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THESENTBY’SSHOT.
1111 11111111101119 rinses.
‘One sunny afternoon in the autumn
of the year 1861 a sdldiér lay in a
clump of laurel by the side of a road
in western Virginia. He lay at full
length on his stomach. his feet resting
upon the toes, his head upon the left
forearm. His extended right hand
loose1y grasped his rifle. But for the
somewhat methodical disposition of
his limbs and a Slight rhythmic move-
ment of the cartridge- -box at the back
of his belt, he might have" been thOught
to be dead. He was asleep at his post
of duty. But, if detected, he would be
dead shortly afterward, that being the
, penalty of his crime.
The clump of laurel in which the
criminal lay was in the angle of a road
which, after ascending southward a
steep acclivity to that point, turned
' sharply to' the west, running along the
summit for perhaps one hundred yards.
There it turned southward again and
.1 went zigzagging downward through
the fin est. At the Salient of that sec-
ond angle was a large flat rock, jut-
ting from the ridge to the northward
, overlooking the deep valley from
which the road ascended. The rock
capped a high cliff; astone dropped
from its outer edge wOuld have fallen
sheer downward one thousand feet to‘
the tops of the pines. The angle where,
the soldier lay was on another spur of
the same cliff. Had he been awake he
would have commanded a view. not
only of the short arm of the road and“
the jutting rock, but of the entire pro-
file of the cliff below it.
No country is so wild and difficult
but men will make it a theater of 'war; _
concealed' 1n the forest at the bottom‘
of that military rat-trap. in which half
a hundred men in posseSsion of the
exits might have starved an army to'
submission, lay five regiments of fed-
eral infantry. ' They had marched all
the previous day and night and Were
resting. At nightfall they would take
to the road again, climb to the place
where their unfaithful sentinel now”
slept. and, descending the other slope
of the ridge, fall ' upon a camp of the.
enemy at about midnight. Their hope
was to surprise it, for the road led to
the rear of it. In case of failure, their
position would be perilous 'in‘ the ex-‘
. treme.
. The sleeping sentinel in the clump
of laurel was a young Virginian named
Garter Druse. He was the son of
wealthy parents, an only child, and
had known such ease and cultivation
and high living as wealth and taste
were able to command in ‘the moun-
tain country of western Virginia. His
home was but a few miles from' ‘where
he now lay. One morning he had risen
from the breakfast table and said,
quietly: “Father, a union regiment
has. arrived at Grafton. I am going to
juin it.”
The father lifted his leonine head,
leoked at the son a moment in silence.
and replied: “Go, Carter, and, what-
evermay occur, do what you conceive
to be your duty. Virginia, to which
you are a traitor, .must get on without
you. Should we both live to the end
of the war, we will Speak further of
the matter. Your mother, as the phy-
sician has informed you, is in a most
critical condition; at the best she can-
not be with us much longer than a few
weeks, but that time is precious. It
would be better not to disturb her.”
So Carter Druse, bowing reverently
to his father. who returned the salute
with a stately courtesy which masked
a breaking heart, left the home of his
childhood to go soldiering. By con-
science and courage, by deeds of devo-
tion and daring, he soon commended
himself to his fellows and his officers;
and it was to these qualities and to
some knowledge of the country that
he owed his selection for his present
perilous duty at the extreme outpost.
Nevertheless,fatigue had been stronger
than resolution, and he had fallen
asleep. What good or bad angel came
in a dream to rouse him from his state
of crime who shall say? Without a
movement. without a sound, in the
profound silence and the languor of
the late afternoon, some invisible mes-
senger of fate touched with unsealing
finger the eyes of his consciousness—
whispered into the ear of his spirit the
mysterious awakening word which no
human lips have ever spoken. no hu-
man memory has ever recalled. He
quietly raised his forehead from his
arm and looked between the masking
stems of the laurels, instinctively clos- '
ing his. right hand about the stock of
his rificf Z
. His first feeling was a keen artistic
delight. On a colossal pedestal, the
cliff, motionless at thevextreme edge
of the capping rock and sharply out-
lined against the sky, was an eques-
trian statue of impressive dignity.
The figure of the man sat the figure of
the horse, straight and soldierly, but
with the repose of the Grecian god
carved in the marble which limits the
suggestion of activity. The gray cos-
tume harmonized with its aerial back-
ground; the metal of accoutrement
and caparison was softened and sub-
dued by the shadow; the animal’s skin
had no points of high light. A carbine,
strikingly foreshortened, lay across the
pommel of the, saddle, kept in place by
the right hand grasping it at the
“grip;” the left hand, holding the
bridle rein, was invisible. In sil-
houette against the sky. the profile of
the horse was cut with the sharpness
of a cameo; it looked across the heights
of air to the confronting cliffs beyond.
The face of the rider, turned slightly
to the left, showed only an outline of
temple and beard: he was looking
downward to the bottom of the valley.
Magnified by its lift against the sky
and by the soldier’s testifying sense of
the formidableness of a near enemy,
the group appeared of heroic, almost
colossal size. a...
For an instant Druse had a strange,
half-defined feeling that he had slept
to the end of the war and was looking
upon a noble work of art, reared upon
éhat commanding eminence to eom- ‘
znemorate the deeds of an heroic past,
of which he had been an inglorious
part. The feeling was dispelled by a
i
his watch. Ten minutes had hardly
slight movement of the group; the "1
horse, without moving its feet, had
drawn its “body slightly backward
from the verge; the man remained'im-
mobile as before. Broad awake and
keenly alive to the significance of ‘ the
situation, Druse now brought the butt ‘
of his rifle against his cheek by cau-
tiously pushing the barrel forward
through the bushes, cocked the piece,
and, glancing through the sights, cov-
ered a vital spot of the horseman’ s
breast. A touch .upon the trigger, and
all would ‘have been well with’ Carter
Druse. At that instant the horseman
turned his head and looked .in the‘ 7di-
rection of his concealed foeman—
seemed to look into his ’very face, into
his" eyes, into his brave. compassionate
heart.
Is it, then, so terrible to kill an
enemy in war—an enemy who has~ sur-
prised a secret vital to the safety of
one’s self and comrades—an enemy
more formidable, for ' his knowledge
than all his ' army for its numbers?
Carter Druse grew deathly pale; he
shook in every limb, he turned faint,
and saw the statuesque group before
him as black figures; rising, falling,
moving unsteadily in arcs of circles' in
a fiery sky. His hand fell away‘ from
his weapon, his head slowly dropped
until his face 'rested on the leaVes in
which he lay. This courageous gen-
tleman and hardy soldier was 'nearly
swooning from intensity of emetiOn.
It was not for long; in another mo-
ment his face Was raised from the
earth, his hands resumed their places
on the rifle, his forefinger sought the
trigger; mind, heart and eyes were
clear, conscience and reason scund.
He could not “hope to capture that
enemy; to-alarm him would be to send
him dashing into his camp with his
fatal news. The duty of the soldier'
was plain: the man must be shot dead
from ambush—without warning, with-
out a moment’s spiritual preparation,
with never so much as an unspoken
prayer he must be sent to his account.
But, no—there is a hope; he may have
discovered nothing—perhaps he is but
admiring the sublimity of the land.
scape. If permitted, he may turn and.
ride carelessly away in the direction
whence he came. Surely it will be
possible to judge at the instant of his
withdrawing Whether he knows. It
may well be that his fixity of atten-
tion—Druse turned his -head and
looked below, through the deeps of
air downward, as from the surface to
the‘ bottom of a translucent sea. He
saw creeping across the green meadow
asinuous line of figures of men and
horses—some foolish commander was
permitting the soldiers to water their
beasts in plain view from ahundred
summits!
Druse withdrew -his eyes from the
valley and fixed them again upon the
group of man and horse in the sky,
and again it was through the sight of
his rifle. But this time the aim was at
the horse. In his memory, as if they
were a divine mandate, rang the words
of his father at parting: “Whatever
may occur, do what you conceive to
be your duty.” He was calm now.
His teeth were firmly but not rigidly
closed; his nerves were as tranquil as
a sleeping babe’ s—not a tremor af-
fected any muscle of his body; his
breathing, until suspended in the act
of taking aim, was regular and slow.
Duty'had conquered; sp1rit had said to
body: “Peace. be still.” He fired.
At that moment an officer of, the
federal force, who, in a spirit of ad-
venture or in quest of knowledge, had
left the hidden bivouac in the valley,
and, with aimless feet, had made his
way to the lower edge of a small open
space near the foot of the cliff, was
considering what he had to gain by
pushing his exploration further. At a
distance of a quarter-mile before him,
but apparently at a stone‘s throw, rose
from its fringe of pines the gigantic
face of rock, towering to. so great a
height above him that it made him
giddy to look up to where its edge cut
a sharp, rugged line against the sky.
At some distance away to his right it
presented a clean, vertical, profile
against a background of blue sky to a
point half of the way down, and of dis-
tant hills, hardly less blue, thence to
the tops of the trees at its base. Lift-
ing his eyes to the dizzy attitude of its
summit, the officer saw an astonishing
sight—a man on horseback riding
down into the valley through the air!
Straight upright sat the rider, in
military fashion, with afirm seat in
the saddle, a strong clutch upon the
rein to hold his charger from too im-
petuous a plunge. From his bare head
his long hair streamed upward, wav-
ing like a plume. His right hand was
concealed in the cloud of the horse’s
lifted mane. The animal’s body was
as level as if every hoof-stroke en-
countered the resistant earth. Its mo-
tions were those of a wild gallop, but
even as the officer looked they ceased,
with all the legs thrown sharply for-
ward as in the act of alighting‘from a
leap. But this was a flight!
Filled with amazement and terror
by this apparition of a horseman in
the sky—half believing himself the
chosen scribe of some new apocalypse,
the officer was'overcome by the in-
tensity of his emotions; his legs failed
him and he fell. Almost at the same F
instant he heard a crashing sound in
the trees—a sound that dies without
an echo, and all was still.
After firing his shot, Private Carter
Druse reloaded his rifle and resumed
passed when a federal sergeant crept
cautiously to him.
“Did you fire?” the sergeant whis-
pered.
“Yes.” of r 13411,--
“At what?”
“A horse. It was standing on yon- .
der rock—pretty far out. It is no long- L
er there. It went over the cliff.”
“See here, Druse,” the sergeant said,
after a silence, “it’s no use making a
mystery. I‘ order you to report. Was
there anybody on the horse?”
CtYes. 3’
53Wh0?”
“My father.”
The sergeant rose to his feet and i
walked away. “Good God!” he said.—
Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.
D’ BANDA KOMMT
JUX- MARSCIE’.
MARSCH. 1
>
Copyright. 1895, New York Musical Echo Co.
13' Bands Kommt.
T. F. SCHILD, Op. 15.
Ir
Mgrch I capo al'
. BICYCLE, ,IN‘. LOVE-MAKING. s . v'
'Ettrbordlnnry number of
.. secretes '1 '
Who Are Skmtuleraptm‘efi'. ‘
‘ ’. “All our best racers are getting mar-
,ried like winking; in fact, there is an
epidemic of marriage going on among
‘them just now!” That'is the testimony
that comes over from London, and it
would seem to be an undoubted fact
that throughout England and France
at least the wheel' 1s rapidly augment-
ing marrying and giving in marriages."
The LondOn County Cyc1in'g club has
recognized this tendency and has pro-
vided for it by offering prizes for the
season’s racing that gentlemen com-
petitors may find acceptable and suit-
able to present to their wives.
The trouble is, says the New York
World, that while a cyclist isstill in his
salad days and before he thinks of mat-
rimony, he is greatly interested in
racing, and delights in posing'as a
champion “scorcher” for the benefit of
lady cyclists who are there to view. If
‘ there" is anything a wheelwoman ap-
preciates it is a man who is strong,
powerful and enduring on his cycle, ‘
' and who can put up a century at very
nearly record speed. The men who can
do this the best are the favorites for
women to ride with. Long trips, the
participants being a man and a girl
alone, naturally follow, and after a few
of these an engagement results.
After marriage the “scorchers” begin
to subside and their pace becomes uch
gentler. Several of the leading ycle
clubs of London have lost many of
their swiftest members through mar-
riage. In an attempt to do something
to break this tendency the prizes for
.the one-hundred-mile race which is to -
take place in London on the Herne
Hill track have been so designed that
they can either be used as clasps for
gentlemen or as brooches for ladies. It
is hoped that the married women de-
sirous of acquiring these will force
their husbands to practice and enter.
The effect of cycling on the matri-
monial market in this country has not
been especially marked here, but it is
likely to be within a few months. That
is, if one may judge from the number
of engagements that are probably “on”
at the present time. Claremont and
the Casino .in the park have countless
'couples who dismount shyly from their
wheels and come into the restaurant
each evening with a “Don’t speak to
us; don’t look at us, please,” style.
Daisy Bell’s bicycle that was built for -
two never panned out half so well as
‘ these two solitary wheels that’scurry
around through the darkness of New
York in pairs.
FINER THAN MARBLE OR ONYX.
A Mountain of Beautiful Stone Discovered
in Utah
A number of years age old man Wads—
worth, one of the earliest ,. settlers in
Springville, Utah county, made a dis-
covery of a mountain of stone of pecul-
iar character, about eight miles up
Springville canyon. His earlier expe-
rience led him to believe that some day
the deposit would prove of great value,
but on account of the undeveloped con-
dition of this country at the time of
the discovery nothing was done with
it, and its existence attracted but little
attention.
Just recently, says the Salt Lake
Tribune, a party of Springville men,
made up of J ehn Hafen, the artist;
John V. Wadsworth, a son of the dis-
coverer; John Tuckett and Charles
J aske, started to investigate the de-
posit, and found that it covered a large
territory, on three quarter sections of
which they have located. Samples of
the stone were submitted to Dr. Tal-
mage, who pronounced it a concrétion-
ary limestone. It is of a grayish brown
color, showing the most beautiful va-
riations on accout of the presence of
sedimentary sea shells, and when fin-
ished it is superior to either marble or
onyx in appearance. In character it
is a little harder than marble, but not
quite so hard as onyx, and so far as
prospected is entirely free from any
iron.
The opening up of this deposit gives
fui ther evidence of the extent and va-
riety of the wonderful deposits of valu-
able stone in this territory. The quar-
ries, it is said, can be opened up to any
extent, so that stones of almost any di-
mensions can be taken out, and on this
account the deposit may prove of great
value as a means of securing large pil-
lars, while the general run is adapted
to all‘decorative uses to which marble
or onyx can be put. The locators are
taking the preliminary steps to form a.
company and develop the quarries.
GRAND OAK IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Standing Over a Bed of Phosphate, It Is
Likely to Be Cut Down.
What, so far as we can judge from
our observations, is the most massive,
symmetrical and imposing tree in
eastern North America, is a live oak,
quercus Virginiana, standing on one
side of the entrance to Drayton manor
house on Ashley river, near Charles-
ton, S. C. The home of the Drayton
family, says Garden and Forest, a
handsome red brick Elizabethan man-
sion, was built while South Carolina
was a British colony, and it is said that
the site of the house was selected on
account of this tree, although, as the
live oak grows very rapidly, it is not
impossible that it was planted1 with its
mate on the other side of the drive
when the house was first built. At the
present time the short trunk girths
twenty-three feet four inches at the
smallest place between the ground and
the branches, which spread one hun-
dred and twenty-three feet in one di-
rection and one hundred and nineteen
feet' in the other. This tree is growing
ov'era bed of phosphate, and the de—
mands of trade will, therefore, probably
cause its destruction before its time.
More than once we have visited this tree,
and each visit has increased our rever-
ence for nature as we stood in the pres-
ence of this wonderful expression of
her power. No one who has not seen
the Drayton oak can form a true idea
of the majestic beauty of the live oak,
the most beautiful of the fifty species
of oaks which grow within the borders
of the United States, or of all that na-
: ture in a supreme effort at tree grow-
ing can produce.
Norwalk Chronicler