by a few days, but, hearing that Sherman was going out in the Quaker City excursion to the Holy Land, he took shipping for Beirut, calculating to head off the other ves sel. When he arrived in Jerusalem with his beef, he learned that Sherman had not sailed in the Quaker City, but had gone to the Plains to fight the Indians. He returned to America and started for the Rocky Mountains. After eighteen days of arduous travel on the Plains, and when he had got within four miles of Sherman's headquarters, he was tomahawked and scalped, and the Indians got the beef. They got all of it but one barrel. Sherman's army captured that, and so, even in death, the bold navigator partly fulfilled his contract. In his will, which he had kept like a journal, he bequeathed the contract to his son Bartholomew W. Bartholomew W. made out the following bill and then died:

THE UNITED STATES,

In acct. with JOHN WILSON MACKENZIE, of New Jersey, deceased,

Dr.

To thirty barrels of beef for Gen. Sherman, @ $100 $ 3,000 To travelling expenses and transportation,

14,000

Total,

Rec'd Pay't.

$17,000

He died then; but he left the contract to Wm. J Martin, who tried to collect it, but died before he got through. He left it to Barker J. Allen, and he tried to collect it also. He did not survive. Barker J. Allen left it to Anson G. Rogers, who attempted to collect it, and got along as far as the Ninth Auditor's office, when Death, the great Leveller, came all unsummoned, and foreclosed on him also. He left the bill to a relative of his in Connecticut, Vengeance Hopkins by name, who lasted four weeks and two days, and made the best time on record, coming within one of reaching the Twelfth Auditor. In his will he gave the contract bill to his uncle, by the name of O-bejoyful Johnson. It was too undermining for Joyful. His last words were: Weep not for me,-I am willing to go." And so he was, poor soul! Seven people inherited the contract after that. But they all died. So it came into my hands at last. It fell to me through a relative by the name of Hubbard.-Bethlehem Hubbard,

of Indiana. He had had a grudge against me for a long time but in his last moments he sent for me, and forgave me every thing, and, weeping, gave me the beef

contract.

This ends the history of it up to the time that I succeeded to the property. I will now endeavor to set myself straight before the nation in everything that concerns my share in the matter. I took this beef-contract, and the bill for mileage and transportation, to the President of the United States. He said,

'Well, sir, what can I do for you?" I said,—

Sire: On or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef-"

He stopped me there, and dismissed me from his presence, kindly, but firmly. The next day I called on the Secretary of State. He said,

"Well, sir?"

I said, "Your Royal Highness: On or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef—”

"That will do, sir, that will do: this office has nothing to do with contracts for beef."

I was bowed out. I thought the matter all over, and finally, the following day, I visited the Secretary of the Navy, who said, "Speak quickly, sir; do not keep me waiting." I said,—

"Your Royal Highness: On or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Mackenzie, of Rotterdam, Chemung County, New Jersey, deceased, contracted with the General Government to furnish to General Sherman the sum total of thirty barrels of beef_"

Well, it was as far as I could get. He had nothing to do with beef-contracts for General Sherman either. I began to think it was a curious kind of a Government. It looked somewhat as if they wanted to get out of pay. ing for that beef. The following day I went to the Sec retary of the Interior. I said,—

"Your Imperial Highness: On or about the 10th day of October-"

"That is sufficient, sir,—I have heard of you before. Go, take your infamous beef-contract out of this establishThe Interior Department has nothing whatever to do with subsistence for the army."

ment.

I went away. But I was exasperated now. I said I would haunt them; I would infest every department of this iniquitous government till that contract business was settled; I would collect that bill, or fall, as fell my prede cessors, trying. I assailed the Postmaster-General; I besieged the Agricultural Department; I waylaid the Speaker of the House of Representatives. They had nothing to do with army contracts for beef. I moved upon the Commissioner of the Patent-Office. I said,— "Your august Excellency: On or about "

"Perdition! have you got here with your incendiary beef-contract, at last? We have nothing to do with beefcontracts for the army, my dear sir."

'Oh, that is all very well,--but somebody has got to pay for that beef! It has got to be paid now, too, or I'll confiscate this old Patent-Office and every thing in it." "But, my dear sir—”

"It don't make any difference, sir. The Patent-Office is liable for that beef, I reckon; and, liable or not liable, the Patent-Office has got to pay for it."

Never mind the details. It ended in a fight. The Patent-Office won. But I found out something to my advantage. I was told that the Treasury Department was the proper place for me to go to. I went there. I waited two hours and a half, and then I was admitted to the First Lord of the Treasury. I said,

"Most noble, grave, and reverend Signor: On or about the 10th day of October, 1861, John Wilson Macken-" "That is sufficient, sir. I have heard of you. Go to the First Auditor of the Treasury."

I did so. He sent me to the Second Auditor. The Second Auditor sent me to the Third, and the Third sent me to the First Comptroller of the Corn-Beef Division, This began to look like business. He examined his books and all his loose papers, but found no minute of the beefcontract I went to the Second Comptroller of the Corn.

Beef Division.

He examined his books and his locse papers, but with no success. I was encouraged. During that week I got as far as the Sixth Comptroller in that division; the next week I got through the Claims Department; the third week I began and completed the Mislaid Contracts Department, and got a foot-hold in the Dead Reckoning Department. I finished that in three days. There was only one place left for it now. I laid siege to the Commissioner of Odds and Ends; to his clerk, rather, he was not there himself. There were sixteen beautiful young ladies in the room, writing in books, and there were seven well-favored young clerks showing them how. The young women smiled up over their shoulders and the clerks smiled back at them, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Two or three clerks that were reading the newspapers looked at me rather hard, but went on reading, and nobody said anything. However, I had been used to this kind of alacrity from Fourth-Assistant-Junior Clerks all through my eventful career, from the very day I entered the first office of the Corn-Beef Bureau clear till I passed out of the last one in the Dead Reckoning Division. I had got so accomplished by this time that I could stand on one foot from the moment I entered an office till a clerk spoke to me without changing more than two, or maybe three times. So I stood there till I had changed four different times. Then I said to one of the clerks who was reading,

"Illustrious Vagrant, where is the Grand Turk ?" "What do you mean, sir? whom do you mean? If you mean the Chief of the Bureau, he is out."

"Will he visit the harem to-day?"

The young man glared upon me awhile, and then went on reading his paper. But I knew the ways of those clerks. I knew I was safe, if he got through before another New York mail arrived. He only had two more papers left. After a while he finished them, and then he yawned, and asked me what I wanted.

"Renowned and honored Imbecile: On or about—” "You are the beef-contract man. Give me your papers."

He took them, and for a long time he ransacked his odds and ends. Finally he found the Northwest Passage,

as I regarded it, he found the long-lost record of that beef-contract, he found the rock upon which so many of my ancestors had split before they ever got to it. I was deeply moved. And yet I rejoiced, for I had survived. I said with emotion; “ Give it me. The govern ment will settle now." He waved me back, and said there was something yet to be done first.

"Where is this John Wilson Mackenzie ?" said he.. "Dead."

"When did he die ?"

"He didn't die at all,—he was killed."

You didn't suppose it

was a superintendent of a Sunday school, did you?"

"No. An Indian, was it?"

"You were not present yourself then?"

"Which you can see by my hair. I was absent." "Then how do you know that Mackenzie is dead?" "Because he certainly died at that time, and I have every reason to believe that he has been dead ever since. I know he has, in fact."

"I never thought of such a thing."

"You must get the tomahawk. You must produce the Indian and the tomahawk. If Mackenzie's death can be proven by these, you can then go before the commission appointed to audit claims, with some show of getting your bill under such headway that your children may possibly live to receive the money and enjoy it. But that man's death must be proven. However, I may as well tell you that the government will never pay that