"A MONTANA BLUFF."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)

"A MONTANA BLUFF."

HOW FOUR TROOPERS MADE SEVENTY-FIVE FILIPINOS FLEE.

What is regarded as one of the tallest "bluffs" on record furnished Captain Edgar Russel, chief signal officer in the Philllppinea during the insurrection, with a story, which he tells as an example of Western nerve.

"We were outside of Manila in some little scrap," said the oaptain, "and about 75 natives were lying in a trench ahead of us, shooting away merrily, but not hitting anybody. By and by I noticed a little disturbance in our front. Presently four Montana troopers trotted out of our lines and started straight for the Filipinos. Everybody looked at them with wonder, and waited to see them all killed. Bullets whistled all around them, but they never halted. Slowly, just at a trot, they jogged on toward the enemy. The natives fired and fired, but for some unknown reason did not hit. On and on went the quartette, disdaining cover. At last there was a shout, and, to our utter astonishment, wn beheld the seventy-five Filipinos suddenly jump out ot their trenches and take to their heels in mad flight. The nerve of the Montana troopers was too much for them. When they had all fled, throwing their rifles away as they ran, the troopers came back, their arms full of guns. That fs what the army has come to call 'a Montana bluff.' It's the sort of nerve that lets a man open a jackpot on a pair of deuces."