CAPTURING AN ARMY DESERTER.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 43, 5 June 1906, Page 2

CAPTURING AN ARMY DESERTER.

— * — The late Judge Kilgore, better known as "Buck," was a good story teller, and while a member of the United States Congress he often related humorous incidents of his career. Here is the best he ever told:— During the Civil War between the North and South he was ordered home to assist in gathering up some deserters. One evening about dusk he was out in the country in quest of a deserter who had been off the "layout" for a year. He was very hungry and very weary. He called at a house by the roadside and there he found a woman just taking from the spit a nicely broiled chicken. The savour of the fowl made him ravenous. He had a Mexican dollar in his pocket, which he had carried for years, and to which he was much attached, but he was bound to have that chicken, and he pulled out the dollar and proposed a trade—the coin for the fowl. The lady said the chicken was for a sick friend, and that she could not sell it. "But," she continued, "I’ll Jump you for it." "What do you mean,?" said "Buck," "I mean that we shall see which can jump furthest from this doorsill out into the yard, and the one of us that beats shall have both chicken and dollar."

"All right ; that suits me exactly" said "Buck." The dollar was placed on the dish beside the chicken and his gun was leaned against the wall by the door, and "Buck" slung his arms and made a tremendous leap of over 12 feet. He recovered with difficulty, and when he turned to the door there was the lady with his cocked gun in her hands, with 4he butt against her shoulder and finger on the trigger. "Now, you just flirt the gravel down that road, young man, or I'll make buzzard’s food of *you before h can singe a gnat," she ordered. There was shoot in her eyes, and "Buck and ball" in the gun. So "Buck” “flirted the gravel,” his bosom swollen with impotent rage, and his mouth overflowing with eloquent profanity. By this time it was dark. Over in the field "Buck" spied a ginhouse. He went to it. and climbed into the loft, lay down on the floor, and soon was fast asleep. After a time he was awakened by voices down below. He listened and made the discovery that one was a female voice, and a moment later he realised that she was relating the "jumping” episode to her companion, who gave vent to peal after peal of laughter. There were the chicken and hisjlollar which he could see bv, the ligfvt of the tallow dip. Peering about him he saw his gun also. There was a big hole in the floor of the loft, and just as the man took hold of the dish to eat the chicken "Buck" plunged through the holo and seized his gun. Before they recovered from their astonishment "Buck" roared out :

"Madam, you just flirt the gravel back home, and as for this gentleman he and I will flirt the gravel to the office of the provost marshal. He is the deserter I have been after for a week."

There was shoot in-" Buck's" eye now. Tho woman left. "Buck" recovered his dollar, ate the chicken, and before midnight', surrendered his prisoner to the provost marshal.