But what a change from the old place as we had known it! Hiram, indeed was gone. The doctor had set out for pastures new. The “Arizona Babe” and “Foxy Grandpa” had departed for fresh fields. Like one who, falling asleep in a theater, awakes to find the curtain down and the spectators gone, so I now looked about the vacant town. The actors had departed, and “the play was played out.”
[1] Johnson, the runaway constabulary officer, was killed October last by the crew of the native boat which he had captured after the Steamship “Victoria,” which he had seized, had grounded off the coast of Negros. Four of the crew were killed during the fight. In true brigand style he had taken the boat at the revolver’s point, and headed for the coast of Borneo. He had ten thousand dollars of government money, and his intention was to land at various ports and make the local merchants “stand and deliver.” I gave the following interview to the reporter of the Princeton (Indiana) “Clarion-News,” October 16, 1903:
”’Johnson, the pirate,’ is dead, and buried in the lonely isle of Negros. Many a worse man occupies a better grave. The worst that you can say of Johnson is, that he was wrong and that he liked to drink too much.
“I shall always remember him in his red shoulder straps, his khaki riding suit and leather leggings. Before I had ever seen him I had heard the old constabulary captain say: ’That feller looks like a born fighter. Bet he ain’t afraid of anything.’ ... The padre gave us a Christmas dinner, and Johnson at this function took too much of the communion wine. On the way back he reeled continually in his saddle, vomiting a stream of red wine....
“We often used to race our ponies into Oroquieta neck and neck, scattering natives, chickens, and pigs to right and left. The last I saw of him was as he put out on a stormy sea in a frail Moro sailboat bound for Cagayan, which at that time was infested with ladrones.
“Johnson was only a boy, but he had been a sailor and a soldier, and had seen adventures in the Canary Islands, in Cuba, and the Philippines. The boat that he held up and started off to Borneo was one employed in questionable trade. She was a smuggler, and had formerly been in the service of the ’Insurrecto’ Government. She used to drop in at a port at night and pull out in the morning with neither a bill of lading nor a manifest.
“Johnson should not be blamed too much for the wild escapade. The climate had undoubtedly affected him; moreover the constabulary has no business putting heavy responsibilities upon young boys.”