CORPORAL JIM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 42

CORPORAL JIM.

At midnight the &couts came in with information that they had discovered an Indian village a few miles away, and two hours liter the officers passed about irom tent to tent and aroused the sleeping men. Hordes were brought iv and saddled, ammunition overhauled, and sabres buckled od, and 70 of us rode quietly away over the plains towards the foothills. There was plenty of time, and the horses were not pressed beyond a walk. JusS as day began to dawn we halted. While we sat waiting we could hear the bells of the Indian ponies and the barking o£ dog s',5 ', and once the crying of a child was wafted to our ears across the valley. "We shall charge right into the village. Don't fire upon any of the squaws unless they take part in the fight. Keep together and mind the bugle calls." So the order came down the lines, and 10 minutes later daylighi was strong enough, for us to make oat the wigwams. We rode forward a few hundred yards, and then thß bugle sounded the " charge," and away ws dashed.

Military reports have told you how it was. The Indians had, somehow, been warned, and were lying in ambush in the dry ravine in front of the camp. We were staggered— checked— slaughtered— routed ; two ladians killed and two wounded; 30 out of 70 troopers left lying there in front of the ravine, —all dead or dying, thank God. when the light was over, except Corporal Jim. Ha had been thrown from his horse and stunned. When he recovered consciousness, he was a, prisoner in the Indian camp. Corporal Jim is an old veteran of the war, and this is not the first time h8 has encountered hostile Indians. There are seven notches cut into the stock of his carbine. Bach one stands for a warrior he has sent to the happy hunting grounds. He does notsay this, but all of us know it to be so. He has never uttered a boast, but we know that he is brave to recklessneS3. As be lies on. the grass, bound hand and foot, with the warriors dancing about him with bloody scalplocks in their haod3, Corporal Jim groans-, aloud. A.s they lift him up and point to the. , mutilated bodies, on which the squaws and children are still wreaking vengeanca Corporal Jim turns pale, and a faintness stealsaway his strength. A prisoner in the hands of the Apaches I That means death. Ten thousand dollars ia gold would nob ransom him. If the chief of that village knew thab every living son in it j would be wiped out in revenge, he would not. , spare his prisoner. Not death by bullet or , stroke of tomahawk, but death after hours j and hours of torture— such torture as only , the merciless Apaches know how to inflict j and prolong. They have ever bsen called the i devils of earth. They are born with the i ferocity of the tiger; they are reared to be merciless ; they are trained to torture and. kill ; they die happy if they can first inflict a j death blow. As the lines are formed and Corporal Jim i is unbound and conducted to the head of. j them he knows what is coming. He is to ruu the gauntlet. That is always a preliminary. It is to whet the appetite* of the i waniors for the feast to come. On his j right is Ked Bird, a sub-chief. With his own hands Corporal Jim bound up that , chief's wound on a field of battle, gave him ; to drink from hia canteen, and defended him ! against the exasperated trooper who wanted. . to finish him. Has the Apache forgotten ■ the incident ? His eyes flash fire, and there is murder in hia look. Gratitude in an Apache I As well hope for it in a hyena. On hi 3 left is young Grey Eagle, the only sou of a great chief. A year ago when we charged a village the boy was wounded ana captured. It was Corporal Jim who had him in charge for six weeks, showing him every kindness and consideration. Ay, it was the corporal who pleaded so hard for his prisoner thab vigilance was relaxed and Grey Eagle escaped from the fort. He is imoatient for the torture to begin. He would inflict it with his own hand if permitted. There is no hope for Corporal Jim. He will be carried on the rolls as " missingsupposed to be dead." Around the camp fires for a year to come the boys will mention his name in whispers, and hope that he was dead before the red demons reached him. It; ia high noon. The sunshine never seemed so mellow, the sky so blue, the distant mountains so grand. There is a shout along the lines. The Indians are impatient' for the torture to begin. The corporal is a brave man, and a man in hi 3 prime. He will last for hours and afford them a feast. They ,have let go of his arms, and he v standing alone and waiting for the signal to start. The signal is given, and as a yell rends the air Corporal Jim jumps to the left, wrenches a tomahawk from the hands of a warrior, and the next instant he is flying over the ground with the speed of a horse. Thirty warriors rush after him : 30 more mount their ponies and pursue. Some day when these red devils are again being fed and clothed at Government expense and complaining of their " wrongs " they will tell us the rest of the story. They will nob exult as they tell it. They overhauled Corporal Jim, and he turned at bay and fought so desperately that they bad to finish him then and there. He did not die alone, and those who tell us might show the scars of wounds inflicted by him in that last desperate struggle if they would. No man knows where he lies. The Apaches dig no graves for their enemies. The wolves and the vultures get everything but the scalp. But we raised a mound to him in the desolate graveyard to the west of the fort, and It is there to-day among the graves of the soldier dead :

" Corporal Jim 1 " No other name, no date, no epitaph. God will know where lies the dust of his bones when the last trumpet shall sound.— Naw York Sun,