THE FATE OF LITTLE JACK,

Otago Witness, Volume 01, Issue 2123, 1 November 1894, Page 46

THE FATE OF LITTLE JACK,

A friend of mino, who faaa temporarily pitched hi* tent at Santa Fe, New Mexico, send* t&e by this mail an account of a painfally dramatic little tragedy which has just happened there. O&e afternoon a l>id.y of Santa Fe took b« litel* boy for a walk over the bills at tbe base of the glorious RockieF. Tbe little fellow was tbe fonr-year-old darling of the place. Tbe young lady tat down to read while the boy ran sboat gathering flowers, which he brought several times to his mother. She . becsme absorbed in her book, bat after a time it occurred to her that the child had cot bsen b»ck to her for a quarter of an hour. She got up to look for biro, bat he was nowber* to be seen. She searched for an bour, and then came back into the town, hoping that he might have made for home. Frantic at not finding the child, she alarmed the neighbours, who at once rang tbe Srebeß and called qu£ the inhabitants to form a search party. The soldiers all paraded and wenfc oat a» s discovery party for over 10 miles of the mountain?, and fearched all through the moonlight night. When the moon disappeared they used lanterns and lighted bonfires. During their search they aroused the Indian Pueblo, five mil«a off, and the Indians turned out to a man and scoured the Mils.

Meanwhile the bloodhounds from the Penitentiary had bsen put upon the little fellow's trail, but lost it on the edge of an arroyo about two miles off. Unfortunately the search so willingly undertaken by the troops and the Indians was in tbe wrong direction.

Now comes tbe most curiou3 feature in this true story, which reads like a Bret Harte or a Mayne Reid romance. A barber, who las a shop on the Plaza at Santa Fe, left tbe eesrch party in the middle of the night, not feeling wel), and went home to bed. But be continued the search in his dreams, and cbeamt that the child was at a certain place fn quite an opposite direction. He got up, tyent to a neighbour, borrowed a horse and traggr. aad the two startefl efl tether as

soon aa it was daylight in the direction indicated by the dream. About fire miles away he struck the child's trail again, and followed it across tbe arroyo, where the child had doubled backwards and f orwardt in wb&t joust have been an agony of terror all through tbe dismal night. He had wandered at least 10 miles away, aad was found by «ihe barber in tbe very placs that bad been revealed to him in his dream. He was lying under a great cactus tree — dead. "Little Jack"— tbat was tbe nam» the child was known by in Santa Fe— was buried on the following- Sunday, and it wai a great public funeral, for every heart bad been touched by the tragedy of hiafate. Men, women, and children — American*, Mexicans, and Indiana— stood tearfully around the little grave. The soldiers obtained the colonel's permission to form a military escort. — Referee.