JUST TIME TO THINK.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2746, 4 December 1894, Page 3

JUST TIME TO THINK.

There was not very much time to think. He could Bee the muzzles of their guns sticking out of the rocks. The little puffs of smoke they emitted seemed as innocent as stray clouds in a summer sky. Once in a moment or so he could see the red head-band of an Apache as he aimed —that and the smoke, the rocks, and the sunlight were quite all he could see. And he was going at a fall gallop straight at them, followed by a pitiful handful of men a handful that is called a platoon in the insignificant army of the strongest nation on the earth. In a few minutes, seconds perhaps, he would cease to exist, whatever that meant. He would be simply another young army officer carried on the papers of the regiment as “died inaction.” The businesslike United States does not erect monuments to men who meet their death in mere Indian warfare. He tried to calculate the number of seconds of life left to him. Two hundred 1 yards was about the distance, and he was going at a good swinging gallop. But he could not re member the length of a charger’s stride at the gallop to save him. It was exasperating. He had recited on that very subject at the academy only a few months before. So he tried to'think of people. And first of all he wondered whether any people were of value to the world at all. He had heard older officers say cynically that mere men were never missed by the world, no matter who they were. But it did seem wrong that he, young, strong, jttnbitiqqs, and splendidly educated, jjhould die thus in the very budding qf bis manhood without an achievement accomplished and without a friend satisfied- Then his mind took a queer turn, and he began to think of, perhaps, the

very humblest of his acquaintances. He began to think of McCarthy, of his own troop, who had been left behind at the post with half-a-dozen others. He had tried to teach McCarthy to read and write, even though his captain laughed at him, and his comrades had chaffed at his adolescence. But he had always felt the necessity for doing something in the way of work, and so he had undertaken McCarthy; and he feared now that perhaps even McCarthy had laughed at him, things go- so strangely in this world. Then he thought of a girl back in the East, to whom he was engaged. His father had laughed at him when he announced the engagement, and told him that he would be engaged a dozen times in all probability before he settled down in life, and his mother had merely smiled in a knowing way, and remarked that she had heard “ that she was a very nice young lady.” But he and she knew how much they were to each other. He remembered, too, how many delicious day dreams he had pictured for her when he was back at the academy in the glory of his firstclass year, and she was one of “ the ladies who come up in June” to all but himself. And he remembered how she would smile and blush, and agree with him in all his plans with the delightful confidence and trust of a young girl who is experiencing young love. He wondered, whether she would remember, him—always, as they had promised each other. He wondered if she would wear black for him, and pray for him dead, just as she told him she prayed for him every night while living. He could see her in her white dress, slender and fair, standing in the doorway of the cloak room, waiting for him to come up and take her to the ball room. Hs could almost count the roses she held in her hand, and he even thought he could detect their perfume. And then he thought of his mother—and ho almost wished to cry aloud to her as he used to when he was a child waking from a bad dream, and asked her to take him in her arms. But instead he remembered that, -ulthongh barely of age, he was a trained soldier. So he rose in his stirrups and waved his revolver over his head, crying very bravely, “ Come on, boys; wade in !” just as a hideous Apache squinted along a gun barrel and pulled a trigger—and ho thought no more for ever.—Harper’s Weekly.