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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1925)
ST5he mOJV HOUSE I NOVELIZED BY EDWIN C. HILL 1 M FROM WILLIAM FOX’S GREAT PICTURE ROMANCE | 1 OF THE EAST AND THE WEST M BY CHARLES KENYON AND JOHN RUSSELL gS _ _ 1 with a complete new outfit, a fine stallion, half thoroughbrew, of great speed and staying power; a Mexican saddle and bridle gay with inlay of silver and, best of all, a beautiful rifle, and a pair of Colt’s revolvers. ■ “It's little enough,” said tho ‘old man, gruffly, when Davv thanked him and protested that the presents were too costly. “You have been a good boy. Ma loved you like her own son and this would have pleased her. 1 want to see you outfitted prop er, with a horse and gear that you can depend on.” A week afterward they took the road, with a -wagon train bound for P’ort Kearney. They made their way through Placer villo, the Washoe silver mines and Camp P’loyd and on to , Salt Lake City and the new Jerusalem that the Latter Day Saints had raised up by the great silty sea. Then they retunh J north and followed the well !.eaten road to Bridger and to P’ort Laramie, where Davy said farewell to Ilenry Brewster, watching with a heavy heart us his foster father fell into the long, dusty lino of wagons and mounted men. lie could not find Spence in the throng of white and red at Laramie, but had news of him. llis old friend was up the Powder liiver, Davy learned, hunting with Mata-Tatonka’s tribe of Oglallas, old friends, of his, though bitterly hostile at times other whites. Much later, but not from liU friend, Davy heard the story of hpw Henry Spence saved Mata-Ta tonka’s mother, sisters and young brothers from a raiding party of Crows who had descend ed on the Oglalla village many years before, when the fighting men we tv, absent making a buffalo “surround,” and only the old men, the women and the children were left in camp. f Spence, with two companions, happened to arrive as a war party of Crows, bent on horse stealing and sealn-liTting. struck the unprotected village. The mountain men gave the raiders a hitter lesson, killing a dozen and saving nearly a hundred women, children and old men from slaughter or captivity. Mata-Tatonka, “Bull Bear,” was a 'young m&n when that famous light took place, and was With his father, old Mata-Ta tonka, on the buffalo hutit. When the warriors returned, heard the tale and saw the trophies.. Crow scalps and a ■core of horses, the old chief > held a great feast. He adopted Spence and his men into the Bear Clan, making them his blood brothers. Old Mata-Ta tonka was called by the Great Spirit and young Mata-Tatonka was elected by Hie old men to lake his father’s place, but the brotherhood was sacred to hihi and to every painted warrior of the tribe. Davy determined to journey tb Mata-Tatonka’s village on Pow der ^River and could not be dis suaded by the trader. His confi dence was justified and three days after he left Fort Lnramie he rode int*. the straggling village of tepe> s to be greeted immediatly by Henry Spence. Mata-Tatonka received them in his lodge wher, Spence lived when with the tribe, and gave them the place of honor. The chief was the finest looking red man Davy had ever seen. Erect, he stood more than six feet, carrying himself with an assured air of power and inflexible reso lution. Throughout the tribe ms will was i~w. Uratt, real sagacity and much success in the incessant warfares of the Sioux against Crows, Pawnees, Arapa hoes and the Qros Ventres Blackfeet had won him great renown. i Spence presented Davy as his younger brother and .Mata-Ta tonka greeted the youth with a deep, resonant. “Howl" and with a handgrip that made Davy wince. He looked every inch the aavage prince of a powerful peo ple. The white men remained si lent, obeying the etiquet de mantled. Mata-Tatonka’s first wife handed her lord his cere monial pipe, of carved red sand stone, and filled it with the mix ture of tobacco and red willow root which the Sioux preferred to the unadulterated weed. Ma ta-Tatonka lifted the pipe to the four quarters indulged in a whiff then passed it from right to left, handing it first to th*e newcomer Davy imitated his host, then passed the pipe to Spence who in turn, whiffed a little cloud of smoko before returning it to the chief. The squaw replaced it on the wall of the tepee, where it hung with a hundred trophies of battle and the chase. Followed a silence in which Mata-Tatonka studied Davy without especially seeming to do so, yet Davy was thoroughly aware that the ficrca black eyes were probing him. “It is good,” said Mata-Taton ka, presently. “They say A young eagle has flown from thft mountain top. They say it is a white eagle with a red heart. It is Mata-Tatonka’s-wish that the youth who smiles will spread his robe in this lodge. Mata-Taton ka shall be his elder brother.” Spence translated, saying to Davy: “Your medicine is strong. You have made a fine impression on the chief. lie likes your style. Better offer him something—give him a presents—if you have any thing.” “Say to the great war chief that 1 am only a young man who has performed no great deeds and who lacks words to thank so renowned a warrior as Mata-Ta tonka,” said Davy. “Tell him that I am proud to b*e his friend. Say to him that I have brought him a present.” Spence, highly pleased, spoke rapidly in the Oglalla tongue and Mata-Tatonka’s eyes gleamed, though his stern face remained impassive. Davy has tened from the lodge, searched his pack and found a handsome hunting knife, with an unsually long blade and silver-mounted handle. Returning, he placed the fine knife in Mata-Tatonka’s hand, almost melting the chief’s reserve. Mata-1 atonlta will count many coups with his new knife,” he said proudly, lie will have many , new scalps of Crow dogs to hang in h': lodge. It is good! ’ ’ He called to his squaw and meat was served, buffalo rump boiled with a sweet root that Davy had never before tasted, the whole good and well-cooked. The squaw served it in ladles of horn. After meat they smoked a long while with no word spok en. Then Spence asked per mission to sec Mata-Tatonka’s’ winter count, something few white men had ever looked upon, the jealousy-guarded and almost sacred record of the tribe, writ ten in pictographs winter after winter, for a century and a half, upon the dressed inner side of a white buffalo robe. The winter count ran in spirals from the center, a series of widening circles, each cm le composed of a succession of crude, yet elo quent pictures recording some significant event that marked each year of Oglalla history. Mata-Tatonka himself arose, found the tribal record and care fully unrolled it from its cover . ing of skins. lie spread it upon the floor of the lodge. Spence’s forefinger traced backward as he mentally compu ted the years in white men’s terms. Then, with his finger pointing to a crow which seemed to be falling, broken-winged from the air, he spoke. “As ray brother secs, this.was,£ ICilled-Many-Crows-Winter,” he said to Mata-Tatonka and add ed to Davy: “It was the year Mata-Ta tonka’s father whipped the (’rows on Lodge Pole Creek, the same year your daddy was killed in the Black hills. Counting backwards it makes it ’53. The People of the Bear took many Crow scalps,” said the Chief, proudly. “They say the People of the Bear braided Crow hair into the tails of their horses I” “My brother is a great war rior,’’ agreed Spence. “In that year,” he went on, “my young brother and his father were attacked by the Red People, the Cheyennes, who were led by a white man who hated all white people. The heart of this white man was very black- Ilis heart was a snake’s heart. His mother was of the Red People and he mado many young men of her tribe foolish with lying words and raini-wakan, whiskey. He led the f. dish young men into thieving and useless slaying '1 hey called this man Two Fing ers because his right band was maimed. Two fingers murdered my young brother’s father, not as brave men fight, but as cow ards fight. Does Mata-Tatonka know this man?” Mata-Tatonka does not know him,” responded the Chief 1 here has been much talk in the lodges of this man. They say he no longer rides with the Red People. They say he went from the Red People in Star Passed-With-a-Loud-Noise Win ter. Some say he was heyoka and that the Thunderbird slew him. Mata-Tatonka does not know. He was a very bad man.” “The Chief says that the ren-> gade left the Cheyennes about three years ago, the winter they saw^ a great falling star which exploded not far from the vil lage; and that there are differ ent stories about him, some say ing ho was “heyoka,” crazy; some that he was killed by light ning, others that he just dropped out of sight. That’s about all I ve been able to pick up any where. Seems to be no trail.” “That devil is alive and some-, where in this country,” Davy said to Spenco after they had Jeft the lodge of the Chief. “Some day we’ll cut his trail. When Jthat time comes—” “Your father was a good man, said Spence. “His bones must be covered.” Davy fell easily into the life of his friend whom he looked up on as a wise, dependable older brother. Spence was hunting and trapping in the Powder River country, adding to his store of pelts by trading with Mata-Tatonka’s p eo p 1 e. II e taugh Davy the lore of the coun try in the many months that passed, as they slowly worked toward the Yellowstone The friendship of Mata-Tatonka opened all lodges to them. Davy came to have a more com plete understanding of the Tn uians than is acquired by most white men, for he lived their life and to some degree fell into their ways of thinking. l[e hunted with them and played their games and once, against Spence s advice, accompanied a small band of young dare-devils yearning for glory on a horse stealing raid agaifist the clever est < of all horse thieves, the Crows. It was a successful fo ray. to be chronicled in the Oglalla winter count as They Took-Many-Horses-Winter. Davy returned something of a hero among the youtig braves and looked upon v.ith growing re spect by the elders of the tribe. Mata-Tatonka calmly prof fered his second daughter, Little Sun, to Davy one evening as they sat at meat in the Chief’s lodge, and seemed puzzled when Davy refused politely but em phatically. Little Sun was pret ty enough as Indian girls went, though with a plumpness that presaged unbeautiful bulk with in few years. He told the Chief that he felt highly honored, but that his was a man’s trail, a lone trail, a trail of vengeance. Ho could not take a wife because he mtist go out alen, before many moons to seek his father’s slayer. That was an explanation perfect ly comprehensible to Mata-Ta tonka and the matter dropped there, although Little Sun, who had made eyes at Davy many times in her father’s lodge, was mournful. ‘‘You did well,” said Spence. ‘‘White men who tie up with Injun women are fools. It usually leads to bad trouble and they have to feed a passel of their wife’s x*elatives. The girl’s kind o’ purty, though.” ‘‘I don’t care for gilds, white or red,” said Davy, blushing like a girl himself. ‘‘They used to make a lot of fun of me in Sacra mento because I never had a sweetheart. I like them well enough, Silent, but oh, I don’t know. I have never seen any one of them that I wanted to pair off with.” They left the Oglalla tribe one spring and worked westward to ' the enchante l land of the Yellow ! stone- Spence had bee* there years before with Jiridger, but to Davy it was a region of marvels with its springs of boiling water, its leaping fountains and its giant trees. Eventually, they turned south toward Fort Laramie where there was news that made Davy's heart leap, news of the railroad. Davy had been so long in tire wilderness that no hint of the truth had reached him. Now he learned that the road was building, coming fast; that its eastern part had reached North Platte on the Platte river in Ne braska, and that the western part had forged ahead in Cali fornia to the slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Eagerly he told Spence that he would start at once for North Platte. “I’ve just got to go,” he said “Something calls me. I’ve felt it stronger and stronger the last year. It’s strange and I can’t explain it to myself, but it’s there.” Better wait until a wagon train passes goin’ East," said Spence. "The news here is that frhe Cheyennes and the Sioux are on the warpath against this rail road of yours. Talk t is that there’ll be figntin’ every mile of the way. TJhe Injuns are wild with fear and hate. Mata-Taton ka’s Oglallas were our friends by a happen so. ’Twon’t be the same down on the plains. I can’t leave here for a while." "No," said Davy, stubbornly "I’m going. I’ve got to risk it Mata-Tatouka’s young men have taught me a few tricks. Besides, Star can outrun any Indian pony that ever bucked. Come along when you can, Silent. You’ll find me a railroad man, pound ing spikes, maybe." “That’s a hell of an ambition,” said Spence. The- next day Major Anson, commanding the po3t, sent for Davy. "I hear you are riding to the Platte,” he said. "If you are bent on going you can be of great service to the army. I have dispatches I would like to get to Kearney but there’s no scout here I can trust, or who wants to make the trip. How about it?" “I’m your man," said Davy "Have "’em ready at sunup. Major, for I sure am hitting the trail." (TO BE CONTINUED) The Tolls of War. Sherwood Eddy, in The Forum. War Is immoral and un-Chrlstlan, destructive of life, property and mor al standards to victor and van quished. : The last war, with Its total cost— direct and Indirect—$337,000,000,000, would not yet be paid for If we had begun to pay on Installments of $20, 000 an hour from the birth of Christ to the present. We destroyed $9,000, 000 a day, burning up the equivalent of the endowment of a great univer Bity.like Columbia every five hours. Again, war Involves the organized destruction of human life. Accord ing to estimates of Professor Bogart, the total losses were as follows: 26,- , 000,000 combatants and noncombat ants dead 20,000,000 wounded; 9, 000,000 war orphans; 6,000,000 war widows; 10.00o.000 refugees. According to the Swedish society for the study of the social conse quences of the war, the total losses must be put down at 40,000,000 Uvea, If we add those who perished after the war In the revolutions, famlme and pestilence that followed. We once read with horror of a sin gle human sacrifice offered, to the god9 Dragon and Moloch, to Baal or Ashtaroth; but what shall we say of this holocaust offered to our mod ern pagan god of war? But war la not only destructive of life and property; it is yet more de structive of moral standards. The first casualty of war Is truth; then follow liberty, love and justice. Truth must be exchanged for a prop aganda of exaggeration or false hood. A chauvinistic patriotism demands that love be exorcised by hate. Liberty must be superseded by an autocratic military control of moral conduct. Justice gives place to injustice in dealing with an enemy, and right eousness all too frequently to Im morality. With what result? We are left not only with 40,000, 000 dead and many millions wounded, but with a world that Is morally crip pled and disabled. We may wash our hands like Pi late, we may protest our Innocence, but we cannot thus lightly cleanse the stains of this bloody business, the world's “damned spot" of war. LITTLE GIRL MANIKINS Baris,—Little girl manikins from 10 to 14 years old, ure the latest Innovations In the Paris tashlor. houses. After they complete dls playing clothes before buyers the? are given a glass of port wine before being returned to their parents. Damaging One, Sometimes. From the Toronto Globe. Professor—Suppose an Irresistible force should meet an immovable body, what would be the result? Stud©—A merger. TRY THIS ON YOUR PUPILS S. Toledo Sherry. It fa the girl you ought to be. Within the girl you are. That will make you The woman you ought to be, If you are always fair. It is the boy you ought to be, Within the boy you are. That will make you The man you ougb^ to be. If you are always SQUARfC. • .;- . j Non-F actional Appraisement of Work By La Follette for State and Nation From Milwaukee Journal, Not of La Follette Faction. W hat of the achievements of La Fcllette’s leadership and his control M‘ the state? They were large and at one time it seemed they might be great. But regulation, which was his central policy in W isconsin, begins to be questioned. La Follette himself said in 1922 that he was keen enough to foresee when he was organizing commissions and providing for this regulation that it must fail, that in the case of railroads he took it as the shortest way to gov ernment ownership. And though Wisconsin was served for a time by many able and disinterested men, the post-war return of La Follette men to power has brought a regime of all the old time politics. W ho can seek the answer to this long chapter of power and influence and the disintegration that has already begun among the La Follette following? Was it a lack of clear vision that sees how to build? Or was it inevitable with the times? No one has solved the questions on which La Follette's career in politics was spent. A mighty protest arose that made the beneficiaries of privilege tremble and study the vocabulary of humility. Reaction has fol lowed. Privilege raises its head with demands the imagination failed to reach in 1910 and 1912. W’as all the work of those years lost? Men coming after us will look and note that many abuses have been swept away, that much that was openly accepted is no longer even attempted in secret, that the standards of what man may do to his fellow man have changed. In this chapter Robert Marion La Follette had a part. Ilis voice was raised on the side of the people. If ho sought to be president, it was not to those who wanted intrenched privilege that he appealed. If he loved power—and here is a great part of his hold upon thousands of his fellow citizens of Wisconsin—it was not to increase riches. Beginnning as a poor boy and fatherless, lie hewed his way to the top as truly as the men who turned their energies to the way of gain. If his principles were wrong, at least his party never made open war on him until he took the field against it. His energy was prodigious, his tactics skillful. He was in the saddle to the last. The men who opposed him in the nation but did not know how to beat him are now to learn that the cause to which La Follette pledged allegiance is never defeated. Wisconsin, the state which knew him as it has known no other man and yielded him a confidence which few men have ever received, has now to learn that no man saves a state or a people, that no devices of government take the responsibility from the individual citizen, that no man arises to save communities or states or nations which will not save themselves, TODAY BY ARTHUR BRISBANE Does anybody m1ff:e a simple, Inex pensive adding machine that would Vt millions of wives add their house hold bills • without headache or un tertainty? If such a machine doesn’t *xist, somebody should manufacture It. He would be blessed also by hus bands. It is humiliating for them to add »p the same bill three different ways, thus proving to their wives that they are net business men, whatever else they may be. You read Dante’s description of miserable creatures in hell, tearing with their teeth at each other’s skulls, and ask: “How could any Imagina tion, even Dante’s, conceive such hor ror ?” But what one can Imagine, another uan do. Bernard Grant and Walter Krauser were locked In the "bull penH of Chicago's prison. Grant Is under sentence to be hanged for murder. Krauser, his accomplice, was once convieted, and secured a new trial. Krauser drew a knife and, before guards could stop him, had stabbed Grant tive times, thus making Kraus *r's trip to the gallows certain. Dante’s picture of the eternally damned, adding to each other’s tor ture, or his description of himself pulling hair from the head of » miserable sinner who refused to tell his name, is no more horrible than that scene In the Chicago prison. Grant, the man stabbed, was in stantly attended by surgeons, but "ip pushed them away, turned his back, and would not permit blood transfusion. “Lot me alone; you want to save me only to have me swing; let me die.” He died yesterday. Whatever happens, some Americans find joy in life. The great week of pacing at Auteull, near Paris, be gan yesterday. Americans were there with their fine dresses, jewelry, and the money that Is welcome every where in Europe, even if the Ameri cans are not quite so welcome. To show how representative the big crowd of Americans was, at Au teuil, It is only necessary to say that It included Frank A. Munsey and Eddie Cantor, representing states manlike solemnity and wild joy. If It hurts your feelings that the French must send us back some dol lars, It may comfort you to know that Americans will take to Paris at least as many dollars as the French send back to us. Proof that the complete costume of a modern wom.np, Including dress, stockings, shoes and underwear, may weigh as little as 24 ounces causes the virtuous to grieve. But, even as woman In her changing moods cuts off her dress at top and bottom, there may be comfort. The low necked dress Is partially Justified by this fact, to which your doctor will testi fy. Cancer attacks women more often than men, and cancer of the breast, dreadfully frequent in civilized coun tries is quite unknown among female savages who wear no clothing above the waist. Sunshine seems to keep cancer away. Stocks were a little weak yester day. corn and wheat also. Better weather, less talk of “rust,” meaning better crops, and also lower prices. French and Belgian francs and Ital ian lire were very low. President Coolldge’s talk about collecting the war debts sets European currency “all of a tremble.” The French are as brave today as they were In old days when Latour A Better Scheme. From the Pittsburg Chronicle-Tele graph. Two suburban residents each hired a boy the other Saturday afternoon to take out the winter’s ashes and clean up the premises of . rubbish. When night came one complained, “I gave that youngster a dollar and he hardly did a stroke of work.” “You weren’t sUrewd,” said the other. “I offered my boy 50 cents for the Job, and bet him another 50 that he couldn’t finish it by 5 o'clock. In the seventh century, Omar declaring that the Koran contained all that may should know, destroyed the great library of Alexandria, and used the books as *u«l in the pohlla baths. D'Auvergne warned his comrades with loud shouts. In spite of the Kng lish spears pointing at his breast, when Lahire, fighting the huge bear, prayed, “Lord, I do not ask you to help Lahire, I only ask you not to help the bear," or when the French man lidding the boat of the enemy until both of his hands had been cut off. leaned over and held the boat with his elbows. In today's war against the Riffs, French courage is conspicuous. Lieu tenant Lapeyre, with six soldiers, only survivors of a garrison of 26, blew up his blockhouse on the Riff frontier^ killing himself and his six men to thwart the Riffs, first noti fy ing headquarters by heliograph. That’S what the French call “ un beau geste," and that's what it is. 'I he young prince of Whies put f»o\yi rs on the grave of Oom Paul K: tiger. It’s easy to be nice to your encnjy, beaten and dead. But there Is no knowing how old Kruger would fill about that wreath on his grave. It might make him writhe. Kruger, incidentally, should be one _ of tlie lawyers on the prosecution , in the famous Bryan-Darwin monkey case in Te.m*t?ssee. A .traveler sent in his name to Kruger saying he was on b’s way around the world. The pious ruler of the Transvaal refused to see him, saving that if the traveler had read the Bible he would know the vvcrld v.u. n t round and therefore be couidn’t travel around It. Another Delayed Treaty. From the New York Times. The continued talk about possible foreign intervention in China, wheth er by one or more powers, with the hope of ending the present unrest, cabs to mind the fact that one of the most important international agreements about China, the Nine i’ov.er treaty signed at the Washing ton conference in the spring of 1922, is not yet in effect. This arrangement reaffirmed the principle of the “Open Door’’ and guaranteed freedom from Interference In the affairs of China by any one power for its selfish in terests. It specifically barred the creation of “spheres of Influence" in China. At the same time It pro claimed the territorial and adminis trative integrity of China and pro vided for “the fullest and most un embarrassed opportunity to China to develop ana maintain for herself an effec tive and stable government.” These are, to be sure, mostly pas sive' provisions. The last named can only be read, in the light of recent events, with a smile. There is little reason to believe that the Chinese would have been more persistent or more successful .in their search for "flu effective and stable government” had this Nine-Power treaty beer, properly ratified and were In fores. importance lies, however, in the m t that it embodies certain basic principles which in American eyes are of vital importance In the future relations o fthe powers with China. Its purpose is to preserve China from falling under the political or econom ic h .> ay of any one power to such ar, extent as to endanger the peace of the east. It formally recognizes the end of the old scramble for special privileges which marked so many o': the relations of the foreign nalioni with China during the last century. Another agreement signed at tin same time provides for the revisicil of Chinese customs duties—a matt;r of tiie greatest Importance to Chin.",’ ^ internal and external relations. Getting Adjusted. From the Washington Star. “What has become of Mesa Bill?’ “He he.) joined a circus," answers ! Cactus Joe. "Bill got chased'out of one tow:; nf; another until he decided tp get a job where he could move on a; a part of his regular business.” Ja< k Baker of Cooper, Tex., dlscov ered a sandpiper standing near thi tldeline at Galveston with its bill stud In the sand. The bird did not mov ■when he approached, for it had rashl placed it bill Into the open Jaw of i clan, and tha clam had shut up llha trap, tinker had to kill the clam ralax Its grip aid raUaaa tha bird.
