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Mute Witness To A Tragedy

Mute Witness To A Tragedy image
Parent Issue
Day
12
Month
December
Year
1902
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

SENT TO THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM BY DOCTOR LEONARD

THE MYSTERIOUS PHYSICIAN AND TRAPPER

WHO HAS SENT THE UNIVERSITY MANY

VALUABLE GIFTS

In a rusty old iron pail, up in the garret of the University of Michigan Museum, writes a student correspondent, stands the time-eaten end of a prairie schooner. A rust-covered scythe and a knife blade keep company with the wagon tongue and all three bear mute testimony to a far western tragedy at the hands of blood-thirsty Indians.

The relics were recently sent to Michigan by Dr. Leonard, the mysterious frontiersman who stands as the self-constituted western relic hunter of the University. Dr. Leonard, it may be said, has never been at Ann Arbor. No one knows of his past or why he has such a love for Michigan. But every now and then, from the most remote part of the far west, comes a box of relics.  Sometimes they are Indian trophies, sometimes rare prehistoric stone implements, and then again beautiful birds, or skins of wild animals. Then, again, come gruesome relics with unknown histories, but sure evidence of the terrible battle waged ceaselessly by the early pioneers. Of this latter class are the rusty iron pieces in the old pail.

A rusty iron wagon tongue, the wood within the iron forging all blackened and then weather-bleached again from years of lying on the desolate plains. No written biography accompanies the pailful of stuff, but it is easy to look beneath the rust of years and read: Indians ambush - massacre-torture-death, of the emigrants. Then a slow fire burned the wagon train, and the twisted gun, the broken scythe blade, and the iron-bound tip of a wagon tongue remained smoldering in the ashes. 

Such a collection of trophies are hard to classify.  A museum wants facts and assured pedigrees. But what a heart story the old iron things could tell-a tale would rival even the thrilling "Last Chance of Crusty Dick " in the current  McClure's.

As the dusty line of wagons toiled over the cacti-covered plains, emigrants dreaming of the promised land ahead, came the crack of hidden rifles. From behind the hummocks and sage, the enemy fired. A leader of the mule train went down. Then another jaded beast reared in the traces and fell. The driver fell dead as he sprang to slash away the dead horse from the harness, and before the disordered train was out of the confusion a storm of riflemen's bullets had killed the men, Ieaving women and children to torture- such as the dying white men could not save by their last shots. Then a fire and the relics in the pail alone survived.