a merry trip back to their father, the devil, and drove his bayonet a little deeper or emptied his magazine a bit faster than would permit him to see or heed a signal of surrender?

Of all the regiments who were sent to those far away islands, none bore itself more gallantly, none was more pertinaciously put to the fore than the —th Montana. A history of the thin, khaki-clad firing line in the Philippines that did not give more than a modest share of honor to that gallant regiment would be but a false and biased chronicle.

Johnny, the boy of the slums, may not have been so patriotically inspired as some of his comrades, but he was a fighter by instinct, and a soldier by profession. He knew his duty, fear was a thing apart from him, and he attended strictly to “business” as he understood it, namely, to obeying orders, shooting true, and keeping tab of the Filipinos he potted. There be those who say that his game bags were not only large, but of select contents. He had a keen eye for brown officers, and, as he said, there were so many Filipino generals and such folk, that there were enough for everybody, even after he had taken his multitudinous pick.

It was not long before the mighty ones at staff headquarters became quite familiar with Johnny’s ways. Our soldier soon found himself in demand, a demand which, from details of special and hazardous duty, occasional at first, but finally very frequent, won for him a sergeant’s stripes, and regrets at headquarters that it was not possible to immediately decorate his shoulders with strap and bar. Never did better man wear non-com’s stripes.

The sergeant is the pivot around which, as upon an axis, revolves the discipline and efficiency of the rank and file. He is the key-stone of both the individual and company arch of courage. Johnny was all that a disciplinarian should be, and more, he was idolized by the men. Twice was he wounded by a ball that smashed several ribs and narrowly missed taking out so much of his chest wall that, as he said, his heart and lungs would have been subject to indecent exposure. Again did the little “brown bellies” get him,—with a bolo this time. But Johnny’s bayonet was a fraction of a second too quick for the luckless Filipino who wielded the “chopper” and the heavy blade missed the vitals by a hair. A siege of typhoid followed, but Johnny said, when the surgeon wanted to have him sick-leaved home. “Hell! no. It wouldn’t be business, an’ besides, I’m at home now—anyhow, as near as I’ll ever be. Shootin’, cuttin’ and typhoid never was calculated to kill gutter snipes, an’ so long as I keep away from water, which is the only thing that I hain’t tried, I reckon I’ll pull through. Then there’s old Miss Krag, here,” and he tenderly patted his rifle, “she can’t get any furlough, cause she hain’t had any pluggin’ or boloin’, or fever, an’ she’d be lonesome.” And so Johnny stayed at the front, and shot Filipinos, swore great oaths and—got well.

The Filipinos were “pacified,” so all the home papers said, save those few that were politically favorable to the democratic “outs” and opposed to the republican “ins.” A few boloed soldiers or native women and children were not evidences of war, they were mere “local disturbances, occasional manifestations of unrest, etc.” The men at the front and the friendly brown ones thought differently, but who cares what the pig under the knife thinks? Uncle Sam didn’t seem quite so certain of himself as the papers would have us believe he was. Whilst egging the eagle on to scream peans of victory as a soothing embrocation for such as might be restive under the war tax, he kept his weather eye open just the same. To clinch the matter of pacification, troops were ordered here and there into the towns adjacent to the swamps and rocky fastnesses where lurked the more troublesome of the ladrones. Small detachments were often sent, much smaller in some instances than was safe, as the government learned to its sorrow.

Much of the outpost duty fell upon the —th Montana. K company was ordered to duty in the province of Zambales, island of Luzon, and took up its quarters at Poombato, a place which could be called a town by courtesy only. It was nothing more than a handful of palm thatched huts, inhabited chiefly by old men, women and children who couldn’t become enrolled with their “pacified” brethren who, bolo in hand, were lurking in the neighboring hills and thickets, awaiting a chance for a sudden dash upon the enemy and a merry boloing in the camp of the Americanos. The men of K company were no “kickers,” as they were wont to express it, but the idea of rotting in the wilds while trying to protect a few miserable natives from possible outlaws who were their own kith and kin, and with whom the protected ones kept in pretty close and friendly touch, was not the pleasantest.

The men of K company knew the Filipino—knew him root and branch—they had fought him long enough, the Lord knows, and had discovered that caution was the price of sound throats. Their commander, Captain Benning, was ever a discreet officer and careful of his men, above all he knew that somewhere in the vicinity hovered the worst of all the brigands and cut throats the Philippines had yet produced, “Captain” Agramonte, but the deadly monotony of their daily duties was more than the men could stand. Despite warnings and, it must be confessed, not infrequently despite strict orders, the men would stray away into the jungle, often in quest of a scrap with stray Filipinos, sometimes seeking such excitement as shooting wild game affords. These little excursions were apparently safe enough at first. No accidents happening, however, the men grew bolder, and roamed about almost at will, and then the trouble came. Man after man was found boloed, or disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up. On one occasion a small searching party, in quest of a missing comrade, was ambushed and narrowly escaped annihilation. Captain Benning was not left long in doubt as to whom he was indebted for the loss of his men. The ghastly, recently severed head of one of his men was hurled from the brake one night into camp, rolling, as chance would have it, its bloody way to the very door of the captain’s own tent. Affixed to the awful thing was a scurrilous note signed, “Agramonte.”

Captain Benning was a brave officer, with just enough revenge corpuscles in his blood to make the possession of Agramonte’s person the one thing in all the world to be desired. This last atrocity was more than he could endure. Agramonte’s life he must and would have. He knew well enough that there was but one way to kill or capture the outlaw. Having but one company at his command he could not well send a large party against the enemy. Indeed, the entire company was scarcely large enough to make a punitive expedition safe. Whatever was done must of necessity be done by strategy, and by a small party. A set plan was impossible. What was wanted was a “man,” and the captain thought that he knew where to find him. Turning to his orderly he said, “Tell Sergeant Blank that I want him to report to me at once.”

Johnny promptly appeared at the captain’s quarters and stood respectfully at attention, awaiting his commander’s pleasure.

“Sergeant,” said the captain, pointing to the outlaw’s grim token of defiance, “do you know Agramonte when you see him?”

“I think I do, sir,” replied Johnny.

“Well, Sergeant, I want him, and I want him badly. If anybody can get him, you can. You have done plenty of scouting. What do you think about it?”

Johnny glanced at the gory head of his comrade, lying at the captain’s feet, and his jaws set ominously. He answered through his teeth:

“I think I’ll get him sir, or he’ll get me.”

“Very well, then,” said the captain, “go after him, and be sure you get him.”

“Alive, sir?”

“Alive if you can; I wish to make an example of him, for the benefit of those cut-throats of his, but don’t take a chance of losing him. I want to see him at my tent door, and a few holes more or less in his miserable carcass will not mar his beauty much in my eyes.”

“All right, sir; any instructions?”

“None whatever, Sergeant, except to get him, get him sure and as quick as the Lord’ll let you.”

The captain rose, and with a total disregard of military etiquette held out his hand and said,

“Good luck to you Johnny, and don’t forget that you are worth more to me than that d—d renegade. If you don’t land him, be sure to bring yourself back. We are old comrades, you know.”

“Don’t bother your head about me, Captain,” replied Johnny, his eyes glistening, as he grasped his commander’s hand; “I’ll come back all right, and I’ll bring that d—d renegade with me. We may neither of us be pretty to look at when we drop in on you, but you can bet we’ll get here together,” and Johnny disappeared in the darkness.

* * * * *

An army scout travels “light” and when he is about to set out on an expedition, his preparations are a marvel of speed and simplicity. Johnny was even speedier than usual in getting ready for his perilous mission. He had little to do save to strap on a brace of navies, his canteen and haversack and say goodbye to his “bunky.” The latter, as his friend was leaving, handed him an enormous bowie knife, saying, “Here’s a western lancet that I want you to take with you, just for luck. We like ’em out our way. They don’t miss fire, nor go off half cocked, and they can’t be beat for tickling the solar plexus.” The bunky forgot to mention the bowie’s chief merit, that it wasn’t noisy. This was left for Johnny’s own exploitation.

Johnny loosened his belt, slipped the bowie upon it and said, “Thanks, and speakin’ of the West reminds me of a little trick one of the boys taught me when we was cooped up in Manila. I almost forgot this,” and reaching up he took down a coil of rope that hung at the side of the tent. This he slung over his shoulder, sash-wise.

In less than half an hour after his interview with his captain, our soldier slipped through the picket lines and plunged into the jungle. He knew that he must get beyond the outskirts of the town under cover of darkness if he would elude the watchful eyes of the Filipinos who hung about in the surrounding hills and jungles. Had he not started before dawn it would have been necessary to await the coming of the next night, in order to leave the camp unobserved by the enemy.

Agramonte’s base of operation was so well known that the uninitiated may naturally wonder why he had not been captured long before. It requires only a moderate knowledge of the native character and of the nature of the country to understand why Captain Benning with the small force at his command, had hitherto refrained from attempts at the outlaw’s capture. A formal campaign against him would have necessitated beating up the Filipinos precisely as game is beaten up in a battue. This would have required a very large and powerful force. Agramonte, fully cognizant of the situation, had established himself at Masillo, a little village in the foot hills less than five miles from the camp of the Americans, where he conducted himself precisely as if there was no such thing existing as the United States of America or a hostile army. The Batolan river lay between him and his enemies in khaki. This was a turbulent mountain stream of considerable width, with no ford nearer than some seven or eight miles from the renegade’s headquarters. Granting that his enemies succeeded in crossing the stream, which was not an easy thing for a small force such as he believed would probably be sent against him to do under fire, he had but to hide himself amid his native rocks and ravines and he could snap his brown fingers at the hated Americanos.

Knowing the outlaw’s lair, and the character of the country, Johnny had evolved his plans of campaign before leaving camp, while he was hastily preparing for the expedition. From his experience in scouting expeditions he knew that the only way to succeed in his mission was to beat the Filipino chief at his own game, by taking him completely by surprise at such time as he might be found separated from his companion ladrones. The lariat which Johnny had slung over his shoulder was perhaps the most methodic and pertinent of his preparations.

Travelling through the Luzon brake is neither easy nor comfortable, even in broad daylight, but at night it is practically impossible to the inexperienced traveller. But Johnny was no novice at the business in which he was engaged, and seemed to instinctively know the weak spots in the wild tangle of trees and brake. He was apprised from time to time that he was an intruder in the jungle. Troops of monkeys chattered at him saucily as they swung down from limb to limb of the trees to get a nearer view of the strange object that had disturbed their sleep. Having seen him, they screamed affrighted warnings to the other jungle folk and fled back to the topmost boughs, there to hurl defiant challenges at the intruder. Enormous bats beat their foul wings fiercely against his face as he toiled on, their whizzing, whirling flight sending the heavy, strangely perfumed night mist of the tropic wood pulsing against his face in dank waves. Once, as he crept through the brake, almost on his hands and knees, he nearly fell face down upon a huge creature of some kind. Johnny never knew the nature of it, for startled as he was, the beast was more so. It sprang up with a frightened yelp and crashed off through the jungle, snarling back at the strange thing that had roused him from his peaceful slumbers.

Again, as our soldier, breathing more freely as he emerged from the brake into the open, was skirting a little glade in the forest, a monster serpent dangling its death dealing loops downward from a bough struck him fairly upon the chest, with a resounding whack that almost knocked the breath out of him. A man less nervy and experienced would have been entangled in the cruel coils of the gigantic reptile, but with a quick push of his powerful arm against the cold, clammy folds of the awful thing and a cat-like spring aside he was free. Courageous as he was, this encounter made his flesh creep. But none the less, he saw a ludicrous side to the incident, and muttered to himself, “Major Brice used to say somethin’ to me about the early bird catchin’ the worm. I’m the early bird, all right, all right, but that worm’s a little too big for Johnny’s craw. Wonder what the dear old major’d think o’ that chap, anyhow. I suppose he’d like to bottle him.”

And there were other things, less pretentious relatives of the giant snake who so nearly did for Johnny. As his feet stumbled on through the luxuriant tangle of tropic weeds and grasses, he heard certain rustlings and hissings that warned him of the nearness of reptiles of lesser bulk, whose fangs were carriers of liquid death, relentless and sudden, yet slow enough for the victim to suffer the agonies of the damned ere he died.

But Johnny pulled through the night without mishap and, worn and haggard, as morning dawned, he found himself upon the banks of the Batolan. Here he knew he must stop until nightfall. A white man’s head bobbing up and down in the stream would have made too good a target for even Filipino marksmen, wretched shots though they are, to miss at such easy range. It would have been suicidal to attempt to swim the river in broad day light, besides, at that point the current was too swift for a tired man to breast. Johnny was nearly exhausted, so after a bite from the small store in his haversack and a pull at his canteen he laid down amid the bamboos that fringed the river bank to await nightfall with what patience he could.

Tired as Johnny was, he did not dare sleep. The day was excessively warm and it was not easy to keep awake, but under the stimulus of several parties of Filipinos of whom he caught a glimpse at various times as they passed to and fro on the hill sides upon the opposite side of the stream, he managed to fight off the drowsiness with which his fatigue and the tropic heat combined to overpower him. He did not dare to even light his pipe, the soldier’s consolation, lest he attract the attention of the enemy, and with nothing to help him while away the hours the day seemed almost interminable.

But the fiercely glowing red ball of the sun finally sank behind the hills to westward, and the tropic twilight mist began to rise from brake and stream. Not far from the bank opposite the spot where Johnny lay concealed, he noted through the gathering shadows the twinkle of lights upon the opposite hillside and the glow of what appeared to be a camp fire, and said to himself, “I reckon that must be Masillo, an’ if it is I’m pretty close to that d—d brown belly’s headquarters. It won’t do to let him see me first. We hain’t been introduced and he might cut me.”

Rising to his feet and pulling himself together, “just to get the kinks out,” Johnny crept cautiously through the brake up stream, with the intention of crossing at a point which would be safer from detection by the enemy. He had traversed the river bank about a mile, when he noticed that the river had widened out considerably and was dotted here and there by a number of broad, low lying, bamboo covered islands, their outlines being clearly discernible in the light of the gorgeous moon which was just rising. “This ought to be a good place to get across,” he thought. “I’m likely to find bottom part of the way, an’ the walkin’ must be purty fair on them islands.”

Divesting himself of all his clothing and accouterments save his belt and lariat, Johnny rolled his effects into as compact a form as possible, and with his bundle under his arm waded out toward the nearest island. The water rose only to his waist, and although it was hard to keep his footing in the swift running current, he was not long in reaching his destination. The brake was so dense upon the island that he found it easier to traverse its lower shore to the opposite side. Between the first island and the next one, a little further down stream, the water was deeper and swifter than before, and our soldier had to swim for it. When he reached the second island he was pretty well blown and was compelled to take a breathing spell. From the second island to the opposite bank the water was very shallow and easily forded, a circumstance of which, as the sequel proved, the Filipinos themselves were fully cognizant, and of which they had showed their appreciation by stationing a reception committee for possible invaders at that point.

Johnny clambered up the bank and pausing in a diminutive clearing near the water, proceeded to leisurely dress himself. He was just stooping to lace his leggings when two forms sprang upon him from the brake, one of them landing upon his back. As he went down under the sudden rush, he was dimly conscious of a heavy cutting blow upon his head. As he struggled with his foes he felt the hot blood streaming down from his temple and into his eyes. He managed to turn face upward as the Filipino bore him to the earth, but for a few seconds he could do no more than grip his man tightly by the body and prevent his striking him with the bolo with which he was armed. The other Filipino tried frantically to land a blow upon the Americano, but without success, as his comrade was most persistently and unwillingly in the way. As soon as his wits returned Johnny, suddenly letting go of his adversary’s body, got a strangle hold on the Filipino’s throat with his left arm, while with his right hand he drew his bowie. Two quick jabs with the knife, and the soldier knew that this part of the drama was over. Practiced wrestler that he was, it was an easy matter to slip from under the limp body, and spring to his feet and bound away to the edge of the little clearing.

“JOHNNY GOT A STRANGLE HOLD ON THE FILIPINO’S THROAT WITH HIS LEFT HAND, WHILE WITH HIS RIGHT HE DREW HIS KNIFE”

Running away was farthest from Johnny’s mind. He wheeled about and faced the second Filipino who, having recovered from his astonishment at the denouement of the struggle in which he had taken a subordinate part, rushed toward the soldier, swinging his terrible bolo with the evident intention of bisecting him post haste. Johnny, nothing loth, awaited the rush, bowie in hand, as calmly as if he were on parade. And then came a dodging and cutting match that was as unfair as a two foot bolo wielded by an uninjured Filipino, opposed to a ten inch blade in the hands of a wounded soldier could make it. But Johnny was an athlete, and his pugilistic training was not lost in such a contest.

In the first mad rush of his foe Johnny was very nearly done for. As he sidestepped to avoid the heavy Filipino blade, his foot slipped and he nearly fell. The weapon missed his head but inflicted a severe wound upon his right shoulder, crippling for the moment his sword arm. Feeling himself growing faint, he soon determined to mix matters with his opponent who, after missing his stroke, had sprung back preparatory to another rush. As the Filipino closed in with a vicious sweep at his enemy’s head, Johnny transferred his knife to his left hand and suddenly ducked under the descending blade squarely into the arms of the Filipino, who instinctively grappled with him, and forever lost the opportunity of using his own weapon. One short-arm swing of the bowie and the Filipino, cut through the chest, hung limp in the soldier’s arms. The weight of his foe bore Johnny to the ground, where he lost consciousness, the two combatants lying locked together like two wild beasts that had fought each other to the death.

All through the night the two men lay motionless upon the ground, to all appearances lifeless. Meanwhile a storm blew up and just as the morning dawned the rain fell in torrents. Johnny had merely fainted from loss of blood, and the cool raindrops beating upon his face revived him. At first, as he became conscious, he had no clear conception of where he was or of what had happened. He had a hazy recollection of a struggle, but not the slightest notion of what it was all about nor with whom or how many he had fought. As his mind gradually recovered itself, however, he remembered all the details of the battle in which, as he now discovered, he had been victorious. Disengaging himself from the body of his late antagonist, he rolled and crawled away a little distance, and finally sat up and looked about the arena in which they had battled.

The Filipino who had first attacked the soldier lay a little distance away, stark dead. The other, however, was still living. As Johnny looked in his direction the body moved unmistakably with a slight convulsive movement of the chest, and a faint groan escaped the lips.

“Hello,” said Johnny, “my friend over there seems pretty lively for a corpse. Sorry I didn’t cut just right. I’d have saved Uncle Sam and Sergeant Blank a lot o’ trouble. I s’pose I’d orter fix the d—d cuss up, story book style, but charity begins at home, and it’s me for first crack at the aid package.”

With this the sergeant proceeded to take account of stock. After a careful survey of his wounds, he dressed and bandaged them as best he could, and took a bracer from the whiskey flask, with which the haversack of the army scout who knows his business is always supplied. He followed the stimulant with a meagre breakfast from his rations.

It was not long before Johnny was strong enough to get upon his feet. The first thing he did was to inspect the wounded Filipino. To facilitate matters he kneeled beside the fellow and rolled him over upon his back. As he glanced at the cruel, savage face, it seemed strangely familiar. Looking at the face more critically, as suspicion of the identity of his fallen foe entered his mind, he brushed back the mat of coarse hair that covered the Filipino’s forehead. There, running transversely across the brow, close to the tangled hair, was a livid, jagged scar of an old time sword stroke. Forgetting his own wounds he sprang to his feet in amazed delight and exclaimed, “Agramonte, or I’m an Indian!”

The Filipino was evidently recovering consciousness. He too, had suffered from a severe loss of blood. Johnny examined his enemy’s wound and found that the blood had clotted and was no longer flowing. He applied a compress and bandage and gave the wounded man a swig of whiskey, with the result that he soon revived sufficiently to recognize his surroundings. If he remembered the encounter that had been so unlucky for him he made no sign. As soon as he became conscious, he ceased groaning and made no sound thereafter. He lay as stolidly as a manikin, his beady black eyes watching every move the soldier made.

Noting that his patient was rounding up nicely, and fearing that he might cry for assistance, Johnny proceeded to make the situation clear to the Filipino. Not daring to use fire arms for fear of bringing a swarm of brown bellies about his ears, he had not yet drawn a revolver. He did so now, however, although with as little intention of using it as ever. Leveling the navy at the wounded man’s head he said: “I don’t know whether you savvy my language or not, Mr. Agramonte, but I reckon you can savvy sign language all right. You saved me a lot o’ trouble when you an’ your partner did the wild cat act on my back. I was sure lookin’ for you, but I didn’t expect to come up with you quite so immediate. Seein’ as how you saved me so much trouble, I’ll give you a tip that’ll save you some. If you open your yap, even to whisper, I’ll scatter your brains all over the province. I’ve got a pressin’ engagement to take you to headquarters, and this is a mighty good place to start from. It’s just about time to mosey, too, for some of your friends is likely to rubber down here to see what’s doin’.”

Agramonte evidently “savvied,” but he contented himself with glaring at his conqueror as some captive savage beast might have done. It required little discernment to guess what he would have done to the Americano, had their respective positions been reversed.

Still menacing the Filipino with the revolver, Johnny compelled him to struggle to his feet as best he could. Unwinding his lariat he put the noose about his captive’s neck. Thinking evidently that he was about to be hanged and thus receive poetic justice, Agramonte would have cried out, had not his captor suddenly tugged at the lasso, thus choking the sound of alarm in his brown throat. The strangling process was quite effective, and when the noose was loosened the prisoner was as docile as could have been desired.

Leaving some six feet of rope between himself and his captive, the sergeant, after adjusting the noose, wound the other end of the lariat about his own body. This done, he said, “Now, Mr. Filipino, you can’t lose me, and if you don’t object we’ll take a little stroll together. Just to be perlite I’ll let you go first, so just mosey right along an’ don’t look back or make any noise. If you bat your eye in a way I don’t like, away’ll go your brains to fertilize the Island of Luzon. It’s us for the river, so skip along, an’ make it lively.”

But making it lively was easier said than done. Neither the prisoner nor the captive was in condition to travel rapidly, and the mere effort of clambering down the river bank was almost the limit of their endurance. But Johnny shut his teeth together like the bars of a steel trap, and pushing the tottering Filipino roughly into the water, waded slowly after him, retracing the same route he had traversed in crossing the river. In their exhausted condition it was not easy for the men to maintain their footing. Agramonte’s feet slipped from under him several times, bringing him face downward on the sand and rocks of the river bed. The soldier, although himself in little better form than his prisoner, by a supreme effort raised the latter to his feet and relentlessly urged him on. The island reached, the two fell exhausted.

As the soldier and his prisoner lay panting upon the ground it seemed to Johnny that rest was the only thing worth living for. He did not dare gratify his inclination in that direction, however. The body of the dead Filipino was likely to be found at any moment, for it was probable that he had been on picket duty, and if so, a relief would probably be sent to that point before long. Pursuit once begun, escape would be well nigh impossible. Should he be captured the soldier knew only too well what would happen. Another ghastly token of Agramonte’s affection would be sent to the American camp.

Staggering to his feet, Johnny fairly dragged his prisoner to a standing posture. He compelled the Filipino to take several swallows of the whiskey, drank a stiff one himself, and driving Agramonte before him continued on his way around the edge of the island. When they arrived at the opposite side, the Filipino, gazing terror stricken at the swift current in mid-stream, stopped short and shook his head in feeble protest against entering the water.

“It does look middlin’ dubious, that’s a fact, an’ it’s goin’ to be a close call, but we’ve got to make it,” said Johnny. “I promised the Captain that I’d land you at the door of his tent, and land you I will. He’d be glad to have your head to even up for poor Jack Kennedy’s, but it’ll please him better if I deliver your ugly carcass to him whole. In with you, d—n you, and no monkey business or I’ll”—and Johnny cocked his revolver, which clicked suggestively.

The Filipino slipped into the water and would have gone down post haste, had not the soldier supported him by his tangle of coarse hair. And then began the supreme struggle. Many times as he battled with the current did Johnny regret that he had not decapitated Agramonte and taken his head into camp. But once in the swift running water he would not weaken, nor would he let go of his prisoner. He resolved that if Agramonte went down, he would drown with him, rather than return to the captain empty handed. Twice the two struggling men were swept under, but thanks to Johnny’s bull dog grit rose again. They were swimming diagonally against the current, and it was almost miraculous that both men were not drowned. Had the middle channel been a few yards wider, they certainly would never have lived to reach the next island.

But reach the island they did, and with a desperate effort Johnny pulled himself upon dry land, dragging his half dead charge after him. After a somewhat longer rest than before, the two again entered the water, and with great difficulty waded to shore on the opposite side of the Batolan. Once the awful strain of crossing the river was over, there was no longer any choice in the matter of resting; both men fell exhausted; Johnny had barely strength enough left to crawl into the brake out of the range of vision of possible stray Filipinos and pull his half dead captive after him.

The sun was well up in the heavens and beating mercilessly down upon captor and captive before Johnny was able to move. He finally managed to get upon his feet again and decided to take a fresh start toward the camp. It seemed safer to take the chance of meeting hostile natives in the jungle in broad daylight, than to remain until nightfall and then run the risk of being found by a searching party of the enemy. The Filipino, however, was unable to rise. He was wounded no more severely than his captor, and surely should have been no worse affected by the fatigue of his journey, but he was a prisoner, and lacked the spirit of a victor, and, like most children of the tropics, he had not the physical nor moral fibre of which strenuous heroes are made. He was certainly “all in,” much to our soldier’s dismay. Urging and threats alike were without avail, and when dragged to his feet the renegade fell to the ground again as limp as a rag. Knowing that camp was but a few hours distant, Johnny’s disgust at the situation was most violent, and he swore in salvos.

“You d—d cut-throat, you’re more trouble than your miserable neck is worth! You might have been game enough to stick to the finish. But you wasn’t, so there you are, an’ I reckon it’s up to me to get you to camp the best way I can. Come, Aggie, old boy, an’ rest on this bosom;” saying which, the soldier helped the Filipino to his feet once more, and half carrying, half dragging the almost helpless man, struck out through the brake.

The will is a wonderful thing;—it conquers worlds,—but no man’s will is so strong that extreme physical weakness will not defeat it. Johnny’s nerve was impregnable, but wounded and fatigued as he was, his physical strength could not withstand the additional strain put upon it by the endeavor to assist the Filipino through the jungle. Then too, his wounds had become inflamed and very painful. He felt alternately hot and cold, and finally had a chill that fairly made his teeth rattle. This was followed by a tremendous fever. The poor fellow felt as though he were on fire. Things began to look queer. From time to time he fancied he saw fantastic shapes amid the brake. Sometimes huge, fiercely snarling animals seemed to brush by him. Again, a Filipino, twice as large as life, leered at him from behind every bush and tree. Once he fancied he saw the huge serpent that had flailed his chest the night he spent in traversing the jungle. Its horrid mouth yawned widely, and he heard it calling in a hoarse roaring voice the multitudinous folk of the jungle. And the soldier knew that the delirium of wound fever was upon him, and feared lest he should lose his senses altogether.

Bad as was his captor’s condition, the Filipino’s was much worse. When nature could stand no more, and Johnny was finally compelled to drop the renegade, it was evident that the latter’s end was in sight. A few drops of whiskey poured down his throat revived him for a brief period, but it was hate’s labor lost, for within the hour Agramonte gave a faint expiring sigh and joined the shades of his brown skinned ancestors.

Johnny had fallen exhausted beside the body of his captive and supporting himself on his elbow had watched, in his lucid intervals, the passing of his chances of delivering the living Agramonte to Captain Benning. The Filipino dead, there was but one thing to be done. The gathering of evidence was as simple as it was gruesome; he drew his knife and decapitated the body, making in his weakened condition, it must be confessed, rather a “hacky,” tearing job of it. The head removed and tied by its long hair to his belt, Johnny rose to his feet and totteringly resumed his journey toward camp.

As our soldier uncertainly blundered on through the brake, his fever rose higher and higher and his delirium increased. There were no longer any lucid intervals, and the direction of his steps was largely a matter of chance. Good luck, rather than volition guided him, but while his course was the proper one, luck was not always with him. Several times his feet became entangled in the undergrowth and he fell heavily. Again, as he struggled to his feet and stumbled blindly on, he crashed against a tree so violently that only the fictitious strength of delirium prevented his being incapacitated from further effort. But every step was bring him nearer his comrades, and nearer the fulfillment of the promise which no longer meant anything to him, poor boy.

* * * * *

The evening relief of sentries had just been made by Company K. The sun had dropped his huge glowing ball of molten copper behind the hills to the west of Masillo. The waning light was playing hide and seek with the flickering, erratic shadows of wood and brake. At the edge of the little clearing just outside the town stood a khaki clad sentry. He was leaning upon his rifle and gazing abstractedly into the jungle, thinking, perhaps, of that rancher’s daughter in far-away Montana. As he stood there musing, his attention was suddenly attracted by a rustling sound amid the undergrowth some distance away. He instantly brought his gun to a ready, and peered excitedly into the jungle. The sound grew plainer.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

A shape as of a man creeping stealthily along through the brake upon his hands and knees became dimly discernible. Again the sentry’s voice rang out.

“Halt, or I fire!”

The shape, now plainly that of a man, crept nearer and still nearer.

The Krag cracked like a huge whip, a thin, filmy cloud of smoke arose from the nitro, and the creeping form in the brake fell forward upon its face without a sound.

“Corporal of the guard, post seven!” shouted the sentry.

The regulation call was unnecessary for, immediately the rifle cracked, a squad of the sentry’s comrades with the corporal at their head rushed to the spot.

“I’ve bagged a brown belly, I think,” said the sentry, waving his hand in the direction of the spot where his quarry had fallen.

The corporal, followed by his men, cautiously approached the spot indicated by the sentry. A few minutes search in the cane and they came upon a body clothed in tattered khaki. Hanging from the belt at the dead man’s side, was the recently decapitated head of a Filipino.

The startled corporal turned the body over upon its back. He gave one horrified glance of recognition at the dead man’s face and exclaimed, “My God! It’s Johnny!”

Tenderly the men in khaki raised the limp form of their fallen comrade and silently bore it past the horror stricken sentry into the camp. Halting before the captain’s tent, they laid the body down and covered it reverently with a blanket.

The corporal approached the door of the tent and addressing his commander, said sorrowfully, his eyes wet with tears, “Sir, Johnny has returned.”

Captain Benning sprang to his feet and exclaimed, “Where is he; why does he not report?”

“He is here, sir,” replied the corporal. The captain went to the door of the tent, and not seeing Johnny, looked at the corporal inquiringly.

The corporal pointed to the body lying almost at the officer’s feet and said, “That’s him, sir.”

The captain raised the blanket, and gazed long and silently at the dead soldier and the gory testimonial of duty performed that lay beside him.

The silence was finally broken by the corporal, who said, as his hand rose slowly in salute—

“Sir, Johnny has made good.”

And the captain replied, huskily:

“Yes, boys, too good.”

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