Judge — March 15, 1924 — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Scene 15. Shooting Big Game in Nebraska A Hitherto Unpublished Chapter in the Autobiography of W. C. Fietps eyE8 200, I suppose, recalls the triumphant tour I made with Pro- fessor Josiah Flint’s Monster Minstrels and Medicine Exposition across Nebra- ska in the fall of 1776, during which I learned to play Rachmaninoff’s Prelude faster than it h: r been played on the zither, before or since. But few remem- ber, I wager, my narrow escape from death on that tour. If, in fact, any- body remembers it, it is most extraor- dinary, for I am making up the story now as I go along. We—the artistes with Professor Flint— moved in a cara of buggi wagons, and on the trip out of Lincoln, where my mastery of the zither had taken the town by storm, the buggy in which I and the Wild Man from Borneo rode, s the When we came to the river near Lincoln, the name of which is so well known that I see no need of repeating it, it was still high- water at the ford, and the Wild Man, who was a patient kind of fellow, and I decided to wait until the dry season be- fore attempting to cross. While we sat there we heard shots and presently saw some men shooting at something in the river. “Friends,” I called, “what are you shooting at?” “Ata body,” they replied, “the body of a blond man.” “Well,” I said, “lend me a rifle. I will shoot at this body, too.” Mile. Jekyl and Mrs. Hyde. “Why is it that you have never tried musical comedy?” “Because I was brought up to believe that little girls should be seen and not heard!” They lent me a rifle and we all sat down on the bank together and shot at the head, which was all that remained on the surface of the water. There was lots of ammunition and an evening was passed very interestingly. I started to ask once whose body it was, but decided not to. After all, I was only a guest. At length, though, I suggested that we pull the target in, patch it up and set it out again. “It must be getting ragged,” I said. A tall fellow with a straggly beard and I rowed out to the middle of the river. To my surprise we found nothing but the head. “Hello,” I exclaimed, “there’s nothing but a head here. No body at all.” “What,” the tall man ejaculated, body?” Nope,” I said, “not a soul!” He clucked his tongue. “This is a pretty howdydo,” he said. We rowed ashore and told his com- panions. They were much disappointed. Quite obviously the sport was off for the day. I returned to the Wild Man, who chided me for taking part. in such a scene. comicbooks.com with Half Stor rot,