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About The Henry County weekly. (McDonough, GA.) 18??-1934 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 11, 1908)
the thief. Over the fields when skies are blue liis voice upc-alls dead hours anew Gay music he brings from woods remote ior lies stolen a song from the thrush’s throat. When day’s end and the twilight's gloom blip glamor over bud and bloom, ihrough the fragrant peace his notes come still— The dusk-dreams of the whippoorwill. And romance follows in his wake When sweet and low ere day doth break- The wind comes through the valley dark With stolen gladness of the lark. —Andrew Shaughnessy, in Metropolitan Magazine. ONLY A LITTLE “MOOT” DOG. By JOHN ALLAN HORNSBY. She was only a little black “niala moot dog, not much bigger than a l'ox, as affectionate as a kitten, and she liked nothing half so much as to roll herself up in a ball in one's lap to be petted while she slept. But in the mining-camps up and down the river there was wonder that such a little ball of wool could hide such a liig, courageous and un selfish heart. The little thing seemed far too small to work, but when she was leading the team on a journey she was a veritable martinet, and ruled the other dogs with relent less discipline—far better than any driver could do, even though he held in his hand the knout of the Alaska trails—a dog-chain with a heavy snap on its end. r lhis little dog had lived with me in the camps, and had “mushed” with me on a hundred stampedes. Once when we were sledding across a lake of new ice, and the ice began to break under out weight, she had literally forced the other dogs to pull lor dear life over the waving sur face. When it finally broke so that all I could do was to lie at full length on the long sled to distribute my weight, and the dogs were jump ing from cake to cake, her courage and persistence, and her cheering, coaxing cry had made the larger and stronger dogs pull me and the sled to safety. And another time, when she and 1, out hunting in the moun tains, lost our way, she ran off to the highest peaks, one after another, un til she had located the camp Thou her bark, which I so well understood, assured me, and she led me back safely. And this was the little Nellie that my three comrades had just decided must be killed and fed to the other dogs. I had had no part in the dis cussion; there was nothing to say, and there seemed no alternative. It was a January night in the Alas ka Rockies; the thermometer was not less than forty degrees below zero; the snow was everywhere shoul der-deep. For sk days and nights we had not tasted food, nor had the dogs. My three comrades and I had set out from one of the cross-river camps with a young woman who had broken her thigh, and were taking her to the nearest hospital, two hundred and fifty miles away. For the first hun dred miles all had gone well; but an air-hole in a lake had swallowed our provision sled, and without an instant's warning we-were left with not more than a couple q| pounds of food to last us for one Hundred- and fifty miles of an unbroken w-inter trail, over mountain and valley, in snows of every imaginable depth. For three days we had come along with what courage we could, and had hoped against hope that we might come upon some camp in the wilder ness, where we might be aided on our way. The little food we had we had kept for the sick girl, and she did not even know we had lost our supply. The last three days had taxed our strength and our courage to the ut most. The fourth day after our mis fortune we had made ten miles, the fifth less than five, and to-day we had traveled hardly more than two or three. On the night of the sixth day we boiled a little beef extract for our charge, and that, mixed with crack ers, made her supper. The girl had now gone to sleep in the rude tent w r e had thrown up for her comfort, and we were seated about a big spruce fire tq discuss our desperate situation. The dogs were “all in,” in the language of the miners. They were so weak from hunger that tne weight of that slight girl had made them reel and stagger. The four of us, big, strong men of a week ago, had got well past the stage of hunger, and were weak and tired, so awfully tired and sick: But every one of us had been in desperate places before. The consensus of opinion w r as that little Nellie, the leader of the team, could be spared better than one of the big dogs; she could not pull much at best, and where it was a vital case, we could really get along without a leader. So it was decided that little Nellie' should be killed for the other dogs to eat; and my crown of woe was that it was I who was selected to do the work—for the alleged reason that I, being a surgeon, “was used to blood.” The other men had gone to bed, and I was alone with my little dog. The rest of the team had gone a little way out from the fire, and were lying in the snow, asleep. Nellie was at my feet, and when I spoke her name she wagged her tail and came over to rub her soft wool on my knee; she was far too weak t to climb up on my lap now. When she looked up in my face, as if to ask why we were suffering so, the horror of my silence, while she was being condemned came upon me, and to escape the rush of blood to my head, I walked from the fire, and out into the night and snow. When I returned she was gone and I breathed a sigh of relief. Per haps she had already lain down some where and died, and so I might be saved the sickening alternative. But my knees were giving way, and I slid down to the log again, and soon was lost in a half-sleep and half-coma from my weakened condition. How long I was stretched out there I do not know, but I was awakened by a sharp little bark that I knew well. It was my little dog. She had returned, and my first thought was that now I should have to choose between my pet and my comrades — perhaps the lives of all of us, even of the sick girl. When I finally looked up, at the continued whine and the affectionate rubbing against my knee, there stood the little dog, and in her mouth she held a big fish. I could not believe my eyes, and feared that I had got to the point of seeing in my mind things that had no existence. But there it was—a big white fish—and when I caught hold of it, it was still unfrozen, as if it had just come from the water; and Nellie’s fur was wet, and already freezing in little icicles about her body. So she had got the fish out of the water. I thought, of course, that was all there was to it; but I had grasped at the chance I had to offer in the morn ing for not carrying out the agree ment—she had brought the fish, , which we could give to the dogs. I laid the fish down ou the log, and began to break off the icicles from her coat, when she started away, and, when she was out of the firelight, be gan to whine. So I followed her into | the night, taking with me our one j candle and some matches. Finally we reached a spot which she seemed to be looking for. She stopped, and I heard a plunge into the water. I lighted the candle, and as soon as my eyes were accustomed to the light I saw the little dog at my feet with another fish in her mouth. So there were more where the first one came from. I went closer, and could see distinctly a hole apparently cut out of the solid ice. It was not more than ten feet across in any direction; it was evi dently shallow, and its clear, cold waters were literally filled to over flowing with fish. They seemed to be all of a size, white fish, weighing not less than three or four pounds each. I could see many of them. I almost ran back to the camp, calling the boys as I stumbled along. Soon we were all back at the hole. It was one of the so-called “lungs” of the lake—air-holes in the ice that open up in every body of Alaskan water, small or large, whenever the temperature goes thirty or more de grees below zero. In the next two days we had taken out of that hole two hundred and nineteen fish. Dogs and men feasted to the full, the dogs taking theirs raw, and we men taking turns cook ing and eating. We took along plenty of fish when we finally moved on, and got into the hospital camp of the Northwest mounted police all right, and with our little patient in good shape. Nellie has been stolen many times since that night by newcomers in the Alaskan country who had heard about her, and one time the thieves got nearly two hundred miles down the river before they met anybody; but that was as far as they got. A com mittee was formed in half an hour, half a dozen dog-teams were “hooked up,” and within an hour the thieves under escort were on their way back up the river. Nellie still belongs to me, and is the special ward of the Yukon min ing-camps.—Youth's Companion. Cottonseed Business. In the great cotton belt of the South are S4S mills engaged in crush ing cottonseed for its oil and other products. In these mills are 2608 presses, and in connection with them 2752 gin stands and 3126 linters. It is estimated that in the production of cottonseed oil and by-products more than $85,000,000 is invested. The mills annually use about 4,000,- 000 tons of seed, costing about $60,- 000,000. When made into oil, cake, hulls and linters and other products, its value is about $90,000,000. At the present time but little more than half the total seed product of the country is crushed. —Popular Me chanics. - . INTEREST 
