| vol. iii.—no. 153. | Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. | price four cents. |
| Tuesday, October 3, 1882. | Copyright, 1882, by Harper & Brothers. | $1.50 per Year, in Advance. |
"ALL ABOARD!"THE SOLDIER'S CHEESE.
BY DAVID KER.
Any one who had come down the St. Gothard to the village of Andermatt,just at daybreak one cold winter morning in 1799, would have seen a verycurious sight. All night long the village folks had been busy packing upand carrying away in carts or on horse and mule back whatever they couldmost easily remove. The first gleam of dawn saw the hindmost fugitivesslinking away into the passes of the northern hills, looking fearfullyback every now and then at the towering crest of the St. Gothard, as ifexpecting the whole mountain to fall upon them at once, or to send fortha torrent of fire that would sweep them all away.
The danger from which they were flying was not long behind them.Scarcely had the sun peered above the surrounding hill-tops when thegreat white slope of the St. Gothard seemed to grow[Pg 770] black all at once,like a white cloth swarmed over by flies. Instantly the wholemountain-side was alive with bear-skin caps, and glittering bayonets,and prancing horses, and bright epaulets, and rumbling wheels, andshining cannon.
Down they came, still downward, thousands upon thousands