The Colonel’s Story of Flad

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1987, 7 May 1906, Page 2

The Colonel’s Story of Flad

By JOHN H. RAFTERY a ■ ■- r im— —m-t

SITTING by the camp fire one evening the talk had turned upon the striking performances of some of the tenderfoot desperadoes who had outshot and outshone some of the oldtimers. Capt. Crews mentioned Gerald Flad and his brief but brilliant career as a ranger, and then everybody had something to say about the dashing Canadian-Irishman who flashed ' like a meteor across the border firmament some ten years ago. Col. Hutchinson, who was the dean of the party and had seen bloody service in two wars, threw a lot of unexpected light upon the personality of the vanished bravo, and as a finale to the evening s talk told this story: His father was one of that fast fading race of Irish gentlemen who chose arms as a profession and found neither sorrow nor disappointment in the scattered and cruel rewards of his adventurous life. Roger Flad, the father was in every uprising that gave promise of hard knocks. When he couldn't find work for his sword in the cause of hi* own suffering island he bought a commission in the British army, and afterward wandered ’round the world like a knight errant of old. seeking chances for chivalrous advancement. I think he married a Castilian girl, but at all events Gerald was his only child and he reared him as a gentle-blooded eon of a roving soldier of fortune. You know the boy spoke French, Italian, j Spanish and German as well as he spoke English, snd he was a devil with i broadsword, cutlass or rapier before |he was of age. Ho had been expelled from Heidelberg before he was 18, and when he first showed up at the headquarters of Coppinger’s California expedition he had more scars across his bovish countenance than half of us veteran*. I think the old man—he was only a i lieutenant when the Brule Sioux got | him—was half sorry at the training of I his son. for the youngster’s early life j was a fierce exaggeration of all the j father’s passion for war and adventure iof all kinds. Well, everybody liked j him—l’ve heard Phil Sheridan swear i that the lad was the best wild turkey ' shot that ever came into the Indian i country—but he couldn’t get things ! hot enough for him. He scouted for i two months in the iSierras on that Cal- | ifornta expedition, disappeared, and | the next we heard he was distinguish- | ing- himself in the Matabele wars as a i bushwhacker and guerrilla. I was I down in Old Mexico when Ochoa was | “starting things" —never mind what I I was there for —and who should I see j one day, drilling a troop of the most | raS cally outlaws that ever crossed the j Rio Grande, but Gerald himself, as S brown as an Arab and as jaunty as the | rowdiest rurale that ever wore spurs. ! j didn’t get in right with these revolu- ! tionists. but I was in El Paso—they | called it Paso del Norte then —when I met Gerald, thin and yellow as parchment, sauntering along in the Plaza. I hailed him. and found out all about the failure of his ambitious plans. He was to have been a governor or something if the rebellion had succeeded. He had been hit at the Arroyo fight, crawled 17 miles to the river and was now recuperating at Hotel Bieu, a skeleton of himself, but as full of devilment as ever. He said very frankly that he was in n terrible frame of mind about a young woman of jma a high caste Mexican of Cordovan descent- —whom he meant to marry, even though he had to carry her off. Singular, isn’t it, how the father’s predilections appeared in the boy? “The trouble is,” said Gerald, sitting on a stone bench in the shade, “the girl is in l° ve with a bullfighting rapscallion from Madrid who has been clown through the republic, strutting I and cow killing till the women are all j wild about him. The worst of it is he’s i I coming up here, and 1 suppose the I i whole of Mexico will s< nd its best peo- j j pie to cheer and lionize him. I don’t j | know whether to kill him or turn tor-1 ! e ador myself and challenge him. lie’ll i be here next month, and I’ve got to get ! well, colonel. I’ve got to lower his colors somehow.” Well, I met Gerald every clay after that and he mended so raj idly that in a week he began to ride with Cafferty's men and was thinkhfg of joining the rangers again. The girl lived on the American side, and though I got but a few glimpses of her, I must say she was a beauty. I never saw a man so cut up over a woman. At that time I think he’d have fought a whole regiment to win her, but I wasn't at all ready for the desperate thing he really did. I had a cottage over in the new section, or rather a shack, for there were only two rooms, and I was frying my bacon one night about 11 when Gerald came in at the open door with a very dirty and disreputablelooking Spaniard.

“Cnlonrji ’• 5a Ramon ci»l Agar, the famous bellfighter. He’s pretty drunk, but he wants a drink.** Then he put the hero on my army cot and gave him- a bottle of meseel, which the victim gulped like a famished hound. “I've got to keep him here till the fighting is over," whispered Flad. "and if you’re my friend, colonel, you'll help me.” "1 I asked him what he meant to do with Del Agar, but the rascal said: "Show him a good time. That’s all.** I made sure that no violence was intended, and -iis the Spaniard was lapsing into a state of unconscious quiescence I asked Gerald to mess and promised to take care of his guest. To show you what a cunning strategist he was, he never told me a word about his ultimate scheme, but I suspected that by preventing Del Agar from appearing in the bull ring in the morning he hoped to make good his suit with the senorita. He stayed all night with me, but at sunrise when I rose he was gone, - and the sleeping stranger, surrounded by half-empty bottles, was deep in, dreamland. At ten o’clock that moeg ing I went across the river after locking up my shack, and as soon as I got into my tier I saw Cafferty and some of his men, waiting for the second onset. The first bull had been killed by one of the lesser swordsmen and the whole amphitheater was alive with gossip about the disappearance of Ramon del Agar. "What do you think, Hutchinson?” •oared Cafferty, coming over to me, "the Spanish champion has vanished, and that fool Flad is to take his place. See that girl over there—that one with the black mantilla and the red flowers—that’s the cause of It all. Flad’s so mashed on her that he’d stand up against a whole herd of Andalusians for a smile of hers.” Then the trumpet sounded and the procession of matadore*, picadores and banderilleros marched in. We saw Gerald at once. He was arrayed in the tight-fitting bolero, breeches, ho*e and slippers of the Spaniards, but be wore neither queue nor headpiece, and hi* yellow curls looked singularly out of place among hia swarthy comrades. When the fighters advanced to salute the governor, Flad lid a very queer thing. He stepped up to the barrier in front of the smiling senorita and, ignoring the evident disapproval of the crowd, trailed his sword as he bowed low before her. A moment later the bull, a particularly ferocious young monster, came bounding into the arena. Flad had retired, as is the custom, to give place for the baiting by the banderilleros and picadore«, but the crowd was oddly impatient for the "Gringo” star to have his chance, and before the play was half completed and while the bull was at the very climax of his fighting rage • the bugle sounded for the swordsman. I think the governor yielded to the popular impatience in the hope of satisfying his own grudge against the American who had ignored him, but . at any rate, the first note had hardly sounded when Flad, bareheaded and laughing like a boy, bounded the gate*, hi* scarlet mantle on his left arm and his Italian rapier flashing In his right. Again he ignored the dignitaries and smiled at the woman. Then he faced the astonished bull and flaunted the crimson ten yards from its blazing eyes. "Bravo, Toro!” screamed the mob, which already hated the intruder. "Bravo, mio Gerald!” piped a girl’s voice, and then there was the quick, stifled gasp of fascinated interest as the beast lowered his crest and charged the enemy. If the judges and spectators expected an equal or prolonged fight between the American and the bull they were disappointed. Instead of missing or half-thrusting, as the best bull-fighters often do, Flad buried his weapon to the hilt, true between the shoulders of the bull, as swift and certain as if it had been pricking a sawdust target. As the brute sank quivering to its knees, Flad stood a second before it, as if ashamed. Then he plucked out his sword, flung It on the ground and walked out at the gate as sullen and as bowed as if he had been beaten in a fair fight. He saluted nobody, heeded not the cheers of the multitude, nor stopped till he was alone in his dressing room. When Flad reached my house that night Del Agar wa* gone. "I’m going to New York to-night, colonel,” said Gerald, sitting dispirited on my trunk. “Take the girl with you?" I hesitated. “Not a bit of it. I think I can win a better woman in a better way. If I ever get hard put for a trade, I may start a butchershop, but I’m too young for that just yet.” And I haven’t heard a word of him since that night A Passage at Arms. "I could settle Spain’s hash for hei - mighty quick,” remarked the confident v " looking young man. “There is other hash to be settled for, Mr. Backboard,” grimly landlady. And silence ensued, while the hoarders fell to reckoning how to strengthen our fleet with, the butter. Appalling Prospect. Everett Wrest—Do you know, tlm I doctors say the American people is gradually killing theirselves off with overwork? Dismal Dawson—Yes. an it sometimes worries me to think what’s to become of us when they ain’t nobody left but us. He Maddened Them. “ What are they ducking that poor fellow for?” “He deserves it. Since he’s been in camp he’s talked of nothing else hr* the way his mother used to hake rcakes and fry liver. ’ That Was All. “What’s this I hear about the government buying a lot of bicycle brakes “I haven’t heard of any such thing, ” “Well, I surely read that it wr-t spending a good deal of money on coast defenses. ” Ribald Repartee. Ho—Tell the truth and shame the devil, you know. She—l don’t know whether it would shame him for you to tell the truth, but it would surprise him much.