Shiner Gazette (Shiner, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 14, 1921 Page: 9 of 10
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SHINER GAZETTE, SHINER, TEXAS
Q--................ ■- . ■■=Q
WHISPERFOOT.
Synopsis.—Warned by his physi-
cian that he has not more than six
months to live, Dan Failing sits
despondently on a park bench, won-
dering where he should spend those
six months. Memories of his grand-
father and a deep love for all
things of the wild help him in
reaching a decision. In a large
southern Oregon city he meets
people who had known and loved
his grandfather, a famous fron-
tiersman. He makes his home with
Silas Lennox, a typical westerner.
The only other members of the
household are Lennox’s son, “Bill,”
and daughter, “Snowbird.” Their
abode is in the Umpqua divide, and
there Failing plans to live out the
short span of life which he has
been told is his. From the first
Failing’s health shows a marked
improvement, and in the compan-
ionship of Lennox and his son and
daughter he fits into the woods life
as if he had been born to it. By
quick thinking and a remarkable
display of “nerve” he saves Len-
nox’s life and his own when they
are attacked by a mad coyote.
Lennox declares he is a reincarna-
tion of his grandfather, Dan Fail-
ing I, whose fame as a woodsman
is a household word. Dan learns
that an organized band of outlaws,
of which Bert Cranston is the
leader, is setting forest fires. Lan-
dry Hildreth, a former member of
the gang, has been induced to turn
state’s evidence. Cranston shoots
Hildreth and leaves him for dead.
•Q..........— — ............. «
CHAPTER I—Continued.
For when all thiugs are said and
•done, there were few bigger cowards
in the whole wilderness world than
Whisperfoot. A good many people
think that Graycoat the coyote
could take lessons from him in this
respect. But others, knowing how a
hunter is brought in occasionally with
almost all human resemblance gone
from him because a cougar charged in
his death agony, think this is unfair
to the larger animal. And it is true
that a full-grown cougar will some-
times attack horned cattle, something
that no American animal cares to do
unless he wants a good fight on his
paws and of which the very thought
would throw Graycoat into a spasm;
and there have been even stranger
stories, if one could quite believe
them. A certain measure of bespect
must be extended to any animal that
will hunt the great bull elk, for to
miss the stroke and get caught be-
neath the churning, lashing, slashing,
razor-edged front hoofs is simply
death, painful and without delay. But
the difficulty lies in the fact that these
things are not done in the ordinary,
rational blood of hunting. What an
animal does in its death agony, or to
protect its young, what great game it
follows in the starving times of win-
ter, can be put to neither its debit
nor its credit. A coyote will charge
when mad. A raccoon will put up a
wicked fight when cornered. A hen
will peck at the hand that robs her
nest. When hunting was fairly good,
Whisperfoot avoided the elk and steer
almost as punctiliously as he avoided
men, which is saying very much in-
deed; and any kind of terrier could
usually drive him straight up a tree.
But he did like to pretend to be
very great and terrible among the
smaller forest creatures. And he was
Fear itself to the deer. ' A human
hunter who would kill two deer a
week for fifty-two weeks would' be
called a much uglier name than poach-
er ; but yet this had been Whisper-
foot’s record,, on and off, ever since
his second year. Many a great buck
wore the scar of the full stroke—aft-
er which Whisperfoot had lost his
hold. Many a fawn had crouched
panting with terror in the thickets at
just a- tawny light on the gnarled limb
of a pine. Many a doe would grow
great-eyed and terrified at just his
strange, pungent smell on the wind.
■ He yawned again, and his fangs
looked white and abnormally large in
the moonlight. His great, green eyes
were still clouded and languorous
from sleep. Then he began to steal
up the ridge toward his hunting
grounds. It was a curious thing that
he walked straight in the face of the
soft wind that came down from the
snow fields, and yet there wasn’t a
weathercock tq be seen anywhere. And
neither had the chipmunk seen him
wet a paw and hold it up, after the
approved fashion of holding up a fin-
ger. He had a better way of knowing
—a chill at the end of his whiskers.
The little, breathless night sounds
in the brush around him seemed to
madden him. They made a song to
him, a strange, wild melody that even
such frontiersmen as Dan and Len-
nox could not experience. A thousand
smells brushed down to him on the
wind, more potent than any wine or
lust. He began to tremble all over
with rapture and excitement. But un-
like Cranston’s trembling, no wilder-
ness ear was keen enough to hear the
leaves rustling beneath him.
CHAPTER II.
Shortly after nine o’clock, Whisper-
foot encountered his first herd of deer.
But they caught his scent and scat-
tered before he could get. up to them.
He met Woof, grunting through the
underbrush, and he punctiliously, but
with wretched spirit, left the trail. A
fight with Woof the bear was one of
the most unpleasant experiences that
could be imagined. He had a pair of
strong arms of which one embrace of
a cougar’s body meant death in one
long shriek of pain. Of course they
didn’t fight often. They had entirely
opposite interests. The bear was a
berry-eater and a honey-grubber, and
the cougar cared too much for his own
life and beahty to tackle Woof in a
hunting way.
A fawn leaped from the thicket in
front of him, startled by his sound in
the thicket. The truth was, Whisper-
foot had made a wholly unjustified
misstep on a dry twig, just at the
crucial moment. Perhaps it was the
fault of Woof, whose presence had
driven Whisperfoot from the trail,
and perhaps because old age and stiff-
ness was coming upon him. But
neither of these facts appeased his
anger. He could scarcely suppress a
snarl of fury and disappointment.
He continued along the ridge, still
stealing, still alert, but his anger in-
creasing with every moment. The fact
that he had to leave the trail again to
permit still another animal to pass,
and a particularly insignificant one
too, didn’t make him feel any better.
This animal had a number of curious
stripes along his back, and usually did
nothing more desperate than steal
eggs and eat bird fledglings. Whisper-
foot could have crushed him with one
bite, but this was one thing that the
great cat, as long as he lived, would
A Full Twenty Yards Farther.
never try to do. He got out of the
way politely when Stripe-back was
still a quarter of a mile away; which
was quite a compliment to the little
animal’s ability to introduce himself.
Stripe-back was familiarly known as
a skunk.
Shortly after ten, the mountain lion
had a remarkably fine chance at a
buck. The direction of the wind, the
trees, the thickets and the light were
all in his favor. It was old Blacktail,
wallowing in the salt lick; and Whis-
perfoot’s heart bounded when he de-
tected him. No human hunter could
have laid his.plans with greater care.
He had to cut up the side of the ridge,
mindful of the wind. Then there was
a long dense thicket in which he
might approach within fifty feet of
the lick, still with the wind in his
face. Just beside the lick was another
deep thicket, from which he could
make his leap.
His body lowered. The tail lashed
back and forth, and now it had begun
to have a slight vertical motion that
frontiersmen have learned to watch
for. He placed every paw with con-
summate grace, and few sets of hu-
man nerves have sufficient control
over leg muscles to move with suqh
astonishing patience. He scarcely
seemed to move at all.
But when scarcely ten feet re-
mained to stalk, a sudden sound
pricked through the darkness. It came
from afar, but it was no less terrible.
It was really two sounds, so close to-
gether that they sounded as one.
Neither Blacktail nor Whisperfoot
had any delusions about them. They
recognized them at once, in strange
ways under the skin that no man may
describe, as the far-off reports of a
rifle. Just today Blacktail had sSen
his doe fall bleeding when this same
sound, only louder, spoke from a
covert from which Bert Cranston had
poached her—and he left the lick in
one bound.
Terrified though he was by the rifle
shot, still Whisperfoot sp'rang. But
the distance was too far. His out-
stretched paw hummed down four
feet behind Blacktail’s flank. Then
forgetting everything but his anger
and disappointment, the great cougar
opened his mouth and howled.
The long night was almost done
when he got sight of further game.
Once a flock of grouse exploded with
a roar of wings from a thicket; but
they had been wakened by the first
whisper of dawn in the wind, and he
really had no chance at them. Soon
after this, the moon set.
The larger creatures of the forest
are almost as helpless in absolute
darkness as human beings. It is very
well, to talk of seeing in the dark, but
from the nature of things, even verti-
cal pupils may only respond to light.
No awl or bat can see in absolute
darkness. It became increasingly like-
ly that Whisperfoot would have to re-
tire to his lair without any meal
whatever. . 4
But still he remained, hoping
against hope. After a futile fifteen
minutes of watching a trail, he heard
a doe feeding on a hillside. Its foot-
fall was not so heavy as the sturdy
tramp of a buck, and besides, the
bucks would be higher on the ridges
this time of morning. He began a cau-
tious advance toward it.
For the first fiftj* yards the hunt
was in his favor. He came up wind,
and the brush made a perfect cover.
But the doe unfortunately was stand-
ing a full twenty yards farther, in an
open glade. Under ordinary circum-
stances, Whisperfoot wTould not have
made an attack. A cougar can run
swiftly, but a deer is light itself. The
big cat would have preferred to linger,
a motionless thing in the thickets,
hoping some other member of the deer
herd to which the doe must have be-
longed would come into his ambush.
But the hunt was late, and Whisper-
foot was very, very angry. Too many
times this night he had missed his
kill. In desperation, he leaped from
the thicket and charged the deer.
In spite of the preponderant odds
against him, the charge wras almost a
success. He went fully half the dis-
tance between them before the deer
perceived him. Then she leaped.
There seemed to be no interlude of
time between the instant that she be-
held the dim, tawny'figure in the air
and that in which her long legs pushed
out in a spring. But she didn’t leap
straight ahead. She knew enough of
the cougars to know that the great
cat would certainly aim for her head
and neck in the same way that a duck-
hunter leads a fast-flying duck—hop-
ing to ihtercept her leap. Even as her
feet left the ground she seemed to
whirl in the air, and the deadly talons
whipped down in vain. Then, cutting
back in front, she raced down wind.
It is usually the most unmitigated
folly for a cougar to chase a deer
against which he has missed his
stroke; and it is also quite fatal to his
dignity. And whoever doubts for a
minute that the larger creatures have
no dignity, and that it is not very dear
to them, simply knows nothing about
the ways of animals. They cling to
it to the death. But tonight one dis-
appointment after another had crum-
bled, as the rains crumble leaves, the
last vestige of Wliisperfoot’s self-con-
trol. Snarling in fury, he bounded
after the doe.
She was lost to sight at once in
the darkness, but for fully thirty yards
he raced in her pursuit. If he had
stopped to think, it would- have been
one of the really great surprises of
his life to hear the sudden, unmis-
takable stir and movement of a large,
living creature not fifteen feet distant
in the thicket.
He didn’t stop to think at all. He
didn’t puzzle on the extreme unlikeli-
hood of a doe halting in her flight from
a cougar. It is doubtful whether, in
the thickets, he had any perceptions
of the creature other than its move-
ments. He was running down wind,
so it is certain that he didn’t smell it.
If he saw it at all, it was just as a
shadow, sufficiently large to be that
of a deer. It was moving, crawling as
Woof the bear sometimes crawled,
seemingly to get out of his path. And
Whisperfoot leaped straight at it.
It was a perfect shot. He landed
high on its shoulders. His head lashed
down, and the white teeth closed. All
the long life of his race he had known
that pungent essence that flowed forth.
His senses perceived it, a message
shot along his nerves to his brain. And
then he opened his mouth in a bigh,
far-carrying squeal of utter, abject
terror.
He sprang a full fifteen feet back
into the thickets; then crouched. The
hair stood still at his shoulders, his
plaws were bared; he was prepared
to fight to the death. He didn’t under-
stand. He only knew the worst single
terror of his life. It was not a doe
that he had attacked in the darkness.
It was not Urson the porcupine, or
even Woof. It was that imperial mas-
ter of all things, man himself. Un-
knowing, he had attacked Landy Hil-
dreth, lying wounded from Cranston’s
bullet beside the trail. Word of the
arson ring Would never reach the set-
tlements, after all.
Setting a forest fire.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Umbrellas are great bluffers; it’s a
case of put up or shut up with them.
•tUlE ®.
Mwm
LEGION
(Copy for This Department. Supplied by
the American Legion News Service.)
ONE OF LEGION’S FOUNDERS
Walter H. A. Coleman, Adjutant Lon-
don Post, No. 1, Organized Body
in British Capital.
Although. he is thousands of miles
from National Headquarters, Walter
H. A. Coleman, ad-
jutant of London
Post No. 1 of the
American Legion,
is in close touch
with the entire
Legion program.
Mr. Coleman was
one of the found-
ers of the Legion
at its first caucus
Hg in Paris and or-
ganized the post
H§ in the British cap-
isM ital.
Born in Phila-
delphia, Pa., Mr. Coleman was edu-
cated in private schools in that city
and in New York. During his business
experience in various departments of
the Pennsylvania railroad, he lived in
Philadelphia, New York City, Albany,
N. Y., Indianapolis, Ind., and Bethle-
hem, Pa.
During the war Mr. Coleman served
in the American Destroyer Flotilla,
which had its base at Queenstown, Ire-
land. Since the war he has been con-
nected with the United States Embassy
in London.
London Post of the Legion took a
leading part in decorating the graves
of American soldiers buried in England
Memorial Day, 1920.
HAS HUSTLING LABOR BUREAU
Nashville, Term., Post Tackles Hard
Problem and Makes Most Effi-
cient Showing.
In accordance with the general ac-
tivity of American Legion posts in
meeting the unemployment crisis as
it affects the ex-service man, Nash-
ville, Tenn., Post has tackled the sit-
uation with a considerable degree of
Argonne enthusiasm.
An employment bureau has been es-
tablished in charge of a Legion mem-
ber, who devotes his full time to it.
Both job applicants and employers
seeking men are listed in a card in-
dex, according to their abilities and
needs.
When a man applies at the Legion
headquarters for a job, he is required
to fill out a blank giving the follow-
ing information: Name, address,
place of birth, married or single ; if
he is an ex-service man, if he has de-
pendents, special training and schools
attended, with the extent of the edu-
cation gained.
Trade test questions are: “Can you
speak any foreign language “Do you
understand card-index system;” “Can
you operate a switchboard;” “Can you
use a typewriter efficiently;” “Are
you good at figures;” “Can you run an
automobile or truck.”
Trades included in the list of job
applicants for one day were electric-
ian, druggist, salesman, accounting
clerk, bookkeeper, dauglitsman, insur-
ance salesman, machinist and mat-
tress maker.
When the job seeker has filed his
application, he is given a card to show
that he has registered with the Le-
gion bureau. When he is sent to an
employer in response to a call, he is
given a card of introduction stating
that he is sent by the Legion bureau.
His original application, together with
the secretary’s indorsement or esti-
mate of the man, is forwarded to the
prospective employer.
By arrangement with the negro post
of the Legion, the employment bureau
is able to answer calls for negro la-
bor, applicants for work being listed
with the negro secretary.
The work of the employment bureau
is supported, by funds available in the
Legion treasury from a post show
given last year. Another entertain-
ment will be given soon to raise money
for further operation of the bureau.
STATE JOBS FOR VETERANS
Chairman Woman's Auxiliary Commit-
tee of New York Asserts World
War Men Should Be Honored.
1 _
“If any class is favored in handing
out state jobs it should be the veter-
ans of the World
war.”
The speaker was
Miss Hay C. Saw-
yer, chairman of
the Women’s Aux-
iliary Committee
of the New York
Department of the
American Legion.
Her audience was
composed of mem-
bers of the New
York Assembly ju-
diciary committee.
Miss Sawyer spoke
before the committee in behalf of a
bill to give preference to veterans in
civil service employment in New York.
The bill was backed by the New York
Legion organization.
Peculiar London Street.
What Is the most curious street
name in London? It would be hard,
perhaps, to find an odder one than
Crooked Usage, In Chelsea, which in all
probability recalls very ancient days
when the plow was the commonest ob-
ject in that region. It has been sug-
gested that the straight strips of grass
between the various holdings of land
were known as usages, and that we
owe the name to the circumstance
that one of these cartways or usages
was crooked. The history of London
street names has endless fascination
and Interest.
Pagan Creed Concerning Fire.
That fire and water are the habita-
tions of spirits is perhaps a universal
article of the pagan creed. The sa-
cred ever-burning hearth fire was, in
primitive days reckoned the special
abode of the household gods; It was,
therefore, considered dangerous to
give a stranger a burning brand.
Musical Instruments of insects.
Buzzing or numming Is mainly due
to rapid vibrations of the wings, which
often strike the air more than a hun-
dred times in a second, but there is
sometimes a special quivering instru-
ment near the base of the wing.
Chirping or trilling is due to some sort
of “strldulating” organ, one hard p9rt
being scraped against another, as the
bow on the fiddle—it may be leg
against wing.
How Lampreys Lay Eggs.
Lampreys are eel-like residents In
the ocean that run Into the fresh wa-
ter at the mouth of rivers In the
spring and build the nest in which
their eggs are deposited. They pick
out the pebbles In the bottom of the
river, using the suction power of their
large mouths to dislodge the stone,
and deposit eggs In the spot selected.
Slavery in Scotland.
Less than a century and a quarter
ago the workers in the coal mines and
salt mines of Scotland were legally
bound to the places in which they
were employed, were bought and sold
with them, and when they attempted
to escape were pursued, arrested and
returned. Their children, if once em-
ployed, became subject to the same
servitude.
Pumping Air Into the Brain.
A brain tumor often causes idiocy,
and sometimes death. Physicians are
always working upon some method
by which tumors may be exactly lo-
cated without injuring the patient
Recently a doctor has discovered a
process by which purified air may be
pumped into the brain. This makes
it possible to locate exactly the po-
sition of tumors, and to remove them.
Dangerous Maladies.
There are more deaths from measles
and whooping cough than from scar-
let fever. Greater efforts in school
hygiene would seem to be the only
way in which this problem can be
coped with successfully, combined
with the education of parents In the
necessity for the observation of quar-
antine and isolation procedures even
for these simple diseases.
Joss Sticks.
Until recently the composition of the
candles known as joss sticks was un-
known to most people. A stem of bam-
boo is rolled In a substance consisting
of fourteen different odorous drug.s.
One of these protects the candles from
rats and mice. The camphor used in
the manufacture causes the joss sticks
to burn steadily.
OXIDINE IN HOT WATER
Get a bottle of OXIDINE today and when yon
feel acoldcomingon.put atab’lespoonfulof this
wonderful remedy in a half glass of hot water.
Stir well and drink just as you would a hot
toddy. Its enervating effect is immediately
noticeable and a similar dose every three or four
hours will give wonderful results. OXIDINE
purifies your blood and tones np the entire
•ystem. 60c at your druggist's,—Adv.
JBTNJE STOCK TOMATO AND CABBAGE
PLANTS. All leading varieties, 100 for 36c;
400, $1.00; 1,000, $2.00, parcel post prepaid.
Waugh Plant Farm, Waco, Tex., Route 8.
Saving That Stamp.
To remove a stamp from an en-
velope, cut a blotter to the size of the
stamp, soak It in cold water and lay
tt over the stamp. Remove blotter In
a few minutes and the stamp will
come * off.
Not Allowed to Do That.
"My lodger,” said a complainant at
Clerkenwell police court, “threatens
to tear me up Into pieces.” It was
pointed out to him that this would be
a breach of the law.—London Punch.
Testing Oil Quality.
One test to ascertain the quality of
lubricating oil Is to heat a small
quantity and hord a flame to the thin
smoke which arises. This smoke will
flash or catch fire for an Instant, and
if the oil Is of a good grade will flash
much quicker than a poor grade.
Makes Hard Work Harder
A bad back makes a day’s work twice
as hard. Backache usually comes from
weak kidneys, and if headaches, dizzi-
ness or urinary disorders are added,
don’t wait—get help before the kidney
disease takes a grip—before dropsy,
gravel or Bright’s disease sets in.
Doan's Kidney Pills have brought new
life and new strength to thousands of
working men and women. Used and rec-
ommended the world over. Ask your
neighborl
A Texas Case
W. I. Overlin, 811
N. Wilhite St.. Cle-
burne, Test., says:
“My back was lame
and ached. The
muscles seemed
drawn Into a knot
and it hurt me ev-
ery time' I stooped
over. Nothing re-
lieved me until I
used Doan’s Kid-
ney, Pills. Doan’s
proved to be just
what is claimed
for them. They are the best medicine
in the world for a lame back caused
by bad kidneys.”
Get Doan’s at Any Store, 60c a Box
DOAN’S "V.-JIV
FOSTER - M1LBURN CO.. BUFFALO, N. Y.
A Surprise.
A boy, after growing up, is always
greatly surprised to find that the mem-
bers of a brass band don’t play foe
tlie fun of it.
Renew your health
by purifying your
system with
*|
id
Quick and delightful re-
lief for biliousness, colds,
constipation, headache:
and stomach, liver an
blood troubles.
The genuine are sold
only in 35c packages*
Avoid imitations.
Baby’s Health
is wonderfully protected and
colic, diarrhoea, constipation,
and other stomach and bowel
troubles are quickly banished
or avoided by using
M r?S. WIN SLOWS
- SYRUP
Tie infants’ and Children’s Regulator
This remedy quickly aids
the stomach to digest food
and produces most remark-
able and satisfying results in
regulating the bowels and
preventing sickness.
Pleasant to give—pleasant to take.
Harmless, purely vegetable, infants'
and children’s regulator, formula on
every label. Guaranteed non-narcotic,
non-alcoholic.
At All Druggiata
Saved My Life
With Eatonic
Says Now Jersey Woman
“I was nearly dead until I found
Eatonic and I can truly say it saved
my life. It is the best stomach medi-
cine ever made,” writes Mrs. Ella
Smith.
Acid stomach causes awful misery
which Eatonic quickly gets rid of by
taking up and carrying out the acidity
and gases which prevent good diges-
tion. A tablet taken after meals brings
quick relief. Keeps the stomach
healthy and helps to prevent the maqy
ills so liable to arise from excess acid.
Don't suffer from stomach miseries
when you can get a big box of Eatonic
for a trifle with your druggist’s guar-
antee.
TREATED ONES
WEEK FREEf
Short breathing re-
lieved in a few hoursg.
DROPSY
swelling reduced in a
few days; regulates the liver, kidneys, stomach,
and heart; purifies the blood, strengthens the
entire system. Writa for Free Trial Treatment.
COLLUM DROPSY REMEDY CO.. Dept. J. W.. ATLANTA, GfU
W. N. U., HOUSTON, No. 16, 1921.*
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Habermacher, J. C. & Lane, Ella E. Shiner Gazette (Shiner, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 14, 1921, newspaper, April 14, 1921; Shiner, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1142503/m1/9/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Shiner Public Library.