The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Table of Contents
“‘CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!’ CAME THE ANSWER FROM CUTLER’S GUN.”
The Wide World Magazine.
Vol. XXII. JANUARY, 1909. No. 130.
The Beulah County “War.”
By H. M. Vernon.
One of the most striking characteristics of the Westerner is the high regard in which he holds womankind. Even in the roughest mining camps a woman is absolutely safe, and is treated with a consideration unknown in many more civilized centres. This remarkable story illustrates the Westerner’s innate chivalry in a very striking fashion. Sooner than drag the name of a young schoolmistress into a quarrel, a resident of Three Corners, Montana, allowed himself to be made an outlaw, and for weeks defied the population of a whole county to arrest him, even when a field gun was brought out to shell his fastness. How in his extremity the girl he had befriended came to his rescue and put an end to this extraordinary “war” is graphically told in the narrative.
In the extreme western part of the State of Montana, U.S.A., in the County of Beulah, lies a little town called Three Corners. At first only a junction on the Rio Grande Railway, from which point countless thousands of cattle were shipped to all parts of the world, Three Corners grew to be a flourishing place. The wooden shanties, gambling “joints,” and dance halls gave way to brick buildings, several banks, a school, and other signs of progress, as respectable settlers moved farther toward the Golden West. Of course, a part of the old town remained, and with it a few of the characters typical of a Western “cow town.” Among these was a tall, raw-boned man who had drifted West in the ‘eighties, settling at Three Corners and opening a gambling-house. His name was “Jim” Cutler. He was a man of very few words, but with one great failing—he would shoot first and argue afterwards. Yet this gambler, who was known and feared far and wide as a “gun-fighter,” was at heart the mildest of men, beloved by all the children in the town, to whom he gave coppers galore. Furthermore, Cutler would put up with all manner of insult from a man under the influence of liquor, or from “Tenderfeet” who did not know their danger. Cutler’s shooting propensities were directed solely toward avowed “bad men” or those who delighted in being known as bullies. In the course of his altercations with such characters this tall, raw-boned man—who could, and did, “pull his gun” like a streak of lightning—added to the population of the local cemetery with a score of six.
Among the new-comers to Three Corners during the rehabilitation of that town was a Hebrew named Moses Goldman. This man, a good-looking fellow of some twenty-eight years, hailed from New York. He opened a shop, and, with the business ability of his race, soon succeeded in making it the principal draper’s establishment of the place. Before long, however, reports began to circulate that the handsome young Hebrew was not quite so respectful in demeanour towards his lady customers as he should have been, and, although highly popular with a certain element, the major portion of Three Corners’ female population gave Goldman’s shop a wide berth.
One Monday morning Jim Cutler, who had been up all night looking after the “game” in his establishment, was just leaving the place when a young woman, whom he recognised as the schoolmistress, ran up to him and said: “Oh, Mr. Cutler, would you mind walking as far as the school-house with me?”
Cutler, somewhat astonished, did so, and was gratefully thanked for his trouble. After leaving her he walked slowly back to his rooms, wondering why he of all men should have been chosen to escort the pretty “school ma’am.”
Some days afterwards Cutler, who passed the school on his way to and from the Gem Saloon (his place), saw the mistress deliberately cross the street just before reaching Goldman’s shop, and continue on her way on the other side. He also saw Goldman come to the door and try to attract the girl’s attention. When he reached Goldman, the latter; twirling his moustache, remarked, laughingly, “Shy girl, that, eh?” Cutler looked at the Hebrew for a moment, and then answered quietly, as he moved away, “She ain’t your kind.”
Three weeks after this little episode there was a ball at the City Hotel, and, naturally, almost the entire youth and beauty of Three Corners “turned out.” The City Hotel was just opposite Cutler’s saloon, and at about one o’clock the gambler was sitting in a chair outside his place, listening to the music, when the schoolmistress and her mother left the hotel on their way home. A moment later a man also quitted the building and followed them. Presently he stopped the two ladies and attempted to converse with them. The younger of the women apparently expostulated with him, and then the two went on, leaving him standing at the corner. Cutler recognised the solitary figure as that of Goldman, the draper, and drew his own conclusions. Next morning Cutler made it his business to leave the Gem Saloon just as the schoolmistress was passing, and strode up to her.
“Miss Thurloe,” he said, “you were stopped last night on your way home. Can I be of any assistance to you? I know you have only your mother to protect you.”
The girl gave him a grateful look, and explained that Goldman had repeatedly forced his attentions on her. She had done her best to send him about his business, but he continually annoyed her, even going so far as to enter the school-house, interrupting lessons and making himself generally obnoxious.
Cutler smiled grimly during the girl’s hesitating recital, saw her safely to her destination, and then went home for a sleep. At three o’clock that afternoon he walked leisurely towards the school-house, stopped at the fence just by the rear door, and chatted with the boys, it being the recess hour. Suddenly, approaching from the opposite direction, he beheld Goldman, who walked straight into the school-house without having seen the gambler. The latter waited for a few moments, then he also entered the building. Reaching the schoolroom, at the end of a short hall, he found the door locked, and promptly threw himself against it with all his strength. The door gave way with a crash and Cutler leapt in, to see the schoolmistress struggling in the arms of Goldman. She was fighting like a tigress, but the Jew’s hand, held tightly over her mouth, prevented her crying out. Directly Goldman beheld the saloon-keeper he released his prisoner, who sank back panting upon a chair, and glared savagely at the new-comer. Cutler, ignoring him entirely, walked slowly toward the agitated schoolmistress and stood still, waiting for her to speak.
Goldman, however, was the first to do so. “Oh, no wonder I’ve no chance,” he burst out, viciously; “Cutler’s as lucky in love as he usually is at cards.”
Cutler flushed at the gibe, but he said not a word, waiting for the girl to speak. Presently, having in a measure recovered herself, she rose and approached the gambler. “Mr. Cutler,” she said, unsteadily, “this man has insulted me repeatedly. Just now he tried to kiss me by force, and I’m afraid I shall have to give up my position here and leave Three Corners.”
In a very gentle voice Cutler asked the girl to leave the room for a few minutes. After she had gone he turned toward Goldman, who stood looking at him defiantly, his arms folded across his chest.
“If you were a man,” he said, sternly, “I’d drop you where you stand, but I’m going to teach you a lesson that’ll do you a heap of good.” Then, with a sudden bound, he grasped Goldman by the throat, threw him across a desk, and, with a three-foot ruler, administered a thrashing such as might be given to a recalcitrant schoolboy, only with somewhat greater severity. The punishment over, Cutler picked the man up and, dragging him across the floor, threw him bodily out of the building. Now Goldman was himself a powerful man, but Cutler’s action had been so swift and decisive that the Hebrew had practically no chance to offer resistance. Once freed from the gambler’s hold, however, he turned and flew at his adversary with clenched fists, snarling furiously. Cutler stood quite still, and just as the Hebrew came within the proper distance his right fist shot out straight from the shoulder. It landed square on Goldman’s jaw, and he dropped like a log.
Several of the school-children, attracted by the noise, now crowded round, vastly excited. Cutler, having informed Miss Thurloe that he believed she would not be further annoyed, but that he would keep an eye on “that fool masher,” walked slowly toward the town, leaving the vanquished draper lying where he had fallen.
It has been necessary to explain all this in order that readers of The Wide World Magazine unfamiliar with the ways of the Far West may better understand what follows. I have said that the better element had in a manner of speaking driven the original settlers at Three Corners to new fields. These new-comers looked upon Cutler as an “undesirable.” His reputation as a “man-killer” did not appeal to the emigrants from the cultured Eastern States, who would gladly have seen him pack up and leave the town. Goldman was quite aware of this, so, directly he recovered himself, he asked for and obtained a warrant for Cutler’s arrest on a charge of assault. The gambler was arraigned before the local magistrate, where he steadfastly refused to give any reason for the chastisement he had inflicted upon Goldman. The latter immediately realized the advantage of Cutler’s chivalrous reluctance to drag a woman’s name into the affair, and so swore that the assault was entirely unprovoked and committed out of “pure devilry” on Cutler’s part. Cutler was fined fifty dollars and severely admonished by the Court. Everyone wondered why this acknowledged “bad man” did not promptly wreak vengeance on the Hebrew. The gambler, however, desiring to protect the name of the school-teacher, said not a word, but paid the fine and went about his business as though nothing had happened.
“HE ADMINISTERED A THRASHING SUCH AS MIGHT BE GIVEN TO A RECALCITRANT SCHOOLBOY.”
Some ten days passed, when, one moonlight evening, Cutler came driving down the road leading into Three Corners, behind a fast-trotting horse. Just as he reached the end of a long field of corn a report rang out and his horse dropped, riddled with shot. Cutler jumped from his buggy, whipped out his revolver, and made for the corn-field, from which the shot had evidently come. He made a thorough search, but the tall corn-stalks afforded a secure hiding-place to the would-be assassin—for Cutler had no doubt whatever that the shot had been meant for him. Reluctantly giving up his quest, he walked back to his saloon and sent several men to remove the dead horse and bring in his buggy. The next morning he again made his way to the corn-field, and there, just by the fence, he found five discarded cigarette ends of a very expensive Egyptian brand which he knew to be smoked by only one man in Three Corners—Goldman, the draper. Evidently the man had lain in wait for a long time. Cutler next climbed over the fence, and was about to return when he saw lying in the path a piece of cloth torn from a jacket, and on it a button. It looked as though the would-be murderer, in jumping the fence, had caught his coat on the barbed wire; at any rate, he had left a damning piece of evidence behind him. With the cigarette ends and the fragment of cloth in his pocket, Cutler walked leisurely up the road into the town and made direct for the shop of Moses Goldman.
The draper was standing on a step-ladder arranging some goods on the shelves. When the door opened, ringing a small bell, he turned, and seeing Cutler jumped down from the ladder. The gambler looked the man straight in the eye. “You miserable cur!” he cried, angrily. “You’d shoot a man in the dark, would you?”
Goldman, realizing that Cutler had satisfied himself as to the identity of his assailant, made as if to draw a revolver. That was the last movement he ever made, for the next instant he dropped dead, shot clean through the heart.
The gambler waited for a moment to see if the report of the pistol had attracted any attention; then, as no one appeared, he quietly left the shop, went over to his saloon, placed two revolvers in his belt, and filled his pockets with ammunition. Then, taking up a Winchester repeating-rifle, he went to the stable, saddled his horse, and after a few words with his bartender rode out of Three Corners in a westerly direction.
It was not long after his departure before the entire town was in an uproar. Moses Goldman, the energetic draper, had been found shot—killed in his own shop by Jim Cutler. The latter had been seen entering Goldman’s establishment by several persons, and the shot had been heard by people living above the store, who afterwards saw Cutler leaving. Sheriff Benson, accompanied by two deputies, promptly called at the Gem Saloon, but the officer was a trifle late, for Cutler was by that time some miles distant. Lest it should be thought that Cutler had made his escape through cowardice it may be best to explain at once, perhaps, that this was not the case. The man realized that should he be apprehended the name of Miss Thurloe must necessarily figure prominently in the matter. Strange as it may seem, this six-foot gambler, knowing no better, believed that by “making himself scarce” he was protecting that lady’s good name. This was a mistake, undoubtedly, but the fact remains that he made it.
It happened that Rufe Benson, Sheriff of Beulah County, was a sworn enemy of Cutler’s, for the latter some years before had taken the law into his own hands and at the point of his gun liberated a prisoner whom he believed to be innocent, and who was eventually proved to be so. Benson now formed a posse of some twenty armed men, and there began a man-hunt which lasted, so far as this particular posse was concerned, for a fortnight. They were then reinforced by a body of “Rangers,” some fifty strong, who in turn found it necessary to call to their assistance a body of militia. All these officers were ably assisted by the citizens and residents of Beulah County, altogether some thousand strong, and yet Jim Cutler proved more than their match. Benson’s men trailed the fugitive to Kerry’s ranch, some six miles out; from here he had gone north-west toward the Rio Grande. He was mounted on a thoroughbred—as were all the men, for that matter—but six miles was a long start in a case like this, and should the hunted man once reach the mountains—well, there might be some trouble in getting at him. The telegraph was put into operation, and a circle some ten miles in circumference drawn around Cutler. When this cordon closed in, however, they failed to find the gambler amongst them, but they did find two self-appointed “man-hunters” lying where they had fallen to the deadly aim of Jim Cutler’s repeating-rifle.
From every town for miles around amateur detectives joined the hunt, but no trace could be found of Cutler beyond the Moulin River, a tiny stream only some twenty feet wide, so the rivulet was dammed and the water drained off for miles, so as to discover, if possible, whether Cutler had ridden up or down stream. While one party of men were doing this, others rode in all directions, searched the ranches, and notified every town by telegraph to keep a look-out for the slayer of Moses Goldman. More and more people joined in the hunt, but for some days, in the slang of the West, “there was nothing doing.” Then, early one morning, two horsemen came galloping towards Benson’s camp, and one of the men, dismounting, delivered a message to the effect that Cutler had been seen at McPherson’s ranch, some eleven miles north-west, where he had informed Mr. McPherson that he had not the slightest intention of taking further life unless driven to it, and that, if Benson would call in all his men, he (Cutler) would promise to give himself up in a fortnight’s time. (It was afterwards learned that he intended in the interval to communicate with Miss Thurloe and arrange a story, leaving her name entirely out of the matter.) Benson, however, was on his mettle, and so refused to parley with his quarry.
“If Jim Cutler thinks he can defy the law and officers of this county, he is mightily mistaken,” he said, “and we’re going to take him, dead or alive.” This ultimatum duly reached Cutler through “non-combatant” friends, whereupon he smiled grimly. Being now outlawed, it was impossible for Cutler’s friends to assist him without making themselves amenable to the law, so the hunted man demanded and secured everything he required at the point of the pistol.
Within fourteen days thereafter nine men who had attempted to interfere with the escaping gambler paid for their foolhardiness with their lives, and all the time, little by little, Cutler was getting closer to the mountains, whose shelter meant so much to him. Sometimes hidden for hours in a haystack, or lying flat under the rafters of a barn loft, the fugitive moved on his way. The main body of pursuers often got within gun-shot of him, but luck favoured the man, and he always managed to find cover just in time. Finally, completely worn out—he had ridden two horses to death and abandoned others commandeered for the time being—Cutler reached the foot of the scrub hills or little range which lay between him and his goal. Here, for the first time, he came in contact with a number of the “man-hunters.” “Lon” Masters—a noted character in Montana, and himself a dead shot—accompanied by eight cowboys, suddenly appeared over a rise in the ground. Cutler, on foot, saw them coming. He dropped on one knee and his rifle flew to his shoulder. The horsemen drew rein, and Masters, making a trumpet of his hands, shouted, “Don’t be a fool, Jim; you’re sure to be caught sooner or later. Let me take you, and I’ll promise no harm shall come to you. You know my word.”
TABLE ROCK, CUTLER’S STRONGHOLD IN BEULAH COUNTY.
From a Photograph.
“Can’t do it, Lon,” Cutler shouted back. “If they give me ten days without interference I’ll give myself up—you know my word.”
“Jim,” responded Masters, “if you don’t drop your gun we shall have to fire.”
“Crack! crack! crack!” came the answer from Cutler’s gun, Masters and two others of the party being hit. The remainder now urged their horses forward, but, as first one and then another rider was “winged” by the desperate man in front of them, the remainder decided that they had urgent business elsewhere, and rode back for reinforcements.
At last, after a weary night’s climb, Cutler reached the place he had been making for. He had not slept more than an hour or two for days, and so, secure for a time at least—for no one could climb these hills quicker than he had done—the worn-out man dropped in a heap. Cutler’s hiding place was a barren ledge, some fifty yards in extent, the only approach thereto being the bridle-path by which he had come. Two, or at most three, at a time was the only formation in which his pursuers could get anywhere near him, and with Cutler’s knowledge of the use of firearms this was a ticklish undertaking, to say the least of it. Moreover, he could see anyone approaching along the valley for a great distance. There was plenty of water a little distance down the path, Cutler had sufficient food with him to last for a week, and he felt he could “make a get-away” during this time.
The erstwhile gambler awoke when the sun was high in the heavens; he felt lame and sore all over. Walking towards the edge of the ledge he saw, away in the distance, a large party of horsemen spread out over a great area. Cutler went down the path, bathed his face and arms in the cool spring water, and took a long drink; then, returning above, he sat down and leisurely ate from his store of dried beef, biscuits, and corn bread. At midday the approaching horsemen were in full view, and Cutler saw that they had come with prairie wagons, containing camp paraphernalia, evidently prepared for a siege, for they knew as well as he did himself of the hiding-place where he had taken refuge. Soon the riders came to a halt and Cutler laughed as he saw others coming from all directions, evidently anxious to be “in at the death.” It looked rather a big camp to the solitary figure high in the air, but numbers meant nothing, only—well, his ammunition would give out sooner or later. Then, of course, would come capture—but he wouldn’t look that far ahead.
During the afternoon several men approached, one of them displaying a white handkerchief, which he waved to and fro. When the men reached the bottom of the hill they dismounted and one made his way slowly up, shouting now and again, “It’s me, Jim—Joe Ludlow.” Cutler made his way down the path and, suddenly coming upon Ludlow, ordered him to throw up his hands. The man did so, saying, “Jim, you and I have been friends for fifteen years; believe me, I’m unarmed; I want to talk to you—trust me.” Thereupon Cutler lowered his rifle, and the two men shook hands. Then followed a long confab, during which Ludlow did his utmost to get Cutler to surrender. He said Sheriff Benson was prepared to starve Cutler out, or get him at all costs. It would only mean loss of life and must eventually result in the fugitive’s capture. Ludlow said that he, with half-a-dozen “pals,” would assure Cutler a safe return to Three Corners, sending Benson and all the rest on ahead. Then Cutler could stand his trial, and, with a good lawyer from Butte to defend him, would no doubt stand a chance of some sort.
Cutler listened patiently; then he shook his head.
“I know what’s coming to me, Joe,” he said; “they have been after me for years in a quiet way. Now they want my life, but they sha’n’t have it—at least not until I’ve paved the way with a few of them.”
Ludlow was a very decent sort of fellow, and he tried his utmost to convince Cutler that his argument was a good one. Cutler then took the man into his confidence, and, Ludlow promising not to say a word to those below, he was told the whole story—told of Miss Thurloe’s complaints, the episode at the school-house, the shooting of Cutler’s horse, and everything.
“Well, I’m jiggered!” cried Ludlow, when the tale was finished. “Why didn’t you let us know this in the first place?” He then informed the gambler that he would ride back to Three Corners and explain the situation to the schoolmistress. She had only to tell her story to the judge, he said, and it was a certainty he would interfere in some way. Cutler demurred, but Ludlow bluntly told him to “go to h——; he wasn’t going to see a good man hounded to death.” With that, turning on his heel, he left without another word.
Going back to the camp, Ludlow informed Sheriff Benson that under no circumstances ought he to attempt to take Cutler, and asked him to await his return from Three Corners. Benson replied, “I want none of your conversation, Ludlow; Cutler is a downright murderer, and I mean to have him.”
Ludlow, disdaining further argument, rode off at full speed toward the little town where all the trouble had occurred.
Not knowing just what card Ludlow had up his sleeve, the sheriff decided to make quick work of Cutler’s capture. He therefore sent a party of deputies to Malvern, the nearest telegraph station, and in the name of the law asked the county militia to send him some men with a mountain gun, the property of private individuals who practised soldiering as a pastime. Each State in America, it may be said in passing, possesses several such regiments, which are available in war-time, although in no way a part of the Government organization, and having no connection with the State militia. It would have been useless to attempt to dislodge Cutler as matters stood, but Benson believed that a few shots from a cannon might have the desired effect. When his message was received at Malvern it created a sensation. Business was for the nonce neglected and everybody—men, women, and children—made their way toward the sheriffs camp at Table Hill.
Several attempts were made to parley with Cutler, without success, and so three days went by. On the afternoon of the fourth day the refugee on the rock was thunderstruck to see a body of soldiers approaching from the south, with a field gun hauled by four horses. He did not know whether to laugh or to regard this seriously. Surely the officers of the law would not resort to bombarding him with a cannon? Soon the soldiers reached the camp, and about an hour later Cutler saw that the gun, a howitzer, was being trained on the hill where he lay enjoying a smoke. There was no chance of his getting away other than by the path by which he had come. Behind him there was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet into the gully far below. True, he could descend some distance down the mountain-side, but if the besiegers really meant business this would not help him much. Nothing was done that day, but Cutler kept vigilant watch all through the night. He had regularly built a huge fire some way down the mountain-side, which was protected by trees to some extent, but lit up the path for a considerable distance.
“IF YOU SO MUCH AS WINK YOUR EYE I’LL PUT A HOLE IN YOU.”
The next morning a party numbering a dozen came toward the hill again bearing a white flag. They stopped some distance off, one man only continuing—Benson, the Sheriff of Beulah County, himself. Cutler allowed him to approach much nearer than had Ludlow; then he covered the advancing sheriff with his rifle.
“Cutler, if we haven’t rushed this place,” said Benson, “it is only because I did not want to sacrifice human lives, knowing full well that sooner or later you must give up. I know you are on the square, so I’ve come up unarmed, being sure you wouldn’t take advantage of the white flag. I’m only doing my duty. I give you this chance to come back with me, otherwise I’m afraid they’ll blow this place up and you with it.”
“Regular war, isn’t it?” replied Cutler, smilingly.
“Looks like it,” admitted the sheriff.
“Well, seeing you are trying that game, I’ll just do a little in the war line myself,” said Cutler. “You walk up this path towards me, and if you so much as wink your eye I’ll put a hole in you that a tramcar could go through!”
The sheriff could hardly believe his ears. “Don’t be a fool, Cutler,” he said, angrily.
“Never mind about my being a fool; you do as you’re told or I’ll drop you quick.”
Benson evidently had no doubts about the matter, for, though beside himself with rage, he promptly did as Cutler ordered. The sheriff was forced to walk ahead, and no doubt, had his captor been almost any other man than Jim Cutler, there would have been one big fight on Table Hill, gun or no gun, but Benson knew that Cutler would do just as he said he would. Arrived at the top, Benson was forced to write a note saying that he was a captive, and that perhaps it would be just as well not to fire the cannon in the direction it was now trained. Furthermore, one man was to approach the hill with food, whisky, and tobacco. The note was then secured to a large stone by the aid of Sheriff Benson’s braces, and while Cutler “stood by” Benson was ordered to throw this stone toward the deputy in charge of the waiting horsemen below. This man, or one of those with him, picked up the stone, and read the message to the others. There was a great laugh below—plainly heard by the two men on the ledge—and, needless to say, the merriment of his assistants did not add to Benson’s peace of mind. Cutler now laid his rifle down, first having drawn a six-shooter. Then, approaching Benson, he searched him for concealed firearms, but the sheriff was unarmed. The latter was now told to sit down and make himself comfortable at the opening which led to the path, Cutler being thereby able to watch both his prisoner and the approach from below. Soon a solitary figure came from the camp, carrying the food “ordered.” It was brought as near as Cutler permitted it to be, and then Benson, under cover of the rifle, was sent to fetch it. It looked for a moment as though there might be a fight after all, but Cutler’s business-like demeanour soon caused his prisoner to change his mind.
With the food there was a note, reading, “Are we to wait for you or not?” This did not appeal to the sheriff’s sense of humour, and he tore the paper into shreds.
Just at sundown a large cloud of dust was noticed in the distance, which soon turned out to be a number of mounted men with a wagon, or “prairie schooner.” The new-comers were presently merged with those in camp, and not long afterwards two men, escorting a woman, rode slowly toward Table Hill. Again the white flag was raised, and a voice shouted from below, “Hi, Jim, it’s me—Ludlow.”
Cutler permitted his friend to approach, and when he gained the ledge Ludlow had a hard struggle to restrain his laughter at the unfortunate sheriff’s predicament.
“I’ve brought some news for you, Jim,” said Ludlow. “That school-ma’am is a brick, and no mistake. When I told her how things stood, she came right to the front, and not only saw Judge Nolan, but drove twenty miles to see Governor Hill, and here’s the result.”
Ludlow then handed Sheriff Benson an official communication paroling Cutler in his own recognizances pending investigation of Miss Thurloe’s story. Western men are nothing if not intensely chivalrous, and, if this girl’s story was correct, Cutler, in their estimation, deserved, not death, but a medal.
The amazed sheriff scratched his head and Cutler seemed undecided, but Ludlow grasped his hand eagerly. “Come on, old fellow, down to the sea-level,” he cried. This broke the tension, and all three men smiled.
“There is nothing for me to do but obey this, Cutler,” said the sheriff, slowly; “but I’ll tell you straight I don’t feel like doing it.”
Ludlow turned to Benson and informed him that Judge Nolan had made him a Court officer, the tenure of his office being thirty days, and that he would brook no interference from Benson or anyone else. That settled it. The trio walked down the path, where Miss Thurloe, with tears in her eyes, thanked Cutler for his brave and manly action on her behalf. She said that she had reason to believe he would be acquitted, and that, as no warrant had been issued for his arrest until after he had shot the men who had attempted to stop him, it must be a case of self-defence.
Cutler was received with cheers by the crowd in camp—the same men who were thirsting for his blood an hour before—and soon everybody was seeking the nearest way home, and the scene of action was shortly deserted. It is not possible to chronicle that Jim Cutler was triumphantly acquitted at his trial. His character went strongly against him—that is to say, the fact that he had previously figured in “shooting scrapes”—but, nevertheless, his sentence was a comparatively light one. The State’s attorney (analogous to counsel for the Crown) laid great stress on the fact of Cutler’s having visited Goldman’s shop, obviously seeking trouble, when he should have reported the attempt on his life to the authorities. He was sentenced to five years in the State prison, but was pardoned at the expiration of eleven months. He is now living in Butte, the capital of the State of Montana, where he has opened a saloon. Miss Thurloe left Three Corners, and is believed to be teaching in Pittsburg, U.S.A.
The local newspapers poked much fun at the soldiers who took their cannon miles out to bombard what they jocularly called “a one-man army”; but all the same they meant business, and had matters not ended as they did there would have been a change in the landscape just there, for the top of Table Hill would in all probability have been blown to pieces, and Jim Cutler with it.
Photographing a Volcano in Eruption.
By Frank Davey.
A vivid description of a photographer’s adventures in securing pictures of the eruption of Makuaweoweo, in Hawaii. With pen and camera Mr. Davey depicts the awe inspiring grandeur of the lake of fire in the crater of Mauna Loa, the pyrotechnic display afforded by the active cone on the mountain-side, and the horrors of night amid the lava-wastes, where death menaced the party on every hand.
On Tuesday, July 1, 1899, reports reached Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, that the volcano of Makuaweoweo, situated at the summit of Mauna Loa, thirteen thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet high, on the island of Hawaii, had burst forth with all the fury of years gone by. I was anxious to get some photographs of the eruption if possible, and so made all the haste I could to get my paraphernalia together and catch the steamer W. H. Hall, bound for Hawaii.
“PAHOEHOE” LAVA, WHICH APPEARS AS THOUGH IT HAD COOLED WHILE FLOWING QUIETLY.
From a Photograph.
I left with the intention of reaching the scene of action from the Kau side of the island, but when, upon arriving at Kailua, Kona, I telegraphed to Mr. N. S. Monsarrat, at Kapapalu, I found that he had a house full of guests bent on the same journey, and that all his horses had been engaged. Rather than lose time, therefore, I decided to take the most difficult route of all—right over the great mountain from the Kona side. The obstacles to be overcome may perhaps be imagined when I state that Mauna Loa is a volcanic mountain, nearly fourteen thousand feet high, and that one has to make one’s way for the entire distance over every kind of lava formation.
“A. A.” LAVA, WHICH LOOKS AS THOUGH IT HAD SOLIDIFIED WHILE TOSSING LIKE A SEA IN A STORM AND THEN BEEN BROKEN UP BY EARTHQUAKES.
[From a Photograph.]
It was with great difficulty that I managed to get horses and mules from the natives, who knew the condition of the country, for the animals inevitably get badly knocked about, their legs being terribly cut by the lava, which is divided into two classes—“Pahoehoe” and “A. A.” The former term is applied to tracts of comparatively smooth lava, which appears as though it had cooled while flowing quietly; the latter is applied to stretches of broken lava which seem to have cooled when tossing like an ocean in a bad storm, and to have afterwards been broken up by earthquakes. No words of description can convey an idea of its roughness and hardness, which may be faintly realized from an inspection of the above photograph.
During the time I was hunting for horses a number of gentlemen arrived and expressed their desire to join me in the expedition. I was only too pleased to have their company, so five travellers threw in their lot with me: Professor Ingalls, Colonel McCarthy, and Messrs. Sterns Buck, J. Ballard, and H. C. Klugel. These, with three guides, completed our party.
We were up early the next morning. The first part of the journey was one of the most delightful rides I ever had. We rode for hours through magnificent tropical growths. There were giant ferns, some of which must have been thirty or forty feet high and three feet in diameter, groves of guavas, coco-nuts, and other fruits, miles of wild mint and bright-coloured flowers, and orchids of most delicate shapes.
At dusk we reached the edge of the timber-line, in a drenching rain, a downpour such as is experienced only in the tropics, where the rain descends in sheets. We ate our supper and then spent the night huddled miserably together, trying in vain to keep dry.
We resumed our journey at daybreak, over the most terrible country that can be imagined. The sharp edges of the lava cut through our stout boots like broken glass, and the poor animals suffered greatly. Still, however, we persevered, and finally reached the summit just as it was getting dark. Near the centre of the mountain-top an area of about four square miles sinks to a depth of one thousand feet. This is the great crater of Makuaweoweo, which we had endured so much to see.
As I stood there in the cold, in the midst of those cheerless and God-forsaken wastes, I gazed down with speechless awe upon the untrammelled frolics of the God of Fire. The tempest-tossed lake of molten lava below the rim of the great cauldron was a typical workshop of Vulcan. The face of the lake of liquid fire alternated continually between black and white, like molten iron in a furnace. Oxidation and cooling of the fiery fluid would blacken the surface with a pall that covered it in darkest gloom; then a trembling, caused by further subterranean outbursts of steam, would break this ice-like oxide into a fretwork of tens of thousands of incandescent cracks, lighting up the smoke-charged pit with a fierce glare. Another moment, and in different parts of the lake geysers of fire of every imaginable colour would rise like fountains in a public garden.
THE AUTHOR SURVEYING THE CRATER OF MAKUAWEOWEO FROM A PINNACLE OF LAVA.
From a Photograph.
The great forbidding-looking walls of this “home of everlasting fire” sparkled with the unusual light, and then, as the spouts of flame died away, the surface would again turn black, leaving the whole mass to all appearances dead.
We found that the worst outbreak was about five thousand feet farther down the mountain-side. Some of our party were seized with such a sickness of horror at the crater’s edge that they rolled themselves up in their blankets and refused to look down upon this fiery maelstrom—and that after two days of arduous effort to reach a point of view!
When the time came for sleep, another man and I turned into a “blowhole” in the lava; it was an immense bubble that had cooled and left an opening so that we could crawl in. We little thought that there was another hole at the other end, and the piercing wind blew through this like a funnel; but we had to stay there, for it is dangerous to wander about over the rifts and chasms of jagged lava in the darkness. Here, in this strange bed-chamber, we slept, or tried to sleep—shivering and shuddering through the chilly solitude of the night in those desolate mountain wastes.
THE CRATER OF MAKUAWEOWEO, SHOWING THE AWFUL LAKE OF LIQUID FIRE.
From a Photograph.
Walking across the congealed masses of lava next morning, one began to think that at any moment one was liable to drop through to the very gates of Hades and be precipitated to the most horrible of deaths. Underneath one was a bottomless abyss of mud, sulphur, and rock; and to contemplate being cast into that fearsome-looking lake of fire and brimstone was not at all comfortable. The Biblical description of hell does not convey even a faint idea of that terrible lake of fire below us, which appeared to be fretting and fuming as though anxious to get loose and destroy everything in its path. The crater of Makuaweoweo at that time, without doubt, afforded the spectator a more awe-inspiring display of the forces of Nature than has been granted to man elsewhere on earth without the sacrifice of life.
THE AUTHOR AND HIS COMPANIONS AS THEY APPEARED JUST BEFORE LEAVING THEIR HORSES TO VISIT THE WORST OUTBREAK.
From a Photograph.
Soon after daylight we prepared for the descent to the point that was throwing out molten lava at a white heat. It was practically impossible to take the horses farther, so we tethered them to stones near the yawning depths of Makuaweoweo, and left one of the guides to look after them. We were very thirsty, but it was some time before we could find water, though snow and ice were plentiful. Farther down, however, we discovered water in a deep crack in the lava, filled the canteens, and started on our downward journey. I was suffering from mountain sickness; my head felt as if it would burst and my stomach was upside down. We stumbled along with difficulty for about two miles, when I had to get the assistance of Mr. Buck to carry my camera. Two of our party who had started out in advance gave it up and returned—they could not stand the strain of the rough travelling. This left but four of us, with two guides.
Presently we reached a cone where the lava had piled up to the height of about one hundred feet, then, bursting out at the side, disappeared into the ground, to reappear about a quarter of a mile farther down and repeat its action. These cones averaged two hundred feet in width at the base and one hundred feet in height, and we passed five “dead” ones. A sixth was still smoking, but was not active. Two of the party tried to climb to the top of this cone, but were unable to do so.
We then pushed on to cone number seven, which was belching forth huge volumes of steam and sulphur. The fumes, most fortunately, were being blown away from us. At this stage one of the guides refused to go any farther; it was too dangerous, he said, so he proceeded to retrace his steps, while we others continued our journey toward cone number eight. This was the last and largest, and was, I should estimate, about two hundred feet high; in fact, a veritable miniature volcano, spouting red-hot lava a hundred feet in the air with a ripping boom that could be heard for miles. Boulders that must have weighed a ton were being hurled high into the air as if shot from a cannon. Others followed to meet those coming down, and as they met they burst like explosive shells, scattering molten matter on all sides. This flowed down the incline in cascades like water, showing red, yellow, blue, and all the colours of the rainbow.
TWO OF THE “DEAD” CONES PASSED BY THE PARTY.
From a Photograph.
It is impossible to describe the grandeur of the effect, and a knowledge of the force that was causing the display made one feel very small indeed. Some of the ejected masses were as large as a horse, and when they were belched forth were at a white heat. They went so high that they had time to cool and return to the vortex black.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon when we reached this wonderful display. It had taken us nine hours to reach the volcano, and we were thirsty and well-nigh exhausted. We could not approach very near on account of the heat, but I made some photographic exposures, and then sat for an hour watching the wonderful sight. As the sun went down the magnificence of the scene increased. The ground shook at each explosion to such an extent as to make us sick. We found quantities of what is known as “Pele’s hair.”[1] It is caused by the wind blowing the liquid lava through the air, forming fine threads like human hair.
[1] Pele, according to the native legends, is the goddess of the volcano, and dwells in the crater.
As we approached cone number seven on our return journey the wind changed, and to our consternation we saw a cloud of sulphur blowing right across our path. These masses of vapour are so impregnated with sulphur and poisonous gases that it is impossible for any living thing to exist among them, and to get caught in their midst means death. Alarmed, we started to go around the other side, but found the lava was too hot; the surface was cool, but there was living fire beneath, and we dared not proceed. We kept on until the lava began to move under our feet, and then beat a retreat to face the sulphur again, for it was better to be smothered to death than slowly roasted.
CONE “NUMBER SEVEN”—IT WAS ABOUT TWO HUNDRED FEET HIGH, A MINIATURE VOLCANO, SPOUTING RED-HOT LAVA AND GIANT BOULDERS WITH A ROAR THAT COULD BE HEARD FOR MILES.
From a Photograph.
We made a number of attempts to pass that deadly barrier of vapour, but were forced to return each time, nearly suffocated. It looked as though we should soon be choked to death—the fire at the back of us, the sulphur in front. Professor Ingalls remarked that we had better make the best of our time by taking notes, and then prepare for the worst. Just at this critical moment I happened to turn round and saw an arch, as it were, in the sulphur smoke, where the wind was blowing it up from the ground.
“Look! look!” I shouted, in great excitement. “Run for it!” And how we ran! Providence gave us the chance and fear lent us strength, for under ordinary circumstances we could never have run as we did, owing to the condition of our feet. The danger, however, made us forget the pain, and we ran for dear life. We had scarcely got through that arch of clear air when down came the cloud again, as though lowered by some great power. The only guide who had stayed with us fell exhausted at the edge of the vapour-mass. How I managed to drag him along I do not know; I hardly realized what I was doing, but I managed to save him.
Once past the danger-point we crawled along at our best pace, for at any moment the wind might turn in our direction, when we should be again overtaken by that terrible death-cloud. I had left my camera behind in our wild flight, but fortunately I saved several plates.
It was now night, and the only light we had was the lurid glare from the volcano. Suddenly, as we stumbled painfully along, we came upon a man sitting by the side of a dead cone; it was the guide who had returned. He said he did not expect to see us alive again, for he had seen the deadly smoke blow across the mountain.
If it had not been for the light from the volcano we should undoubtedly have perished of cold and thirst, as we should have been compelled to stop walking. As it was, we dared not halt for any length of time, or we should not have had warmth enough to keep the blood circulating. All that night we crawled over that terrible lava. We fell down at intervals of about twenty feet, often breaking through the black crust, sometimes up to our waists, cutting ourselves on the sharp projections until our hands and legs were woefully lacerated. Almost as soon as we fell we dropped asleep; then, as we got colder, we would wake up and force ourselves on again for a few dozen yards or so, only to fall asleep, wake, and struggle up once more. The agony of the situation and the pain of our wounds were enough to make a man go insane.
At last it began to get light, but still we had come across no water, and that in our canteens had long since been exhausted. Very few people, fortunately, know what it means to have their throats and lips so swollen and cracked that they are bleeding for want of water. I could scarcely speak. We hunted the depths and crevices of the lava, sometimes going down ten or fifteen feet, looking for water, only to be disappointed again and again. At last I got so weak that Mr. Buck had to take my package of plates off my back, where I had tied them.
Suddenly I saw a break in the lava nearly full of beautiful water. I pulled Mr. Buck’s arm, pointing to it, and mumbled, “Water.” Slowly he pulled off his coat and started to climb down the crack. It was about eight feet wide, narrowing to three. I leaned over the side, holding the canteen for Mr. Buck to fill. He went down a few feet, and then stopped. I motioned to him to fill the bottle, croaking, “Water.” He did not look around, but mumbled, “I see no water,” as if in a dream. Picking up a piece of lava, I tossed it down and cried hoarsely, “There is the water.” But to my astonishment the pebble went down, down, down, out of sight, with no sound of a splash, into a fathomless abyss. The crevice was so deep that we could not see the bottom, and the shock of the discovery made me faint. How Sterns Buck managed to return he does not remember; it is a wonder he did not fall, to be mangled upon the sharp corners of lava.
I came to my senses dazed and almost bewildered, and Buck and I sat motionless for some time staring at each other. After a time we scrambled on again until we came upon the guide sitting upon the edge of a high crack, eating frozen snow, and tearing at it with his teeth like a hungry dog. We followed his example, not without pain, but the snow tasted good.
Some of the party who had previously returned met us near the summit with coffee. When they saw us coming they got things ready so as to make us as comfortable as possible. After washing our lacerated hands and feet we took a good sleep, and awoke much refreshed. The journey home was, comparatively speaking, easy, but the memory of that night amidst the lava will last me to my dying day.
By Thomas B. Marshall.
An exciting story told by a former official of the Gold Coast Government. With a friend and some natives he went out to shoot a marauding leopard. They accomplished their mission, but before the day was over one and all of the party had received a good deal more than they bargained for.
In 1899, while in the service of the Gold Coast Government, and stationed at Kumasi, I received orders “per bearer, who will accompany you,” to proceed to a point on Volta not far south of where it debouches from among the Saraga Hills. “The bearer,” a nice young fellow called Strange, was newly arrived in the colony, and his pleasant home gossip was not less welcome to me than my information about the country we were in was to him. Our rough forest journey, then, passed as pleasantly as such journeys can, and by the time we arrived at our destination we were the best of friends.
Akroful, a town of about seven hundred inhabitants, was the nearest place of any size to the spot where we pitched our camp, and we were soon on good terms with its headman, Otibu Daku, and his son, Dansani, both of whom put us in the way of some good shooting.
We had been in this place about a fortnight, when we began to be annoyed by the depredations of a marauding leopard, who took to visiting our live-stock pens, and at last we decided to lie in wait for him. I took the first watch until a snake crawled over my legs; then I went to bed. It was a harmless one, but it reminded me of the need of precaution, so next night found our lair surrounded by a very uninviting floor of cactus leaves.
The fourth night after our vigil commenced Strange succeeded in wounding our sell-invited guest, and we determined to track him down as soon as it was light. Otibu Daku and his son willingly agreed to help us; and I took, in addition, two of my own men who would, I knew, “stand fire”—Ashong Tawiah, an Accra man, and Nyato, my chief steward-boy, a Krooman.
The two Ashantis led the way, Otibu Daku carrying a “long Dane” gun; his son, a machete. Tawiah and Nyato also carried machetes, and the former, on leaving camp, had picked up a broad-bladed Hausa spear. Strange and I each had a repeating rifle and a revolver, for, as Nyato told me, “Dem headman, ’e say, plenty tiger lib dem part.”
The trail was easy to follow. There was not much blood, but the ground was soft from recent rain. It was rough going, however, and the machetes were constantly at work clearing a way. Up and down small watersheds, squelching through marshy bottoms, crossing streams on fallen trees, we frequently lost the track, but by some sort of instinct our guides always found it again.
At last, after descending a more than usually steep incline, we found ourselves in a valley of some size. The bush here was very thin, and we progressed without difficulty until we came in sight of the inevitable stream, the opposite bank of which, rising steeply, evidently formed the commencement of the next divide. I was about a dozen yards to Strange’s right; the ground was clear of bush between us and the stream; and on the nearer bank, his head overhanging the water, lay our quarry, clearly dying. But he was not alone. Stretched by his side, licking the wound that was letting out his life, lay a fine female leopard, evidently his consort. On seeing us she rose to her feet, snarling; she abandoned her ministrations and became militant—a defender-avenger. Strange fired hastily on sight, and a convulsive heave of the prostrate body showed where the bullet struck. With a light leap the leopardess cleared her mate, and with long, low springs raced down towards my friend. He fired again at thirty yards, wounding her, and she swerved slightly and came in my direction. We both fired together, whereupon she stopped suddenly, reared straight up, pawing the air—then fell backward, stone-dead.
“SHE REARED STRAIGHT UP PAWING THE AIR—THEN FELL BACKWARD, STONE-DEAD.”
Hardly had the double report died away when our attention was attracted to a movement on the other side of the stream. Tawiah pointed.
“Oolah! tiger him piccin!” (“Master, the leopard’s cubs”), he cried. Slinking away downstream, with long, stealthy strides, their muzzles to the ground and tails trailing low, were two half-grown leopards, the head of one level with the other’s haunch.
“Tally-ho!” cried Strange, and let fly at them. His one fault as a sportsman was a too great eagerness to get the first shot in. The white splinters flew from the buttress of a great cotton-wood, and the nearer cub, startled as never before, leapt a man’s height from the ground, and, coming down, raced away downstream after its companion.
“Come on! We’ll bag the whole family,” said Strange, jumping into the stream. Otibu Daku was already across and I was about to follow, when I noticed, fluttering up the farther slope, one of those beautiful insects called the “dead leaf” butterfly. You will see one fluttering along like a fugitive piece of rainbow—then suddenly it will alight on a withered branch or heap of dead herbage and disappear, the underside of the wings being in shape, colour, and even veining an exact imitation of a withered leaf.
I was an enthusiastic collector, and never went out without a folding net that could be fixed to any fairly straight stick. Bidding Tawiah remain with me, then, I let the others go on after the cubs, and in a couple of minutes was in pursuit of my own particular quarry. The slope was nearly bare of bush, and I did not have much difficulty in making the capture. Placing it in a flat box containing some poison-wax, I took my rifle from Tawiah and went on up the hill, leaving him tying up a scratch on his leg.
I was not quite easy in my mind. We had been too hasty in concluding that the cubs we had seen belonged to the leopards we had shot. They had been driven away too easily, and most likely were heading straight for their own den, where, at that time of day, the old ones would certainly be at home.
I hurried on in the hope of getting some indication of my friend’s whereabouts. At the top of the ascent a soft breeze met me, it was pleasant and refreshing, but it brought that with it that made me drop flat behind a bush and throw my rifle forward. There is no mistaking the odour given off by the larger carnivora, and the strength of the smell that assailed my nostrils was such as to convince me that my first hasty thought—that I had headed off the cubs—was wrong. Such an effluvium could come only from a den, and an occupied one at that.
There were three possibilities. It might be the home of the dead leopards, of the strange cubs we had seen, or the lair of yet a third family. I looked back. Tawiah was not in sight, but I knew he would follow. In front, for a hundred yards, the level crest of the ridge was covered by a sparse, wand-like growth that was no impediment to the view. Beyond the ground fell away again, and just on the edge, and rather to my right, stood two enormous cotton-woods, the space between them being a labyrinth of roots standing thigh-high from the ground.
To this point, with what speed and silence I could command, I made my way. Midway I stopped abruptly to listen. A deep snarling, worrying sound filled the air, coming from straight ahead. Reaching the nearest root, I looked over. The rapidly falling ground beyond was hidden by a far-sweeping buttress from the tree on my left, which, running parallel with the one I stood against, made a passage about four feet wide and two high. Stealing away to the left, where the nearer root sank below the surface, I entered the passage, and, on all fours, reached a point midway between the two trees. The noise I had before heard was now very distinct, and, blending with it, yet dominating it, came a continuous buzzing sound like the far-away roll of a drum. I knew it for the purring of a full-grown leopard.
Looking back, I was glad enough to see Tawiah reaching the level. I raised a warning hand, and, waiting only to see that he observed me, turned, and very cautiously looked over the root in front. From where I crouched the ground fell away very steeply and was bare and stony. Then began a gentler slope covered with a low scrub and running down into a valley similar to, but larger than, the one we had just left. Down the centre flowed a stream, the same on whose banks, higher up, we had left the dead leopards. I was on a kind of spur, round which the stream made a bend away to my right. To my left it lost itself in an expanse of shallow water covered with great water-lilies, which merged in its turn into the stream of the Volta, half a mile away.
Just where the change of slope began was a great outcrop of rock. About a foot above the base, and facing me, was a ragged opening, and in this, with both paws hanging over the edge, lounged a fine she-leopard. The air hummed with her complacent purr, as, with blinking eyes, she watched the rough play of two well-grown cubs. Presently she rolled over on her back, and, with downward-hanging head, struck idly with a mighty paw at a white butterfly flitting above her. She was the personification of soft and sinuous strength.
Suddenly, away to the right, a shot rang out. The purring ceased, and instantly the great cat was couched, rigid as a bronze casting. Except for the tip of her tail, not a muscle moved. Presently the tense expression relaxed, and with a guttural sort of sigh her head dropped on to her paws. But only for an instant. The stealthy rustling of something approaching reached her ears, and she resumed her alert attitude. Then her eyes half closed again, and she seemed to go smooth all over. A suave, fawning expression came into her face; her purring redoubled; she rolled softly on to her side and gazed intently in the direction of the sound. The noise came nearer, and presently, as I expected, her mate appeared. He paused for an instant to look back, and at that moment Strange’s rifle spoke again, and the leopard sank down, biting savagely at his hind-quarters. With one movement as it seemed, and with a sort of deep-throated cough, his consort was by his side, and then began an awful duet of snarls and growls, rumblings and snufflings, with the cubs for chorus.
It was high time for me to take action; a wounded leopard and a leopardess with young can make themselves pretty awkward. I aimed at the female as being the more dangerous, and was about to pull the trigger, when a movement in the valley attracted my attention. One of the cubs we had first seen was tearing across the open, making for the stream. Some distance behind followed the other, evidently wounded. Close upon him ran Dansani, machete in hand. As I looked the cub turned and Dansani struck. Nyato was close behind, and level with him, but farther out, Otibu Daku stole swiftly with long, bent-kneed strides, his “long Dane” gun held across his body. Strange was not in sight.
The foremost cub was nearly at the stream when he raised a howl of fear or of warning, I do not know which. On the instant, from a clump of bushes on the farther side, there leapt two greyish-white forms. Clearing the stream, they charged straight down on the young Ashanti.
All this was photographed on my brain while my finger was on the trigger. The scene was blotted out as I fired, and from that moment I had enough on my hands to occupy my undivided attention. The leopardess was killed outright. The next instant I fired at the male, but one of the cubs gave a jump and received the bullet meant for his sire. How the brute did it I do not know—for he had a broken thigh-bone—but next moment the old leopard was tearing up the slope towards me, and very business-like he looked. I fired again and clipped his ear; then his claws were hooked on to the root in front of me, and all I could do was to smash the butt, pile-driver fashion, down upon his head. He seized it in his jaws, and the hard wood cracked like pitch-pine, while the wrench nearly tore the weapon from my grasp. He gave me no time to reverse it for another shot, or to draw my revolver. Four times did he struggle to draw himself up, and but for his broken leg I could not have prevented him. Four times, luckily for me, he allowed his fury to vent itself on the rifle-butt. The struggle only lasted seconds, but it seemed hours, and already the fury of it made my breath come short.
And then the cub decided to take a hand! It had been pacing to and fro, snuffing the blood and growling; it then suddenly turned, and dashed straight to the scene of combat. A leopard cub by itself is not more than a man can manage, but as a reinforcement to an infuriated parent it is a serious matter. I heard Tawiah behind me.
“Take the piccin,” I yelled, and put all my strength into an effort to thrust my foe back. Instinctively he tried to use his injured leg, and this time he lost grip altogether, and his claws scraped down the root, making great furrows in the wood. I let him have the gun, and seized my revolver in time to plant a couple of bullets in his head as he came up again.
Meanwhile Tawiah had accounted for the cub, but he was badly clawed down the leg. To my surprise—for I did not remember the brute using his claws at all except to hold on by—my coat was ripped, and I had several nasty, but not severe, scratches down chest and arms.
Our attention was now diverted to the scene below, and what we saw sent us both down the slope as fast as we could race—Tawiah ahead. One cub lay dead—Dansani’s victim—and a few paces from it stood the young Ashanti, preparing to dodge the foremost of the parent leopards I had seen break cover. He sprang aside as it reached him, but the brute wheeled as if on a pivot and reared. Then came the crashing report of the “long Dane,” a fearful yell, and Dansani reeled away with his hands to his head, and fell. The leopard, roaring horribly, rolled over and over, apparently broken in two. Its mate, swerving at the report, turned and raced straight for Tawiah, who had just reached the level ground. I shouted to him to come back to me, thinking that revolver and spear together would match the furious brute, but apparently he did not understand, for, waving me to follow, he tore off to where, midway between him and the advancing leopard, stood a small Dequa palm. His object, I learnt afterwards, was to hold the leopard at bay there till help arrived. It was a mad idea, for the savage brute was covering three yards to one of his.
Just at that moment I caught sight of Strange—hobbling along, supported by his rifle, five hundred yards away; there was no help to be expected from him. Nyato was rushing on to settle with the remaining cub, that, screaming, was alternately dashing towards its wounded dam and back to the stream. Otibu Daku was carrying Dansani to the water, and the female leopard, her hind quarters straddling like those of a frog, with the small of her back blown away and reared on her front legs, was rending the air with the most awful yells.
The male passed the tree, and only about forty yards separated him from my faithful follower. I ran on. Trusting to luck, I fired two chambers, but without success. The distance between them decreased rapidly, and Tawiah, seeing the hopelessness of his position, grounded his spear, and, gripping it by the middle, backed up the butt with his knee in the hope that the brute would impale himself. Then I saw that Strange was kneeling, taking aim. He could never hit a running leopard at that range, I told myself; it would appear no bigger than a cat to him.
I was twenty yards behind Tawiah, and barely ten separated him from the leopard, when a ball of smoke floated away from Strange’s rifle. I dared not hope, and Tawiah remained like a rock. Then, suddenly, the leopard halted, and—for all the world like a kitten chasing its own tail—spun round and round till we could hardly tell one end from the other. I sent two bullets as near the centre as I could, and Tawiah, charging in, drove his spear in at one side and out at the other. The battle was over.
“DANSANI REELED AWAY WITH HIS HANDS TO HIS HEAD, AND FELL.”
We found that Strange’s bullet had pierced the skin of the neck just where it joins the head, and had half stunned the animal. But what a glorious shot! I paced the distance to him; it was four hundred and sixty odd yards! He had made just a little too much allowance for speed, but what of that?
Strange, it appeared, had stepped on a loose stone and strained his ankle badly. Poor Dansani was horribly mauled. The beast had clawed him from the crown of his head to the knee in one awful sweep. Half the scalp overhung his face, one eye was destroyed, the muscle of the upper arm was in ribbons, and the stroke, glancing from the elbow, had laid open his thigh to the knee. A revolver-shot finished his assailant. We did what we could for Dansani on the spot, and Nyato and his father carried him home on a hastily-constructed litter. Later he recovered, but was terribly disfigured.
Tawiah and I took it in turns to help Strange along, and when we reached the spot where our first victims lay we found their young ones mewling over them. They slunk away, and we did not molest them. The cub Nyato had chased allowed self-preservation to triumph over filial affection, and got away also. My rifle was utterly ruined. And so ended our leopard hunt.
TURTLE-FARMING.
By H. J. Shepstone.
An interesting description of the way in which turtles are “farmed” in various parts of the world. The most up-to-date and scientifically-conducted of these curious establishments is that of Mr. Hattori, in Japan, where the snapping-turtle, the most vicious of his species, is bred and reared.
That strange creature, the turtle, is now receiving the attention of the farmer, and is being scientifically bred and reared in various parts of the world. Indeed, turtle-farming on a large scale is now carried on both in Japan and in America, while the great palisade enclosures on the shores in the West Indies, where turtles are confined until wanted for the London market, may well come under the same designation.
Curiously enough, the species of turtle favoured respectively by the Japanese, Americans, and by English people are totally different. For instance, the Japanese farmer gives his attention to the propagation of the snapping-turtle and American to the diamond-backed terrapin, while the turtle soup so much prized by the wealthy and sought after by the sick in this country is made from the green turtle of the West Indies.
A GROUP OF YOUNG TURTLES JUST HATCHED.
From a Photograph.
The terrapin is quite a small creature, rather flat-backed and rounded in outline, its scales being marked by independent black patterns composed of many geometric figures placed one within another. At one time it was found in large quantities in the shallow bays and salt marshes along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Texas. The discovery that its flesh made a delicious stew and an ideal soup, however, resulted in the creature being hunted so vigorously that to-day it is exceedingly scarce. Indeed, whereas a terrapin, seven inches in length, could be picked up a few years ago for a few cents, it would be difficult to secure one to-day for a five-pound note. It was this scarcity of the terrapin, and the big demand for it among the hotels and restaurants, that have led not a few enterprising men to establish farms, where these much-sought-after creatures are bred and reared for the market in large numbers.
The terrapin being small, perfectly harmless, and requiring but a little pond of salt water to dwell in, there is nothing particularly exciting in farming it. Indeed, a terrapin “farm” consists merely of a number of small ponds or basins in which the creatures are confined according to their age and size. Thus, in the smaller ponds, we discover those just hatched from the eggs—curious little things not much bigger than a billiard ball. As they breed well, and it is not necessary to keep the creature long before it is ready for the chef, terrapin farming may be described as a fairly remunerative business.
GENERAL VIEW OF MR. HATTORI’S TURTLE-FARM NEAR TOKIO, JAPAN.
From a Photograph.
THE EMBANKMENT OF A “PARENTS’ POND”—EACH OF THE WIRE CIRCLETS HERE SHOWN COVERS A DEPOSIT OF EGGS.
From a Photo. by M. Ichikawa, Japan.
Decidedly more up-to-date are the snapping-turtle farms of Mr. Hattori, situated just outside Tokio, the capital of Japan. The Japanese people will proudly tell you that they are the only turtle farms in the world, but, as I have already shown, this is hardly correct. These farms were established some few years ago now, and are, without question, a great success. On an average, Mr. Hattori supplies to the hotels and restaurants of Japan over sixteen thousand turtles a year, while another five thousand are shipped to China. So far as the farm itself is concerned, it consists of a number of rectangular ponds, large and small, the larger ones having an area of fifteen to twenty thousand square feet.
YOUNG SNAPPING-TURTLES A FEW DAYS OLD—THEY ARE KEPT IN A SEPARATE ENCLOSURE IN ORDER THAT THEIR CANNIBALISTIC ELDERS MAY NOT DEVOUR THEM.
From a Photo. by M. Ichikawa, Japan.
One or more of the ponds is always reserved for large breeding individuals, or “parents,” as they are called, and one of the assistants visits this pond twice a day to look out for new deposits of eggs. Over these he places a wire basket, with the date marked upon it. In one of our photographs a number of these wire baskets may be seen, though unfortunately the eggs are not shown, being covered with a slight layer of sand, this work being done by the turtle itself. The covering serves a twofold purpose—the obvious one of marking the place, and, in addition, that of keeping other females from digging in the same spot. When hundreds, or even thousands, of these baskets are seen along the bank of a “parents’ pond,” the sight is one to gladden the heart of an embryologist, to say nothing of the proprietor.
The hatching of the eggs occupies, on an average, sixty days. The time, however, may be considerably shortened or lengthened, according to whether the summer is hot and the sun pours down its strong rays day after day, or whether there is much rain and the heat not great. As the turtles lay sixty eggs to the nest at two sittings, it will be seen that in a single season many thousands are added to this unique establishment, but at least five years must elapse before they are large enough for the chef.
CHOPPING UP FOOD FOR THE BABY TURTLES.
From a Photograph.
One would imagine, remembering the quantities of eggs laid by turtles, that they would be very plentiful, but there are few creatures that have more enemies. All that the mother turtle does is to deposit her eggs on the sand of some island and there leave them to be hatched out by the sun. Before this process is accomplished they are often destroyed by rats and birds, while very few of those that are hatched survive very long. The moment the young turtle emerges from its shell it seeks the water, and there crabs and various kinds of fish are ever ready to devour it. The young just hatched at the farm under notice are put in a pond or ponds by themselves and given finely-chopped meat of a fish like the pilchard, while the bigger ones are fed largely on live eels. This feeding continues to the end of September. In October the snapping-turtle ceases to take food, and finally burrows in the muddy bottom of the pond to hibernate, coming out only in April or May.
Snapping-turtle farming is much more exciting than raising the American terrapin. The former is a vicious creature and will snap at anything—hence its name. Indeed, in disposition it is the very opposite of its American brother. It believes most thoroughly in the survival of the fittest, and to it the fittest is number one. It is a chronic fighter, and inasmuch as its jaws are very strong and, like a bulldog, it never knows when to let go, it is a reptile to be either mastered or avoided. Indeed, the men at Mr. Hattori’s farm can tell many exciting little stories concerning the voracity of this strange creature. One farm hand, for instance, is minus a finger, the result of not using sufficient care when transferring one of the larger reptiles to a new pond.
FEEDING THE EELS WHICH IN TURN PROVIDE FOOD FOR THE LARGER TURTLES.
From a Photo. by M. Ichikawa, Japan.
Many naturalists have visited this unique farm and, after a close study of the turtle and its habits, have confirmed all the bad qualities that have been recorded concerning it. In securing its food it shows that it possesses no mean intelligence. At one time it crawls slowly and silently along with neck outstretched towards an unsuspecting fish, springs upon it by a powerful thrust of its hind legs, and snaps it up; at another time it drives the fish around the basin and terrifies it until it falls an unresisting victim. Again, the reptile may be observed buried in the sandy soil of its prison with only its bill and eyes protruding. On the approach of a fish the head and long neck dart forth from the sand with lightning speed and the prey is caught and instantly killed by a savage bite.
In its wild state the snapping-turtle is distinctly a nocturnal animal, and does its hunting after sunset, when it emerges from its muddy home to look for food. In the presence of danger it becomes bold, defiant, and even desperate. When driven to bay it retracts its neck, head, and widely-gaping jaws into its shell, awaiting a favourable opportunity to thrust them forth slyly and bite savagely. Anything which it has seized in its jaws it holds with wonderful tenacity, at the same time vigorously scratching the earth with its sharp claws. There is only one way to catch the snapping-turtle, and that is to secure it by the tail. Some of the men at Mr. Hattori’s farm are very dexterous in seizing their victims in this fashion.
A little time ago a Russian officer visited the establishment and listened, with some incredulity, to the stories of the voracity of the reptiles in the ponds before him. He carried in his hand a stout cane, and was told to place it near one of the bigger animals. He did so, and was surprised to find that in a few minutes it was bitten clean through. Before now the snapping-turtle has been known to bite through the flat of an oar. Not only will this turtle catch all kinds of fish and frogs and devour them greedily, but it is not averse to hunting waterfowl. Mr. Hattori declares that, in addition to raising turtles, he could rear ducks and geese as well, but dare not, as the reptiles would only kill them. When a snapping-turtle detects a duck it cunningly makes its way towards the creature, seizes it by its legs, pulls it down under water, and then drags it to the bottom of the pond. Here it tears the duck to pieces with the aid of the long claws of its fore paws and devours it.
It is this snapping propensity which makes it desirable to keep the reptiles in ponds according to their ages; it would not do to put those just hatched in the same basin as the bigger ones, as they would quickly be eaten. Until they reach their sixth year they are never “mixed.” When they reach this age, however, they are capable of taking care of themselves and are allowed access to the bigger ponds. By this time the turtle has reached maturity and may begin to deposit eggs, though it is not at its prime till two or three years later.
WEST INDIAN TURTLES ON BOARD A MAIL STEAMER BOUND FOR LONDON—IN SPITE OF EVERY CARE, THE MORTALITY AMONG THEM IS VERY HEAVY.
[From a Photograph.]
What the Japanese epicure prefers are turtles not more than five years of age, when the flesh is soft and in desirable condition for the making of stews and soups. At this age the snapping-turtle weighs from sixty to eighty pounds. Those that are destined for the table are kept in a pond to themselves, and taken as required in nets or pulled out of the water by their tails. They are then placed in tin boxes or cases with air-holes, and sent by train to their destination.
The turtle that is consumed in this country is the green species, from the West Indies. The creatures are imported by Mr. T. K. Bellis, who will not hesitate to tell you that of edible turtles the green variety is the best. Mr. Bellis imports some three thousand turtles a year. They arrive in batches of one hundred or more every fortnight by the Royal Mail steamers from Kingston, Jamaica, and are obtained from the coral reefs lying to the north of the island of Jamaica. Twelve to fifteen small schooners are employed in the trade, and upwards of a hundred and twenty men.
A CONSIGNMENT OF TURTLES AT A LONDON TERMINUS.
[From a Photograph.]
These fishers of strange “fish” (the turtle’s technical name) stretch nets of twine from rock to rock, and the moment the turtle feels itself entangled it clings tenaciously to the meshes, and is then hauled to the surface. The schooners in due time return to Kingston with from eighty to a hundred and fifty of these remarkable creatures, which are promptly deposited in palisaded enclosures, flooded at every tide by the sea. Here they are fed upon a certain kind of herbage known as “turtle grass,” and taken as required. The bringing of these creatures overseas is a very delicate business, and frequently sixty out of a hundred perish en route, in spite of the most elaborate precautions, such as the constant spraying of salt water daily on board the mail steamer, and the use of foot warmers for the turtles in the railway vans from Southampton to Waterloo. Before now, Mr. Bellis has lost eighty-eight turtles out of a shipment of a hundred.
This susceptibility to travel is one of the most remarkable things about the turtle. If you are anxious to transport him alive it is a hundred to one he perishes of cold, but if you do succeed in getting him home the difficulty then is to kill him. The vitality of this strange sea creature after decapitation is almost beyond belief. Mr. Bellis once sent a large turtle to an hotel in Newcastle. The chef cut the turtle’s head off and hung the body upside down to bleed. Twenty-four hours after that turtle knocked down a man cook with one blow of its fin! The green turtle is not a vicious creature to handle, like its snapping Japanese brother, but its fins are very strong, and one blow from them is quite sufficient to break a man’s arm.
Mr. Frank T. Bullen gives a remarkable instance of the tenacious hold of the turtle upon life. “On one occasion,” he records, “our men cut all the flesh and entrails of a turtle away, leaving only the head and tail attached to the shell. Some time had elapsed since the meat had been scooped out of the carapace, and no one imagined that any life remained in the extremities. But a young Dane, noticing that the down-hanging head had its mouth wide open, very foolishly inserted two fingers between those horny mandibles. It closed, and our shipmate was two fingers short, the edges of the turtle’s jaws had taken them clean off, with only the muscular power remaining in the head. Then another man tried to cut the horny tail off, but as soon as his keen blade touched it on the underside it curled up and gripped his knife so firmly that it was nearly an hour before the blade could be withdrawn.” Signor Redi, the great zoologist, records how he once cut a turtle’s head off and noted that it lived for twenty-three days without a head, and another whose brains he removed lived for six months.
The green turtle, the species favoured in this country, is not a carnivorous creature, like the snapping-turtle, its food being a particular kind of sea grass found on the coral reefs in the West Indies. Some time ago Mr. Bellis brought a large quantity of this grass to London, with the idea of feeding the creatures in captivity, but they refused to take it. In his cellars in the City one can see any day a number of these turtles. Here they are kept until a telegram arrives from a distant hotel, when away goes the turtle to be turned into soup for the forthcoming banquet. Those hotels which do not care about the trouble of killing the creature can procure the soup in tins and bottles direct from the importer, and it is not surprising to learn that large quantities are sold. It requires eight pounds of the best turtle-flesh to make one quart of soup.
The green turtle grows to an immense size, but it has been found that specimens weighing more than a hundred and fifty pounds are not desirable, the flesh becoming coarse as the animal increases in weight. The shell of this variety is practically valueless, but the hawksbill turtle yields what is popularly known as “tortoiseshell,” and the armour covering of a good specimen may be worth eight pounds. Its flesh, however, is too coarse for consumption, though here it should be added that it is doubtful whether those who occasionally partake of green-turtle soup would relish that made from the flesh of the snapping-turtle.
It is a notorious fact that turtles grow very slowly and attain a great age. Curiously enough, neither Mr. Hattori nor Mr. Bellis can tell to what age a snapping or green turtle will live. Mr. Hattori has quite a number of turtles that are known to be from thirty to fifty years of age, while some of the bigger specimens that arrive at Waterloo for the Bellis cellars are, it is believed, twelve to fifteen years old.
TURTLES IN MR. BELLIS’S CELLARS IN THE CITY OF LONDON.
From a Photo. by Conolly & Goatam.
THE AMBASSADOR’S TRUNK.
By E. A. Morphy, late Editor of the “Straits Times,” Singapore.
The circumstances of this little smuggling incident, though known to several persons in the Far East, have hitherto been hidden, so to speak, under a bushel. In bringing them to the light it should be stated that—for obvious reasons—fictitious names have been given to the individuals chiefly concerned, but the facts are just as stated.
Far and away the most distinguished passenger on the big German liner was the homeward bound Japanese Ambassador. He did not look the part, however. He was a squat, unobtrusive little man whose trousers fitted him badly, and whose carriage, when he was hampered by European clothes, suggested an insignificance that was only partially belied by the intelligence of his homely countenance. His appearance reflected no radiant blaze of glory, yet he was returning to his native land crowned with some of the finest diplomatic achievements of the century.
This statement is due to his Excellency, but it practically dismisses him from the story, which mainly concerns his trunk—his trunk No. 23, to be precise, for the Ambassador’s trunks were all numbered. There must have been half a hundred of them at least; all the same typical German steel trunks, but distinguished from other less important trunks of the same make insomuch that each one was adorned with two broad painted bands of scarlet, which showed out bravely and effectually prevented their being mixed up with any ordinary baggage. Apart from all other considerations, the wisdom of the Ambassador in thus distinctively marking his own trunks lay in the fact that the process insured their instant recognition by the Japanese Customs officials, by whom they were immune from examination.
This last fact was the one which counted for most with Fritz Vogel, steward and trombonist of the liner, as he daily contemplated the mountain of luggage and calculated how many Manila cigars one of those great red-striped trunks would hold.
“HE DAILY CONTEMPLATED THE MOUNTAIN OF LUGGAGE AND CALCULATED HOW MANY MANILA CIGARS ONE OF THOSE GREAT RED-STRIPED TRUNKS WOULD HOLD.”
Carefully packed, he figured it, one might crowd ten thousand cigars into each trunk. Ten thousand cigars, at eighty Mexican dollars a thousand, meant eighty pounds. Duty at one hundred and fifty per cent. ad valorem on eighty pounds would mean a hundred and twenty pounds, or, as Fritz Vogel calculated, two thousand four hundred marks. Therefore, as the meditative trombonist further worked out the possibilities, his Excellency could, by simply loading up a few dozen more trunks with cigars at Hong-Kong and getting them passed free through the Customs at Yokohama—or at Nagasaki or Kobe for that matter—make more in a week than he could hope to earn in a month of Sundays by sticking to the thorny paths of diplomacy.
Born west of the Suez, the fertile idea germinated in Vogel’s brain all through the dreary wastes of the Canal, and sprouted up green and vigorous, despite the withering blasts that pursued the liner down the Red Sea and across the Indian Ocean to Colombo. At Singapore it had become an obsession. When steaming through the Narrows into the latter port, however, on the way to the German mail wharf, Vogel observed a red-funnelled Jardine liner at the Messageries wharf, with the blue-peter flying.
An hour later the Laisang left for China, carrying a hastily-written letter from Fritz Vogel to his friend Max Krebs at Hong-Kong. It contained a fair statement of the salient facts in the case, and a crude but lucid sketch of one of the pieces of baggage, together with a description of the scarlet bands and full measurements. It also stated what has not been set forth above—that each of his Excellency’s trunks was numbered in large white figures at each end and on the top, and it suggested that in the case of any person desiring to have access to those trunks whilst they were still on board the liner, Nos. 23, 24, 27, 32, etc., were the easiest to reach.
Mr. Krebs was a “runner” for a native compradoring firm. He went out to the ships to “drum up” business for his employers, who supplied anything and everything that a ship could require, from cigarettes to engine-oil. In the old days before the Russian War Mr. Vogel had done a good deal of trade with Mr. Krebs on the short run between Yokohama and Hong-Kong. But the stringent Customs regulations that had ensued upon the increased tariffs imposed after the war had practically killed the business, save so far as concerned a paltry bit of trading with passengers in faked curios, and the occasional disposal of a few imitation gems to homeward-bound tourists when the vessel was west of Colombo.
Opportunities like the return of an Ambassador to Japan did not occur once in a blue moon.
The liner tarried a day and a half over cargo at Singapore, and the Laisang got into Hong-Kong nearly twenty-four hours ahead of her. Mr. Vogel learned the fact the moment the German liner arrived at the big China port, and his heart was filled with sickening apprehension. He had been dreaming of trunks full of cigars—German steel trunks with red bands, and numbered with big white characters—ever since he left Singapore. He had marked off the state-room wherein, until the proper psychological moment, the extra trunks—if any—could be stored safely. He had mentally arranged every other detail in his projected bid for fortune, and had even marked down those of his comrades who should be selected as his accomplices. He had counted over, time and time again, the round thousand marks that would be his personal profit out of every trunk full of cigars he could pass through the Yokohama Customs as the baggage of the returning Ambassador. He did all this while still faithfully, if mechanically, discharging his onerous duties as steward and master of the trombone.
“A NOTE WAS HANDED TO HIM BY A CHINESE MESSENGER.”
It was not until a few hours after the arrival of the steamer in Hong-Kong—hours that felt like ages—that Vogel heard from Krebs. A note was handed to him by a Chinese messenger boy, and Vogel opened it with feverish impatience. Mr. Krebs wrote with that laconic brevity of diction which indicates the resourceful mind. “Will send you one trunk.—O. K.,” it read.
Mr. Vogel pondered for a moment whether “O. K.” meant Oscar Krebs or “All correct” (American fashion); then he heaved a great sigh of relief as he realized that it was all the same.
That evening Mr. Krebs came on board unostentatiously, and a big trunk wrapped in rough sacking came with him, and was temporarily stowed away by Mr. Vogel in one of the state-rooms which held some of the Ambassador’s spare boxes. Thence it was subsequently carried to another cabin, where there were some spare things of Mr. Vogel’s. Had a hypercritical observer subsequently studied all the trunks in the Ambassador’s collection he might have noticed that one of them appeared to be the least trifle newer than the rest, but it would have taken a Sherlock Holmes to detect the circumstance off-hand. The trunk in question was numbered “23.”
In due time the liner arrived at Yokohama, but the mails that had been forwarded overland from Nagasaki reached there a day before her. Thus it came about that when the Ambassador’s baggage was franked through the Custom House and sent up to the Imperial Hotel at Tokio, two friends of Messrs. Krebs and Vogel were installed as guests at the last-named establishment. Thus also it came about that, thanks to ten yen well spent on a porter, the Ambassador’s trunk, No. 23, was whisked away to the nether cellars of the hotel the moment it arrived there, and—as the Ambassador himself did at an earlier stage—it virtually passes out of this story. That is to say, what must have been the ghost of the Ambassador’s trunk vanishes from mortal view; but not so the real article. When the diplomat’s baggage was supposed to be all in, and a count was taken, trunk No. 23 was found to be missing.
The row that ensued was something awful. Telegraphs and telephones were called into requisition, and imperative, not to say drastic, orders were dispatched to the Customs authorities at Yokohama, to the railway authorities at Shimbashi, and to all other authorities everywhere, commanding them to instantly produce his Excellency’s missing trunk.
“THEY HAD PASSED IT AND FORWARDED IT, AND GOT A RECEIPT FOR IT.”
The Customs authorities declared they had not got the trunk; they had passed it and forwarded it, and got a receipt for it. There could be no doubt, from their point of view, that the Ambassador had taken delivery of his trunk No. 23. The railway authorities were equally agreed on the same point. The baggage was all in special carriages; not a pin could have been lost between Yokohama and the Shimbashi station at the capital, whence it had been handed over to his Excellency’s servants for removal to the hotel. The police authorities were equally certain that there had been no hanky-panky business of any kind. It would have been impossible for one of the Ambassador’s trunks to go astray or be stolen, either in the streets of the seaport or in the capital itself. The steamship authorities had a receipt for every article. They knew the Ambassador’s trunks, and especial care had been taken of them throughout the voyage. Nevertheless, they would again investigate.
Then, Banzai! there came a telegram from the chief purser of the liner:—
“Ambassador’s trunk No. 23 found on board. Must have been left behind inadvertently. Forwarding to Tokio at once.”
The little Custom House inspectors looked at the newly-found trunk in utter stupefaction.
“Truly,” said they, “we passed this identical trunk not three hours ago.”
“Hayako!” (Hurry, there!) shouted the head inspector, as they dallied over the mystery. “His Excellency waits!”
“THE LITTLE CUSTOM HOUSE INSPECTORS LOOKED AT THE NEWLY-FOUND TRUNK IN UTTER STUPEFACTION.”
The trunk was expressed up to the Imperial Hotel by special train.
Ten minutes later the Director of His Imperial Majesty’s Customs at Yokohama ordered a Commission of Inquiry into the matter of the registering as received and delivered of one Ambassador’s trunk, No. 23, when the same had never either been received from the liner or delivered to the railway or to any other authorities by His Imperial Majesty’s Customs. The matter was also taken in hand by the Imperial Railway and by the Tokio and Kanagawa police authorities.
Though a couple of years have passed since these investigations were inaugurated, no definite finding in the matter has yet been officially published. In certain quarters, however, there is a consensus of opinion that such a trunk did really pass through the Yokohama Customs, but that it was a phantom one.
Mr. Vogel took away two thousand two hundred yen (two hundred and twenty pounds) from Yokohama that trip. At Hong-Kong, nine days later, he settled up with Mr. Krebs.
The cigars and trunk had cost nine hundred dollars, while the expenses and “commissions” in Japan amounted to a trifle less than three hundred dollars. There was a balance of a thousand dollars to divide, and they duly divided it.
HALF AN HOUR IN A BLAZING FURNACE.
By George S. Guy.
One of the most remarkable and appalling experiences possible to conceive recently befell a young man named Robert Perry, at Apedale, in Staffordshire. Tramping about the country in search of work, he arrived one night, utterly tired out, at an ironworks, and unwittingly took shelter in an “air furnace,” used for the purpose of reducing very large pieces of iron, too large to be dealt with in the ordinary way. As it happened, the fire-bars of this particular furnace had been taken out, and Perry had no difficulty in creeping through the opening and thus making his way inside. Here he had to mount a wall five feet in height, and eventually reached the melting chamber, which at the time contained about five tons of iron waiting to be smelted. Arrived at this point, in blissful ignorance of the dangerous character of the place he had selected to sleep in, and appreciating only its dryness and seclusion, he lay down to rest. Exactly why he should have selected such a strange bedchamber it is impossible to say, but tramps have been known to choose even stranger quarters—such as lime-kilns and brick-kilns. Anyhow, the fact remains that he went into the furnace to sleep. What happened afterwards is told below, from information gathered partly from the man himself and partly from other persons who figured in his terrible adventure.
After a long walk in the broiling sun Perry arrived at Apedale quite exhausted, and set about looking for a snug, dry place where he could lie down and have a sleep. During his weary tramp he had been no stranger to curious resting-places, and he had spent the previous night under a railway arch. Presently he came across the smelting works of the Midland Coal, Coke, and Iron Company, and, seeing a furnace which he took to be unused, examined it intently. The wide, open front of the contrivance looked tempting, and he decided to make its interior his abode for the night. Crawling into the opening for some little distance, he discovered that he had a wall five feet in height to climb over, but scaled it without much trouble. Beyond he found himself in pitch-darkness, but clambered cautiously onwards, trying to find a comfortable place to lie down. Proceeding up a slope, he reached a sort of chamber beyond, where a number of great pieces of iron were lying about. Here the weary man lay down, and, being very tired, it did not take him long to fall asleep. Let him tell the manner of his awakening in his own words.
FIRE-GRATE WHERE PERRY CRAWLED IN.
From a Photograph.
I do not exactly know what awoke me, but upon trying to raise myself a frightful choking feeling came over me, and I became conscious of great heat. Then, like a flash, I realized what a dreadful mistake I had made, and what a terrible situation I was in. The furnace was not disused, and now the workmen had lit it, and I was a prisoner inside! For a moment I felt sick with horror, but it did not take me long to pull myself together and try to find a way out.
PLAN OF THE FURNACE—THE CROSS DENOTES WHERE PERRY SLEPT.
The whole place was in total darkness. Although I could hear a dull roaring somewhere, and feel the waves of heated air and fumes passing over me, I could not see the slightest sign of any light. Tremblingly I felt up and down the sides of my prison to see if I could find a door, but nothing of the kind could I discover. I tried to retreat farther into the furnace to get away from that awful heat, but had to return and face it again. Now, with a sickening heart, I saw that flames were approaching my position. Thinking my end was near at hand, I decided at all costs to go down the slope. This meant that I must face the fire, which was now licking up towards me, sucked inwards by the tremendous draught. Shivering with horror I made the attempt, but the heat and flames were unendurable, and beat me back. Then, crouching down, I worked myself along the side, thinking this my best plan. At last—Heaven alone knows how—I reached the foot of the wall. In a half-dazed, choking condition, I tried to climb up, but was met by a veritable hurricane of fierce flames, which knocked me down and burnt all the hair off my head. Half-blinded, scorched, and with my brain benumbed from the effects of the fumes, I still did not quite lose heart: something seemed to force me on to make a struggle for life. Suddenly, as I lay there gasping in that inferno of heat and flame, I heard voices outside, but I could not understand what was said. I wondered dully whether, if I called out, the men I could hear speaking would hear me, so, in my agony of physical suffering and mental distress, I shouted, “O Lord, save me! O Lord, save me!” The murmur of voices still went on, but presently one man evidently heard my cries, and called out to a “Mr. Phillips” that he thought he heard a shout for help. This, however, Mr. Phillips—who seemed to be the foreman—ridiculed, and they went on working as before.
I was now on the verge of giving up; my strength seemed to be failing me, but I decided to make one final attempt to get on the wall. I am glad to say that it was not in vain, and after a desperate struggle I succeeded in reaching the top. This seemed to renew my energy, and I braced myself for what I knew was my last hope. I gave one horrified glance at the furnace below, the flames roaring and leaping madly, and then, with all the strength of my fire-scorched lungs, I shrieked out once more, “O Lord, save me!”
The men outside stopped work at once.
“Did you hear that?” cried one, excitedly; “I heard it quite distinctly that time; someone is shouting out ‘Lord, save me’!” This time Mr. Phillips admitted that he did think he heard a noise as if someone was calling out, but where could it come from? It was impossible for anyone to be in the furnace alive, for the fire had been going for some time. Then someone else said, “Open the fire-door and see if you can see anything.”
The fire-door! Where was it, I wondered—far away or near at hand? Then, to my great joy, I heard them releasing a bolt just a few feet from where I was. At last it opened—a place about a foot square—and I saw daylight streaming in and then a man’s face. He peered in anxiously, but evidently he could not see me, for I was now as black as the furnace itself. Then he seemed to half-close the door and I nearly swooned away, for this was my last chance.
Desperately I strove to shout, but the heat, flames, and smoke prevented my uttering a sound save a choking gasp. Fortunately for myself, however, I moved, and the watcher happened to catch sight of something about me—probably the whites of my eyes shining in the reflected light. “Good God!” he cried. “There’s a man in the furnace! Pull the bars out as quickly as you can.”
“I FOUND MYSELF FALLING—RIGHT ON TO THE HUGE FIRE.”
I did not trouble to think what or where the bars were; I knew only that the men had seen me and would do everything in their power to get me out. I heard them pulling the bars out in frantic haste, and saw Mr. Phillips trying to squeeze himself through the small fire-door.
With my flesh scorching and my breath rapidly failing me in that awful whirlwind of heat and flame, I put my arms down for him to catch hold of. He seized me by the elbows and told me to jump, but this I could not do, for I felt too far gone. With that he gave me a jerk, and I found myself falling—right on to the huge fire! The bars were out, and the fire was keeping itself together by the pressure of one block of coal on another; but when my weight came upon it, it collapsed, sending up a rush of flames all around me. To my intense horror, I felt the skin on my arms giving way, but the courageous Mr. Phillips did not release his hold. His hands were now on my wrists, and, exerting all his strength, he pulled me up towards the door.
The pain of my burns was simply fearful, and I could have shrieked with agony, but somehow, except for a few moans, I kept quiet.
ROBERT PERRY AS HE APPEARED AFTER HIS DISCHARGE FROM THE INFIRMARY.
[From a Photograph.]
Presently the foreman succeeded in pulling me out of the small door, but I felt as if dead, and as though I was shrivelling up and growing smaller. As I lay on the ground, in agonizing pain, I appealed to the men to strangle me. Again and again, in semi-delirium, I repeated the request: “I’m done for! Strangle me! strangle me!” My whole body seemed to be on fire, but my rescuers lost no time. Procuring some oil, they saturated me with it, thus, in a measure, soothing the pain. Then they got me on to an ambulance and rushed me off to the Chell Infirmary, where I received every care and attention.
Never, so long as I live, shall I forget the terrible time I endured in the furnace, and my unspeakable joy when I saw Mr. Phillips at the fire-door.
I am indebted to Mr. Hill, the general manager of the above-mentioned company, for a plan of the furnace. It may be interesting to add that, even had Perry contrived to shelter himself from the flames at the foot of the wall he mentions, he would very soon have met with a death too awful to contemplate, as the molten iron would have flowed down and overwhelmed him. The authorities inform me that Perry’s adventure is altogether unprecedented in the whole of their experience. At the moment when his first cry was heard the furnace had been alight for some considerable time, having been started with a large quantity of wood and many barrow-loads of hot coal in order to raise the heat quickly!
MR. PHILLIPS STANDING BY THE FIRE-DOOR THROUGH WHICH PERRY WAS DRAGGED.
[From a Photograph.]
THE HEADLESS WOMAN.
By Charles Needham.
I had just recovered from a troublesome throat affection, and under the doctor’s orders had moved out of town for a spell of fresh air and quieter surroundings, selecting the little village of Canewdon, in South-East Essex, as my retreat. I had always had an eye on the village, first making its acquaintance whilst yachting off the coast and in the River Crouch, where my boat had its permanent berth.
Canewdon is actually little more than a straggling hamlet four miles by road to the north of Rochford, and about nine from Southend-on-Sea. It required only a very short residence there for me to find that the secluded little place considered it had its own corner in history, and a very pretty turn in folk-lore and superstition as well. To begin with, Canewdon claims King Canute as one of its founders, and its domestic romances and tragedies would make a presentable volume in the hands of a scribbling antiquary. It had, however, something more than mere history, and far less to my liking, for me to feed my imagination upon, as I was soon to discover.
THE OLD COTTAGE AT CANEWDON IN WHICH THE AUTHOR RESIDED.
From a Photograph.
After a good look round I settled upon a comfortable old cottage, with a small garden traversed by a brook, only a very short distance from the ancient, square-towered church. Into this, having taken it at a very moderate rental, I moved a small amount of furniture, my books, and other paraphernalia, and prepared to settle down to the life of a hermit for a time. The woman who came from close by to “do” for me looked upon me, I fancy, as something of a curiosity, but, for some reason I had not then discovered, she seemed a little uneasy at my solitary existence. She would remark that I must be lonely, or that it was unlikely that I should stop in the place very long. I put all this down to a friendly disposition, coupled with a desire to draw me out as to my place in the larger world I had dropped from so suddenly.
For the first day or two matters went smoothly enough, and I began to feel that my choice of locality had been a lucky and inexpensive one. Then something occurred which startled me sufficiently to make me alter my opinion.
I always used the little kitchen at meal-times for convenience’ sake, and one night I remained there reading until very late, the kitchen being lit only by one small lamp at my back. I had just closed my book—it was about one o’clock—and was summoning the effort required to take me bedwards, when I noticed a very slight movement of the iron latch upon the door leading into the back garden. My thoughts naturally flew to burglars. The locality was lonely, and no doubt my coming had been duly talked over in the village with all the exaggeration and surmise an out-of-the-way place is capable of.
I was, of course, considerably startled, and sat watching the latch slowly rise, evidently actuated by a very delicate and even pressure from without. The door itself was bolted at both top and bottom, and when the latch had risen clear of the hasp I fully expected to hear the bolts rattle as the person outside put his weight against the door to try it. But nothing of the sort happened; the latch, after remaining suspended for a moment, fell back again into place as slowly and evenly as it had risen.
Startled and puzzled as I was, I still held to my belief that this must be a timid attempt at robbery, and that, finding the back door locked, the intruder would try the front one also. Nor was I wrong, for I had scarcely slipped quietly into the sitting-room and taken up my position when the latch there began to rise in precisely the same manner. This door possessed only one bolt, and that at the bottom, so that the door, an old and ill-fitting one, would show the slightest pressure at once. But none was placed upon it, and the latch fell into place as evenly and noiselessly as before. By this time I must confess to being slightly scared, and when a chair banged heavily on the floor and a loud shout of “Who’s that?” brought no sound of a retreating shuffle on the cobble-stones outside, I had to summon all my remaining courage to unbar and fling open the door. Not a soul or a sound met me as I stepped outside. The night was a light one in early September, so that a retreating figure could have been followed by the eye for twenty or thirty yards. After a careful look round the garden I went to bed nonplussed at the weirdness of the whole affair.
The following day brought another intruder—a material one this time. I found that during the morning a travelling caravan had taken a pitch just outside my hedge; and its owner turned out to be an Oxford man, who, with his wife, was leading a vagabond life about the shires. He was an extremely well-read man, and we soon got on the best of terms, exchanging books and opinions, till he inspanned for pastures new a week later. The night before he left I was treated to another queer happening.
We had been talking and reading in my tiny sitting-room till about eleven o’clock, when my vagabond friend bade me a sleepy “Good night” and opened the front door. He had, however, only just put his foot on the cobbles when he stepped backwards with a sharp exclamation, and a scared look on his face.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s awfully queer,” he replied; “I could have sworn I saw a face looking straight at me close to that bush”—he pointed to the privet hedge at the left of the door—“but there didn’t seem to be any body to it. I’m certainly not drunk, but I may have been dreaming.”
After my recent experience, which I had not thought it worth while to mention to such a hard-headed soul as my chance companion, I felt anything but comfortable. We were both rather ashamed of our brief lapse from common sense, and laughed the incident off as best we might.
The following day found me in all the doubtful glory of my solitude once more, and I must confess to having been thankful when an invitation reached me that same evening, from friends at Fambridge, for a few days’ fishing.
I have never suffered from that popular present-day malady known as “nerves,” possibly because of an open-air existence with plenty of exercise, but, though I had only been there a short time, the cottage and the locality now seemed to have become almost uncanny to me. Had I mixed more with the inhabitants, I should have discovered, as I did later, that this strange feeling was not without some foundation.
The few days I spent in Fambridge put all thought of the two queer incidents out of my mind, which will show that the subsequent events were not the outcome of an overtaxed imagination or a course of long brooding upon disquieting phenomena.
It must have been about nine o’clock in the evening that my Fambridge friend put a little Welsh pony into his governess-car to drive me back the four odd miles to my cottage. The night was fine, but there were clouds about and no moon, so that objects outside the radius of the lamps were hard to distinguish. The pony had already had a fairly hard day of it along the coast, but he was a sturdy little beast and pulled like a steam-engine, rattling us down to the outskirts of Canewdon in excellent time.
We had been bowling along, talking about the day’s sport, and were now rapidly nearing a stile leading to a footpath upon the left of the road, which takes one by a short cut across a field, over another stile, into the churchyard, and so into the village High Street. We had barely reached the stile when the pony pulled up short, reared, and refused to go another step in that direction. The pony, always a strong and willing little chap, had never done such a thing in his life before, and my friend was not only puzzled but annoyed. A sound beating had no more effect than words of encouragement; there the little beggar stuck, his four legs splayed out, the picture of all that was most stubborn in nature, whilst we two sat in the car trying to devise some plan by which to budge him.
My friend was at last obliged to ask me to take the short cut I have just spoken of instead of being driven round by the road the remaining mile and a half to my cottage. I was, of course, willing enough. The short cut would take me barely ten minutes, and I had very little to carry; so, bidding him “Good night,” I jumped out. As I came from behind the trap I noticed a tiny flickering light a few yards ahead, upon the left-hand side of the road, but it was very dim and did not arrest my attention sufficiently to make any impression on the mind. I was able to lead the pony round without any difficulty, and when his head faced Fambridge he seemed to recover his spirits at once, and the red points behind the lamps receded at a rattling pace up the road. When these had disappeared I turned again to climb the stile, but became at once uneasily conscious of something unusual a little way ahead of me.
The spot the pony had refused at was a good deal shadowed by large elms, and these, together with the cloudy sky, made the road still more obscure. The small light, which I had taken little notice of at first—thinking it probably one of the village lights showing through the trees—was still ahead; only, instead of being upon the left of the road, it was now upon the right. For a few seconds I stood looking at it, feeling very much like turning tail and bolting down the road. The flame, for it was no other, showed greeny—white against the black background and shivered in a strange, eerie way.
The most extraordinary part of the business was that it seemed to come from nothing visible, but to appear, as it were, burning in space three or four feet above the road.
“THIS MYSTERIOUS SOMETHING TOOK THREE RAPID STRIDES ACROSS THE ROAD AND DISAPPEARED.”
I had, of course, read ghost stories in which “corpse candles” and ghostly lights of one sort and another figured largely, but I had never expected to come across one, and this could be translated in no other way.[2] The close proximity of the churchyard, with the square tower of the church itself showing through the trees, added too much colour to the scene to my liking; but, scared though I was, a certain fascination took hold of me, and I advanced a step or two in order to examine the phenomenon at closer range. I had scarcely taken two paces, however, when the clouds parted a little, giving a better light beneath the trees, and at the same moment the weird flame flickered wildly and went out.
[2] The light somewhat resembled the ignis fatuus, or will-o’-the-wisp, but was larger and greener in colour. Moreover, there was no pond or marshy ground anywhere near the road.