seen Siclone Clark, and so was no judge as to his identity; but Neighbor
believes yet that Blair camped that night way down in the Panhandle
with no other than the cowboy engineer.

Once again, that only two years ago, something came back to us.

Holmes Kay, one of our staff of surgeons, the man, in fact, who took
care of Fitzpatrick, enlisted in Illinois and went with the First to
Cuba. They got in front of Santiago just after the hard fighting of July
1st, and Holmes was detailed for hospital work among Roosevelt's men,
who had suffered severely the day before.

One of the wounded, a sergeant, had sustained a gunshot wound in the
jaw, and in the confusion had received scant attention. Kay took hold of
him. He was a cowboy, like most of the rough-riders, and after his jaw
was dressed Kay made some remark about the hot fire they had been
through before the block-house.

"I've been through a hotter before I ever saw Cuba," answered the
rough-rider, as well as he could through his bandages. The remark
directed Kay's attention to the condition of his breast and neck, which
were a mass of scars.

"Where are you from?" asked Holmes.

"Everywhere."

"Where did you get burned that way?"

"Out on the plains."

"How?"

But the poor fellow went off into a delirium, and to the surgeon's
amazement began repeating train orders. Kay was paralyzed at the way he
talked our lingo--and a cowboy. When he left the wounded man for the
night he resolved to question him more closely the next day; but the
next day orders came to rejoin his regiment at the trenches. The
surrender shifted things about, and Kay, though he made repeated
inquiry, never saw the man again.

Neighbor, when he heard the story, was only confirmed in his belief that
the rough-rider was Siclone Clark. I give you the tales as they came to
me, and for what you may make of them.

I myself believe that if Siclone Clark is still alive he will one day
yet come back to where he was best known and, in spite of his faults,
best liked. They talk of him out there as they do of old man Sankey.

I say I believe if he lives he will one day come back. The day he does
will be a great day in McCloud. On that day Fitzpatrick will have to
take down the little tablet which he placed in the brick facade of the
hotel which now stands on the site of the old barracks. For, as that
tablet now stands, it is sacred to the memory of Siclone Clark.

THE END

BY FREDERIC R