A JOKER FRIGHTENS THE CAMP.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1983, 9 April 1906, Page 2

A JOKER FRIGHTENS THE CAMP.

"I 8BB," said a veteran, " that they are making lots of talk in the newspapers now about smokeless and noiseless powder. Why, we were talking about the same thing when I was amongst the Zulus. " You know we were away sub in the brush, where we were cutoff from the world and from the outside. Well, started somehow that the Boers had hj& hold of a new powder —a kind that bu^ n « d wifch n0 » mok «. no flash, and ™ uoise. Pretty soon they were talking about it in our ranks, worrying over the thing, and reviling the devilish greed of those who had sold the powder. There was nothine to talk about, and you know how it is in a Wody of idle men. " Thßre waa one fellow who took great interest in the noiseless powder story. It bothered him all the time. This was Bill Oliver. Bill was a blacksmith, a strapping, great big fellow, strong as a horse. He weighed,°l reckon, 200 pounds. " One black night Bill was put out in the brush on picket duty. Now, he was just as gritty a fighter as you ever saw in line with a man on either side of him, but I tell you, my boy, set a man out in a dark thicket all alone and the enemy known to be near and supposed to be everywhere, and it takes all the starch out of the best of them. "So Bill though he marched out boldly was a bit trembly and shaky and saw Zulus and Boer sharpshooters everywhere. " Now, in our squad we had a dare-devil, harum-scarum fool—Bob Hill. This Bob Hill was the kind of a specimen every regiment has—a pestiferous practical joker —a nuisance that everybody liked. Her* was a rich chance for one of Bob's little jokes. Soon as Bill had got settled at his post Bob loaded his pocket with a dozen or so big wreught-iron nails, and out through the dark he circled to get in front of the picket. He hid in a bush about 100 feet from the big blacksmith and looked out.

" There was Bill tiptoeing up and down his beat like an elephant on a rickety bridge, dodging and whirline every time a grasshopper chirped or a horse back in the camp snorted. He was getting badly scared. Bob picked up a right ragged nail and flung it just as hard as he could fling." "You know what a vicious screeching a nail makes when you throw it in that way ? No rifle-ball ever sounded wickeder. I* goes :—" Wis-u-u-u-u ! " " Poor Bill's heart stopped with a big thump like a sledge hammer, and Bob, away off in the fchickee.-heard him catch his breath as if seme ene h*d dropped a bucket of ice water on him. His big bulk dropped in the weeds like a sack of sand, and for a minute there was not the sound of a breath. Then the big picket muttered shakily: ' Sho, I' gittin' skeery as a woman with thinkin' of them Boers an' their new-fangled powder. 5 And he got up and began to walk his beat again. "Bob let go another of his nails, and a third just as quick as he could throw. They went whirring bloodthirstily towards William and one of them ripped through the leaves over his head, spattering twigs and bits of leaf all about.

"There was no doubt about it this time, and big Bill, as he let his musket off wildly in the air, charged for camp, sputtering, puffing, yelling, tearing up weeds and sod, and tramping into trees as he went. His trail looked like the track of a young cyclone. Into the camp he plunged, over men and tents, musket stacks,and cook trenches. It is an actual fact that he ran over a foraging pony that was tied to a tree and couldn't get out of the way, knocked the poor beast down,and crippled it for a week. His headway wa-- terrific. He finally brought up full tilt against a tough little sapling, which he bent and slid astride like a boy on a scaffold pole, finally landing in the leafy top with his hands clawing the leaves. "He waked every man in the regiment. Down the line went shouts and bugle calls. Within ten minutes every one of us was in line of battle, staring into the darkness for the enemy's advance guard, listening for the ping of their silently fired bullets. "No enemy came, but the men lay on their arms all night. "Bob was too tickled over the way Bill tore through the brush to keep<iuiet. Next day every man in the army had the story. But it did not take well with the officers, and Mr. Bob would have been courtmartialled if we hadn't had a real brush up with the enemy next day, when he fought up so pluckily that the colonel reckoned to give him a stripe instead.