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THE CARROLL FREE PRESS, CARROLLTON, CARROLL COUNTY,. GEORGIA
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 11118
CHAPTER I.
Lieutenant Mark Wallace of the
Seventieth New York regiment came
to an abrupt standstill. He was alone
in the Jungle, upon the blazing hillside
before Santiago, In the month of June,
1898.
Through the branches of the trees
the Mauser bullets still whipped and
whistled, and the prolonged screech of
shells and distant shouting Indicated
that the battle, which had raged all
day, had not yet reached its end. But
within the short radius of Wallace’s
vision nothing stirred, not even the
palmetto boughs that rustled with the
least breeze like the sound of the sea.
Wallace had only the most confused
and Incoherent knowledge of what was
happening on that historic day. There
had been an advance in the cool of the
morning, If a brief respite from the op
pressive heat could he called coolness
in contrast. Then came the deploy
ment along the base of the hills ns the
first shells began to,fall, the advance
111 open order, In which the nicely In
culcated teachings of the parade ;
ground fell to pieces, the jumble of
men, of companies, and, later, of regi- i
ments, pressing forward past the dead ;
and stricken, the shouts, the rattle of i
machine guns und rides. Batteries
came galloping where they had no
theoretical business to be, upsetting
the junior officers’ desperate nttempts
to preserve alignment; Red Cross
men Invaded the battle line to succor
the wounded; commissariat mules,
shaking off the lethargy which no
amount of belaboring had ever over
come, ran away with supplies and
strewed embalmed beef over the hill
side. In the midst of It all Wallace
had rallied some men of his own troop
and led them forward; he plunged Into
the pntch of scrub-covered Jungle, and
found that he was alone.
In front of him was a smull clearing,
made by some Cuban squatter In the
preceding year and abandoned after
the reaping^ It contained the ruin of
a palm shack, and the furrows scraped
lug in front of him and looking at him.
lie rubbed his eyes, expecting her to
disappear. But she was still there, nnd
just ns he was beginning to piece to
gether a Spanish phrase she spoke to
him in English.
"I want my daddy.”
Wallace reached out nnd drew the
child toward him. "Where is your
daddy?” he asked. “And who are
you ?”
"I’m Eleanor,” she answered, "nnd
won't you please find my daddy for
me?”
She pointed with a grimy little hnnd
toward the interior of the shack, and
“I Want My Daddy.”
, im.ui an ,OK, mu. ...e i arrow s scrupeu Wa „ struggling to his feet With a
by n primitive plow were only just dh> I gn , at pfforti * ade hls way lnslde .
It wns almost durk in the hut, and
cernible amid the rank growth that
had sprung up. The lieutenant stop
ped and shouted, expecting to see his
men come running through the trees.
But none appeared, and it wus at
this moment that the bullet that had
been stamped with Iris name, accord
ing to the soldier’s superstition, found
him. He felt a smart blow on the
shoulder, which knocked him back
ward. He stumbled, fell down, sat up
again and discovered that his elbow
was shattered. The anu hung help
lessly at his side.
He managed to bind up the wound
with his hund nnd teeth. There was
not much pain, but a sort of physical
lunguor, which made him reel giddily
when he arose. There was burning
thirst, too. It was extraordinary that
a little thing like that should take the
grit out of a man. A little blood was
running down his sleeve, hut the
wound seemed trivial.
Wallace leaned against the wall of
the shnek and waited for his men.
He shouted once or twice more, hut
nobody answered him, and the battle
seemed to be drifting in another direc-
Wullace could only make out with dlf-
. Acuity the form of a man who lay, face
1 downward, upon the ground near the
| wall. Presently, however, as hls eyes
j became more accustomed to the ob-
i scurlty, he saw the bullet wound in
' the back of the head.
He looked up at the child, who stood
by, unconcerned. “Go away, Eleanor,”
he said gently.
The child, too young to know any
thing of death, went out of the hut
and began to play In the shaft of sun
light that filtered through the branches
of the palms. Wallace searched the
dead man's pockets. He found noth
ing, however, except a military pass,
signed by General Linares of the
Spanish forces, authorizing the bearer
to puss through the lines; and, after
a moment’s reflection, he decided to
leave it on the body.
So this man had been the child’s fa-
I tlior, and, apart from her speech, his
! coloring showed that he had been an
j American. Wallace concluded that he
■ had been a planter, trapped in Sunti-
go. He raised the body in his arms
tion. Wallace Imagined that his troop , imd trUfd (() |f ov ' but let , t
had advanced around the patch or
scrub, In which case lie was not likely j
to establish touch with them again till
nightfall. He cursed his .luck and
started forward, hut tlie trees began to j
reel around him; he clutched at the
wall of the shuck, missed It, and fell.
Then he realized that he was out of
the fight. Yet, in spite of liis Intense
disappointment, he knew tliut worse
might have befallen him. He had
fought through hours of the day—that
was much; lie wns probably spared to
lead his men again—and that was
more, lie had found nnd proved
himself; nnd at twenty-one a young
man, for all hls self-confidence, is com
posed of fears and doubts as well. In
spite of hls soldier ancestors, Mark
Wallace had not boon sure that his
capacity for leadership extended be
yond the parade ground, and lie had
suffered from the young soldier’? In
evitable fear of fear.
So he resigned himself to his situa
tion. He emptied his water bottle and,
gripping the end of his gauze roll with
bis teeth, managed to bandage his
wound sufficiently to stop the bleed
ing. The languor, however, was in
creasing. Sometimes he would doze
for a few moments, awaking with a
start, to wonder where lie was, and
what had happened. The air was very
Still. The shouts had long since died
away, the rifle firing was a distant
crackling; the tremulous staccato tap
ping of the machine guns was like the
roll of drums far away.
Wallace must have slept for a pro
longed period, for when next he bo
tanic conscious lie started up to see,
to Ills Intense astonishment, a pretty
little girl of three or four years, stand-
fall when lie saw the work tliut the
bullet had made of the face. He must
not let the little girl carry away any
thing of such memory as that!
lie groped Ills way outside nnd
beckoned to her. “Wluit is your other
uurne, Eleanor?" he asked.
The little girl only looked at him;
it was evident that she did not under
stand the meaning of his question.
“Did your daddy live in Santiago?”
“My daddy lias gone nway. I want
1dm,” said the child, beginning to
whimper.
Wallace tried her once more.
"Where is your mamma?" he asked.
But she said nothing, and he sat
down, propping himself against the
shuck. He drew the little girl down
beside him.
“Now listen to me, Eleanor," he
said. “Your daddy has gone away.
He will be gone for a long time. You
must he good and patient, und soon
somebody will come to take care of
you. Do you understand?”
The child’s lip quivered, hut she did
not cry. She fixed her large gray eyes
upon him. •
“Who nre you?” she asked, with the
directness of childhood.
“My name is Mark.”
“I like you, Mark. I will :o with
you till Iny daddy conies back.”
“All right. Then sit down here lie-
side me and play,” muttered Wallace,
wondering rather grimly what there
was for her to ploy with.
But the grubby little fingers were
soon busy in the sandy soil. Wallace
watched the child, wondering who she
was, and how it had happened that
the father had beau forced to lake her
into' the jungle, into the midst of the
contending armies. Her clothing was
almost in rags, and she must have been
drenched by the rains of the preceding
night. It had certainly been a des
perate nfld a difficult adventure for the
dead man.
The light began to fade. Wallace,
half delirious now from pain and
thirst, struggled to preserve his con
sciousness for the sake of the little
girl. Sometimes he would emerge
from a semi-stupor and look round lor
her anxiously; but he always found
her, no great distance away, building
snntl castles out of the soft soil and
chattering to herself as happily as If
she had already forgotten her sorrow.
When he aroused himself finally, It
wns to see the Hush of a torch in his
eyes, Paces which he recognized were
looking into his own. There was
Crawford, the seDior lieutenant, who
lmd graduated from West Point the
year before, and Captain Kelleriunu;
there was his own negro servant, John
son, with a look of alarm on his ebony
face; nnd near by were two men from
the ’ambulance, carrying an empty
stretcher.
Wallace moaned for water nnd the
sense of the liquid In hls throat, warm
though It was, brought hack conscious
ness with a rush.
"Well, we’ve got you,” said Craw
ford cheerfully. "How nre you feel
ing, old muu?”
"Fine. Have we got Santiago?”
“Well, not exactly, hut nearly. We’ve
carried all the trenches, and we’.-e
waiting to get our big guns up. Arm
hurting you?"
“No," said Wallace, stiffing a groan,
"Say, Crawford, I suppose I was de
lirious, hut I thought there was a kid
here.”
As he spoke he caught sight of Major
Howard emerging from the shack, with
the little girl in his arms, fust asleep.
The major came up to him.
“How nre you feeling, Wallace?” he
asked. “Good! I didn’t know you
were u family man, though, till I saw
this kid sleeping In your arms.”
"You’ve been Inside?” inquired the
lleuteuunt, looking toward the shuck.
The major's face grew very serious.
He nodded.
“Her father," said Wallace.
"Come, get in with you!" answered
Major Howard, curtly. Indicating the
ambulance. Mark, supported by the
orderlies, who had placed the stretcher
upon the ground, crawled in nnd lay
down. He stretched out his arm to
ward the child. It wns an unconscious
action, but Major Howard noted it
and, detaching the smull arms from
about Ills neck, he placed the little
girl in the stretcher. The little head
drooped upon the lieutenant’s arm. As
the ambulance men picked up their
burden two soldiers came out of the
hut, carrying something in a blanket.
They carried it to the center of the
eleuring and set it down beside a hole
which had already been dug.
“He carried a pnss signed by Li
nares,” said Wallace to the major.
Major Howard’s eyes contracted into
narrow slits. He nodded. "I have it,"
he answered.
“I wonder who he was?” said Wal
lace.
“We’ll decide what to do with the
kid after we get her back to camp,"
said the major curtly. It> seemed to
Wallace that he was unwilling to
speculate upon the Identity of the dead
man. “Lie still, and don't muddle
your brains with thinking, my boy," he
added. “We'll have you nt the base
hospital In nest to no time.”
“How many men have we lost?”
“Can’t tell you. Quite a few, I'm
afraid. Sonmes Is gone. Crawford
and Murray and I found ourselves
bunched together at the top of the hill,
leading a mixed company of Texas
Rangers and Pennsylvania Dutch.
We'll get them sorted out nnd sent
home with labels as soon ak we cun.
Move on, boys!"
The jolting stretcher proceded out
of the scrub and down the hill. Here,
in the open, everything was almost as
silent us in the bush, after the day's
battle. Under the light of the rising
moon could be seen parties of men
moving over the hillside, stragglers
seeking their regiments, or fatigue par
ties detailed upon the necessary night
work that follows a day of death. The
moon shone down on huddled forms
scattered for the most part in little
clusters, where shells or machine-gun
fire hud caught them. ,
It seemed an Infinitely long journey,
and every movement of the stretcher
was almost unboa ruble. Wallace shut
hls lips tight. I-Ie looked nt the child
beside him. Site moved In her sleep,
feeling for hls neck with the little
grimy hands. Her cheek snuggled into
the hollow of hls arm. The lieutenant
wns curiously touched by this uncon
scious confidence.
He Issued from hls ordeal of puiu at
last, when the beurers halted in front
of the line of tents that served for a
field hospital. Stretchers by the dozen
were piled about the ground, and more
were arriving constantly. Wounded
men, guided by i lie sound, came
limping in on the last lap of their
painful journeys. Others, who had ar
rived hut had not yet been attended
to, sat or lay in front of the tents. Or
derlies were scurrying to and fro. Ma
jor Howard caught one of the regi
mental surgeons, who looked Mark
over quickly and then picked, the child
out of the stretcher.
“Hello! Who's tills?" he asked.
“Friend of his,” said the major, In
dicating Mark.
“She doesn’t look like a Cuban young
lady,” said the doctor, as lie cut away
the sleeve of the tunic.
"Her father’s dead. Hit by a shell
on hls way from Santiago. I think he
was an American,” said Mark.
“Give her to me. T never had one,”
said the doctor, suddenly injecting H
hypodermic Into Murk’s arm. '
“Not after that,” said Mark, winc
ing.,. "Besides, I'm thinking of adopt
ing her myself.”
And he wondered wluit had made
him say that when the thought had
hardly reached his own conscious
ness.
“Sep here, young man! Let me look
at tlint arm of yours before you talk
that way. Hum! You'll be running
round In a couple of weeks, ns well as
ever.”
“Thank heaven for that!’’ ejaculated
Mark fervently. "Then I’ll he in at
the death.”
“I doubt It. I won’t pass you for
duty for six months to come,” said the
doctor, grinning. Then, seeing Murk's
dejected look, he added, more seri
ously :
“You may thank the modern high-
power bullet that you are feeing to keep
your arm, my boy. It’s drilled a nice
little penell-hnie clean through the
joint, instead of shattering It, nnd
that’s got to he filled In with new
growth. Even I cun’t grow hones In
a week. I wish I could. Ten yenrs
ago your arm would have had to come
off. There's nothing more I can do for
you, my son,” he added, as he smeared
some sticky stuff over tlie wound und
began adjusting a bandage, “except tie
you up and put you in the hospital to
night, and sepd you down to ti e base
In the morning.”
"The devil you will! I guess I’m
well enough to stay on the job ns 1
am.”
"Here, I haven’t any more time to
waste on you 1" said the doctor.
"Pounce will make you a sling and
you’ll go Into thnt tent and stay there,
or I'll cashier you. You won’t be feel
ing so spry tomorrow morning. Get
out!"
lie strode away, leaving Mark look
ing Into the grinning black face of
Johnson.
After the sling had been adjusted
he discovered thnt the sense of well
being, due to the hypodermic, was al
ready beginning to leave l:ira. Hls
servant helped him into the tent nnd
Major Howard brought in the little
girl, who at once colled herself up to
sleep at Wallace’s side.
“What are you going to do about
her?” Inquired the major, standing be
side the camp bed and looking down
at Wallace unensily.
“Boll some canned cow nnd see If It
will dissolve the cellulose out of an
army biscuit.”
"It shall he done. I guess that’ll stay
her till morning. But seriously, Wnl-
lnee?”
“I suppose I’ll have to assume the
responsibility for her. I'll take her
down to the base with me tomorrow
and ship her home to my people In
charge of one of the stewardesses on
some liner.”
“I’ve got n better scheme,” said the
uyyor. “Let me have her, Wallace.
My wife will go crazy over her. You
know she’s always talking of adopting
a little girl. She’s got her Ideal type
in mind, nnd that’s It. I was to look
round for one like thnt if ever the
channel came nlong.”
"Well, you’d better go on looking
round, Mujor," said Wallace,'irritably.
"See here, my hoy, you don't really
want that kid, do you?”
“I do. I’ll think over your proposi
tion, Major, of course, hut my sister
would give her a home nnd—”
“Let me send her to my wife. You
can claim her after the war, If you
Mint to. Suppose you got killed; we’d
Iw.lthoi- nf iiu hovo ho- ir vo.i rlon't
let me take her I’ll make you pay for
It.”
“How?”
“I’ll order her a bath, under the
sanitary code. And you’ll have to give
It. And scraped beef—our beef!”
“Get out, Major, and give me
chance to yell when my wound hurts.
Listen! I tell you what I'm ready to
do. I’ll let the regiment adopt her,
with myself as godfather.”
(To he continued)
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