The Daily Alaskan

Two Americans Abroad
By F. A. MITCHEL

Wilkinson enlisted for the Spanish-American war when he was seventeen years old, went to Cuba and fought the dons and returned with his command at the end of the fracas. When the great European military conflagration broke out, desirous of seeing something more of fighting, he went to Canada, enlisted in the first expeditionary force that went to England and thence to France.

Wilkinson was a machinist and very ingenious. When the British commanders learned of this they wanted him to go into the mechanical corps of the army, but he said he had had enough of that at home. He preferred to remain in the ranks, where he would get something different. So he became a trench fighter like the rest of them.

But it is not every man who can get just what he wants, no matter how he arranges for it. Wilkinson had no sooner got into a fight than he was captured and taken to the rear. This was in Flanders during the late autumn of 1914.

One day an officer came into the prison where Wilkinson was confined and asked in English if there were any mechanics there who would volunteer to work at bridge building. Wilkinson, whose active nature rendered confinement unbearable to him, called out that he was an engineer by profession. The officer accosted him, asking if he would agree to give his services to the German government in good faith. It turned out that the officer, Captain Kaufman, was a German-American who had gone over to fight for the fatherland.

Wilkinson and Captain Kaufman being both Americans became quite chummy. Wilkinson impressed the captain so favorably with his knowledge of engineering that the latter proposed to take him to the chief engineer with a view to his entering the engineer corps of the German army in a prominent position. Wilkinson assented, or, rather, pretended to assent, for he was simply looking out for an opportunity to get back to the army of which he was a legitimate part.

Captain Kaufman took the prisoner into an automobile for a ride to a point where a large railroad bridge was being rebuilt. There he expected to find one of the chief engineer officers of the army to whom he expected to turn over the American for service. During the ride the two men chatted about America and what they would do there on their return at the end of the war. Naturally Kaufman was warm in his advocacy of the German cause, while Wilkinson's sympathies were with the allies. But they talked little on this subject, for Wilkinson, who had a plan to get away from his captor, led the conversation in a line that would facilitate his doing so.

"I tell you what we'll do, Kaufman," he said. "When this slaughter business is over and we both get back to the land of the free I've got the biggest scheme on hand for making money you ever saw. It's a device that may be applied to all pumping mechanisms. Its use will be enormous. I'll take you in with me and we'll make our everlasting fortunes. You attend to the sales while I attend to the manufacture—see?"

"Where will we get the capital?" asked the captain.

"Capital! Why, there's capital enough in the United States to promote any scheme if it can be proved all right. I can get millions for anything I propose. My device is so simple that a child can understand it. Let me have a pencil and a piece of paper and I'll make you a drawing of it."

Kaufman had the wheel, so he couldn't get into his pocket without stopping, but they were approaching a village, and he said he would stop for something to smoke. Pulling up at a small store, Wilkinson went in and returned with some cigars, a pencil and a sheet of paper. He also had something else that his companion did not see. Lighting up, the two proceeded, Wilkinson making a sketch of his device. Kaufman, who had no knowledge of mechanics, did not understand it, so Wilkinson proceeded to make a practical demonstration. Rolling the sheet of paper into a tube a trifle smaller at one end than at the other, he crumpled a small portion into a little ball, which he dropped into the tube; then, while the captain's gaze was on the road ahead, he dropped into it some red pepper.

"You can't watch the road and my demonstration at the same time. Stop the machine for a moment."

Kaufman brought the auto to a stop and turned his face to his companion.

"This tube represents the pump, and the crumpled bit of paper inside is my patent ball valve. The greater the pressure on the ball the tighter it is in the tube. When I blow on it like this—see?"

Kaufman did not see, because Wilkinson had blown red pepper into his eyes. Wilkinson jumped from the auto and ran like a deer till he struck a road, where he disappeared.

A few months later Captain Kaufman returned to America minus a leg that he had lost in the defense of the fatherland. One day whom should he meet on the street but Wilkinson.

"Hello, captain!" said the latter in his cheeriest voice. "When did you get back? Come in here and have a drink."

The captain scowled for a few moments; then the scowl gave way to a smile, and the two pledged each other under the star spangled banner.