text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/286

 said Al Clemmons saw her pass, headin' toward Jasper. She can't git there before to-morrow afternoon—I'll have plenty of time to go over to Albin Jacobsen's in the morning and telephone the sheriff to stop her. I wanted to ask you if you think I ought to, or just let her go her way."

"Let her go her way," Rawlins replied, resentful of Edith's treachery, as he felt the desertion to be. "If she wants to cut out and leave us that way, let her go. But why would she run away? She wouldn't have to do it, would she?"

"No, she's her own man now. But it looks mighty queer to me."

"It certainly does look queer."

"She didn't leave me no letter nor nothing, only that little note tellin' me Mr. Peck was up here."

"I'm pretty sure she's got something in view we don't understand, and I can't believe it's a man," Rawlins said, his generosity rising up to the girl's defence. "She'll probably be back in three or four days."

"I don't know what to do—I don't want to see her go wrong—but she's her own man."

"I don't believe I'd interfere in her plans, whatever they are," he advised. "If she's running off with—if she's just running off, that's her own business; you couldn't stop her if you wanted to. If she's just gone to Jasper to get some pretty clothes or a little hat, or something, she'd resent your interference, don't you think?"

Mrs. Peck looked off across the valley, on the farther rim of which Peck was beginning to raise his voice

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/286


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/287

 in the evening round-up of the sheep. She drew a big breath, as of inspirational relief, the perplexity of her brows relaxing, calm settling over her face.

"I'll ask Mr. Peck about it," she said.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/287


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/288

seriousness of Rawlins' wound made a daily trip to the doctor necessary. Mrs. Peck had gone back to the ranch the same evening she came with the wagon and the startling news of Edith's desertion, leaving the two men to hold what they had won. Peck's great interest in the welfare of his sheep took him abroad early and kept him away all day, except for a dash in at noon for dinner.

This threw Rawlins on his own one-armed resources very largely, and he found little that he could do. He had not been able to devise any scheme by which a one-armed man could wash dishes, for one thing. Owing to that, things had a distressing way of accumulating about the place, Peck being content to scrape the plates of the last meal for the next. Peck had not even thought to volunteer any help in saddling Graball for the daily trip to Lost Cabin. By using his teeth Rawlins had managed the cinch in a hazardous fashion that held until he got to town, where the doctor tightened the girth to carry him home.

Several days passed that way, with no further interference by the forces which had dominated that illegally occupied territory so long. While Mrs. Peck had visited them daily, news of Edith was still lacking. The sheepwoman appeared to have recovered from

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/288


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/289

 her first flurry, but Rawlins was beginning to feel the strain of anxiety. He believed there was something between Mrs. Peck and Edith which the sheepwoman had concealed, responsible for the girl's sudden desertion of the ranch.

A feeling of resentment toward Edith for her precipitate action, her cold expression therein of complete aloofness from his affairs and all interest in them, had hardened Rawlins to her welfare for a while. Now this feeling was clearing out of his mind, giving place to fear that Edith had not gone entirely of her own free will. The girl was not so shallow and heartless as to pull out like that after the unworded understanding that had grown up between them. She would have come to him with her troubles, he believed, unless she had been goaded beyond forbearance or driven away outright.

Rawlins had returned from Lost Cabin shortly before noon on the fifth day since the fight, a cloud of anxiety concerning Edith darkening the outlook, even obscuring everything beyond that hour. He seemed to be living in little jerks of time, hope, expectation, clearing a space an arm's length ahead, like a man traveling in a heavy fog.

He unsaddled Graball and turned him out to graze, the horse having become so entirely domesticated and affectionate that he would come running at a call or a whistled summons, and turned his one-handed efforts to preparing the mid-day meal. He had brought potatoes and unions, unusual luxuries, from town that trip, with anticipation of an old-time Kansas dish of the two vegetables sliced and boiled together for sup-

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/289


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/290

 per that evening. If he could get Peck to prepare the vegetables when he came in for dinner, the rest could be managed with one hand.

Rawlins was not quite certain that his own gloomy state of mind was responsible, or whether Peck had been sulky the past two days. He had appeared to be somewhat less communicative and voluble than usual, his manner sarcastic on the least provocation. Fancied or real, Peck's attitude had not given much concern. Now, when Peck came in for dinner, there was no mistaking his ill-humor. Rawlins wondered if he had stepped on the new flockmaster's toes.

"Taters, huh?" said Peck, taking a peep into the sack. "It's about time you was chippin' in something on the grub, Rawlins. You've been eatin' off of me ever since the old lady brought up that grub."

"All right, Peck," Rawlins returned good-naturedly, although he felt a desire for a hot retort to the inhospitable charge. "There's some onions in the sack, too. I thought maybe I could get you to clean some of both of them for supper. I could manage to cook them all right."

"It don't look like you've managed to cook very much dinner," Peck said contemptuously. "I tell you right now, Rawlins, I'm gittin' dan tired of doin' all the work around this joint. And you've got the gall to ask me to clean onions on the side. I wouldn't clean the dan things for a dollar apiece, and I wouldn't eat 'em for five. You can't put all the dirty work off on me around here, I tell you, Rawlins."

"I'm sorry, old feller, but you'll have to take it as it comes," Rawlins said in a friendly dispassionate way.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/290


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/291

 "I've been doin' it ever since I landed here," fvPeck sneered, his glassy goggle eyes seeming to advance and recede in their shallow sockets as he leered at Rawlins. "Look at them dishes, look at this dan crummy joint! It looks to me like you'd clean things up, Rawlins. You can afford to, me furnishin' the grub."

"The door's open, Peck, if you don't like the kind of hospitality I'm able to offer," Rawlins said.

"Is yat so?" Peck chattered, with insolent boyish mockery. "You wait till I go, then, will you? You ain't got nothing on me because you killed a man. Them coroner fellers said the one I killed was twice as big as yours. You kind of want to watch your step when you talk about firin' me out of any door, Rawlins."

"Peck, you're talkin' like a fool," Rawlins said calmly.

He was not afraid of Peck, although his pistol was hanging on the wall behind the door, where he had relieved himself of it on his return from town, nor was it surprising to see this villainous streak of egotism and overbearing selfishness in the man. Rawlins had seen it growing from the day when Peck's lucky shot knocked a man over in the fight, but it had developed faster than expected.

"I've got as much right here as you have," Peck declared, scowling and glowering as he slammed a slab of bacon down to haggle off some for the pan in his bungling way. "Where'd you 'a' been at if I hadn't run them sheep of mine in here and stood them fellers off? Who done the fightin' that time? that's what I want to know. I'll bet you money if you found the

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/291


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/292

 bullet that went through that other feller you'd see it come out of my gun. And that ain't no dream."

"You're welcome to all the glory, Peck."

"You and Tippie tried to git me shot up over there when I was green and didn't know the ropes. You thought you was pullin' something smart on a dude from St. Joe; you thought you'd either git me killed off or run out of here so I'd be out of your way with Edith. I was green, all right, but I wasn't so green I couldn't see your game. Where're you at now with Edith? She's shook you cold; she's gone chasin' off to meet some man that's pumped her full of hot air. Maybe he'll marry her, maybe he won't. I know how I'd bet."

Rawlins sat still, keeping his mouth shut. But he was considering, with gravity that amounted to a great peril for Peck, whether he ought not to grab the hammer that lay on a cross-studding and knock the slanderous scoundrel cold. His muscles were setting for a quick reach and a quicker blow, when his more generous nature restrained him. Peck was not without justification in his rancorous recollection of that plot against his safety and dignity. There was not much that he could say in self defence.

"You ain't got nothing on me," Peck insisted meanly. "This is as much my place as yours. You couldn't 'a' held it down if I hadn't been here to stand 'em off."

Peck allowed the argument to rest there, concentrating his talents on frying the bacon, which he always managed to put a black border around, with curled-up ends almost raw. He slashed and speared his food vin-

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/292


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/293

 dictively all through the meal, looking up from his operations occasionally with his round glassy eyes more bulging and expressionless than usual, as if to begin the one-sided quarrel again. But he evidently thought better or worse of it, and held his peace until he was through.

When Peck pushed back, everything cleared up, he seemed to be in a better humor. His thin face was glowing with replenishment; he stroked the grease and coffee out of his prideful moustache with both hands, giving a twirling, wringing movement to his fingers that was marvelously efficient for the job. He looked at Rawlins with the expressionless round stare of an octopus in his big eyes, in which there seemed to be something of insolence, something of malevolent greed, yet all so far dispersed over the hard glittering globes as to be elusive and undefinable.

"I'm goin' to be square with you, Rawlins," Peck said, producing a wallet as suddenly as it was astonishing. "I'm goin' to pay you, cash money, for your shack and so-called improvements on this place, and take your receipt for it. Then you're goin' to hit the breeze."

Rawlins was so amazed by this sudden discovery of Peck's hand that he sat across the table from him, staring. He was uncertain whether Peck was trying to pull off some kind of a joke of his own, to even past scores, or whether he had some fool notion in his head for getting possession of the homestead, the choicest site for sheep headquarters in that locality, as the sheepmen on the coroner's jury had said.

"What the devil are you drivin' at, Peck?" he asked

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/293


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/294

 at length, as Peck began to put money down on the table beside a folded piece of paper he had taken from the greasy leather wallet that never could have been his own.

Up came Peck's gun, which he steadied in his peculiar fashion with both hands, the left clasping the wrist of the right.

"I mean you're goin' to hit the breeze out of here," Peck announced, trying to look mean, succeeding fairly well. "There's five hundred dollars, and there's a bill of sale for you to sign. If you make a break for a gun I'll bust you wide open!"

"Peck, you're a bigger fool than I thought you were," Rawlins told him, apparently without any deeper feeling than a man would have in stating an obvious fact.

"I'll show you how big a fool I am if you keep on talkin', Rawlins. I'm just big enough fool, maybe, to shoot you like I did that other feller. Who's here to swear you didn't pull your gun first?"

"Well, anyhow," said Rawlins, apparently undisturbed, "I decline your offer for my improvements and possession of this place. It wouldn't do you any good even if you could make your bluff go."

Rawlins, calm as he seemed, was boiling with inward rage. He was picking up and casting away the fugacious schemes which came rushing into his mind for getting the upper hand of Peck. It was as if he ran swiftly along in a dream, snatching at something on which his life depended, only to clasp nothing, his despair increasing at every step. Peck's cupidity, his new sense of importance, with the promises of reward

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/294


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/295

 which Rawlins knew to be behind it all, might impel him even to murder. He was cunning enough to know he had a long chance, in that none too particular community, of getting away with his plea.

"You'll have to pull your freight, money or no money—you can take it or leave it—that's up to you."

And this was the man, thought Rawlins, who talked simperingly a few days ago about suitings, and the allurements of St. Joe, and bewailed the loss of pencil-striped trousers, and a blue coat cut waist-form, with roll lapels. Cupidity had made a tyrant out of a fool, as had happened before in the history of princes and potentates, and plain scrubs of the stripe of Peck. Here was declaration of war following war, as always falls out among the victors, a new and more distressing conflict over the spoils.

The best thing to do was to try to play him on a little while for an opening, and grab his chance when it came.

"I'll send your things over to the hotel at Lost Cabin in a day or two," Peck said. "You can go and claim 'em or you can leave 'em, but if you ever show your face around here agin I'll bust you wide open!"

"All right, Peck; you're the boss right now," Rawlins seemed to yield. "Shove that paper over here—I'll sign it."

"No, you don't! You don't git me to put this old gun down till you're saddled up and gone out of here. Come around here and sign it, and watch your step!"

Peck got up, backing away from the chair, keeping his gun held on Rawlins, his bony shoulders haunched up, head to one side, one eye squinting along the barrel. Rawlins pushed his chair away from the table, trying

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/295


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/296

 to assume a dejected and conquered mien. He went slowly around the end of the table where Peck's old Mexican hat lay on the slab of bacon from which their dinner had been cut. The handle of the butcher knife presented a hopeful invitation to Rawlins' eye as he passed, unseen before that moment, unthought of until that breath.

Rawlins snatched the knife and made a lunge at Peck, who backed off trying to cock his pistol, a precaution which he had overlooked, one to which Rawlins perhaps owed his life. Rawlins jabbed the knife against Peck's ribs, disconcerting his business of raising the hammer—it was a single-action, old-time weapon—which slipped from under his thumb and came down with aroar. The bullet went somewhere; Rawlins was not concerned where just then, knowing it had not gone through him.

"Drop it!" he yelled, making Peck jump with the threat of sudden death he put into the command.

Peck let it go. There was a look of terror in his bulging eyes as he lifted his long arms and begged for his life. He backed off, his legs striking the cot drawn against the wall, bloodless agony in his face, Rawlins pressing him unmercifully.

"Don't kill me, Rawlins! For God's sake, don't kill me!" Peck begged. "I wasn't goin' to hurt you—it was only a bluff."

"Yes, I'm going to kill you!" Rawlins said savagely, pushing the knife till it bit. "You're not fit to live, you traitor!"

Peck begged in broken ejaculations as Rawlins faced him to the wall and stood him there with raised hands

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/296


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/297

 appealing to the roof. Rawlins dropped the knife, snatched his gun from the holster hanging in its accustomed place behind the door.

"Yes, I'm going to kill you!" he said again, with the unaccented tremolo of passionate rage rising from a base wrong. "Yes, I'm going to kill you!" repeating it like the click of a wheel in stated revolution.

"It's the old woman's fault!" Peck pleaded. "Kill her if you kill anybody. For God's sake, don't shoot me—don't shoot me!"

"Yes, I'm goin' to shoot you!" Rawlins said, in that same panting, hasty, hard voice, believing in his soul that he was going to do it.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/297


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/298

began to cool down in a little while, seeing the ridiculousness of the situation. Peck was only a comedian, take him at his worst; he could not enact tragedy without a clowning grotesqueness that made it a joke. There was a laugh for the sheriff even in his method of killing a man.

"Peck, I'm going to let you live—just now," Rawlins told him, after holding him against the wall, hands up between the low joists, until he was stiff with fright. "But if I ever catch you with a gun on you again, anywhere, any time, I'll kill you on sight. Take off that belt!"

Peck fumbled at it, weak in the knees, trembling in every joint. Rawlins motioned him to throw it under the cot, which he did, staggering as he tried to stand straight again, terror had made such a drain on his strength. This business of killing men was not all he had thought. It seemed to have its drawbacks and humiliations, as well as its flashes of glory.

Rawlins kicked Peck's gun under the cot along with the belt that had sustained it in its brief days of swelling triumph and growing insolence. Peck's eye was on the greasy wallet and pile of greasy, sheepland money on the table.

"Rawlins," he appealed, turning in the supplication

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/298


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/299

 of abject cowardice, "let me take that money and hit it to hell out o' here before the old woman comes!"

"Not on your life!" said Rawlins. "Get the dishpan."

Peck moved limply about the order, rolling his unquiet eyes on Rawlins' gun, which followed him in every movement, not more than two feet from a vital part.

"Fill it up with onions," Rawlins commanded, as Peck stood with the pan, a dumb appeal in his glassy eyes.

"For God's sake, Rawlins!" Peck pleaded, "I never could stand 'em—they'll kill me!"

"You'd just as well die one way as another," Rawlins told him, the gun inexorably approaching his ribs.

Peck filled the pan, fishing the last onion out of the sack, and sat on the floor under Rawlins' directions, the utensil between his long legs, where he went to work on his bitter penance. Rawlins sat in the chair that Peck had occupied lately, his gun close to the back of Peck's long neck, sending chills that raised his hair through that valiant man-slayer now and then by putting the cold muzzle of it to his skin.

"I've got myself in a hell of a fix follerin' that old woman's lead," said Peck, his fright beginning to turn from cold to hot. He sweated as he worked and wept, his burning eyes on the door.

"You have," Rawlins agreed coldly.

Peck shook his head like a dog that has been dosed with cayenne, shivering in the agony of his torture. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, making a little squealing groan.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/299


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/300

 "Let me go without the money, Rawlins," he begged. "Let me git out of that door and I'll travel so fast it od take two men to count me."

"When you're through with that job we'll talk about what's next," Rawlins replied. He touched Peck's sweating neck with the gun, sending his temperature down ten degrees.

"I'll give you them sheep—you can take 'em—if you'll let me git out of here," Peck proposed.

"If I took all your interest in them I wouldn't even own a bleat," Rawlins said. "You've done a lot of talkin' about showin' people where they get off, Peck. You're pretty close to the edge right now yourself. Get busy!"

Peck peeled along in the lachrymal vapor that even his long back and neck could not hoist his eyes above, sniffing, snorting, tears dropping on his degraded moustache, which seemed so dejected and limp that it never could stiffen in its old-time pride again. Presently he began to talk, trying to make a case against his wife.

"She was behind that dang fool move of mine, Rawlins," Peck said, information which Rawlins scarcely needed, after seeing the wallet and greasy bills.

"She said if I'd take my old gun and bluff you out of here she'd give me that check book she promised and I could go the limit. She was stuck on this place for sheep; she wanted it worse than she ever wanted to marry a man in her life. You was a cripple, she said; you couldn't do nothing with it, and some sheepman'd come along here some day before long and boot you

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/300


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/301

 off. But I wasn't goin' to hurt you, Rawlins. That gun-play of mine was all a bluff."

"I told you once that was a dangerous thing to try inside of this fence, Peck."

"I believe you, Rawlins: But I wouldn't 'a' hurt you. If you'd 'a' said you wasn't goin' to take that money and stood up for your rights, I'd 'a' backed down. That's what I had it lined up to do. I figgered you'd let me have that money if you didn't want it."

Rawlins was not moved to abate the penance in any degree by this plea. He said nothing; only put the creepy gun-barrel to Peck's sunburnt neck.

Peck worked on in desperate expedition for a while, keeping his mouth shut except when he released a groan of agony or sigh of hopelessness for his prostrate greatness.

"She's comin' up here this afternoon," Peck said after a long silence. "By thunder! I believe that's her now!"

"Keep your seat," Rawlins said.

Peck thought better of his attempt to scramble up out of his disgraceful posture, the pan of onions between his thighs. But he looked round at Rawlins with one last plea in his red eyes.

"Let me tell her I'm just a-peelin' onions for supper," he begged. "Put your gun up, Rawlins, and let me tell her that. If she knows you made me do it she'll set on me the rest of my life."

"You were my guest," Rawlins reproached him, "and you pulled your gun on me and tried to rob me,

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/301


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/302

 you skunk! I believe you'd 'a' killed me if you'd got a chance at my back. Go on with that job."

Peck's imagination was at work through his ears. It wasn't his wife; it wasn't anybody at all. He went on with his melancholy task, working silently except for his sniffing and snorting and peculiar little squeaks of torture when he dropped the knife now and then to drag the sleeve of his jumper across his eyes. He came to the last onion in time, his eyes so swollen and red that he seemed to leer malevolently on his tormentor when he looked round to announce the completion of his penance.

"Rawlins," he begged contritely, "let me have one bill of money off of that pile and turn me loose. I'll leave this country so fast it'll singe my hair. You can see how it'll be with me, Rawlins, if that woman comes here and ketches me. I'll be sentenced to jail all the rest of my life."

Rawlins knew Peck was right about that, for Mrs. Peck's respect would vanish like the plating on base jewelry the minute she saw her husband's failure in the underhanded thing she had inspired him to undertake, and his degradation to the level of a worm before a one-handed man. He was not moved by any pity at the prospect for Peck. Whatever he might get out of that marital adventure in future would be no more than he deserved. But there was another side of it to consider, which Peck's proposal suggested.

That was the punishment and humiliation of Mrs. Peck by aiding her disaffected spouse to quit her in that cold and summary style. That would hit her about as hard as a divorce, for the story would go over the

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/302


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/303

 sheep country, from the railroad on the north to the railroad on the south, and sheepmen and their red ladies would laugh over it in greasy delight, for Mrs. Peck was not a universal favorite, Rawlins had learned lately. Her reputation was bad in and around Lost Cabin, where she had the name of hard and tricky dealing, of hogging water and range to which she had no right under the apportionment such as other sheepmen respected.

There would be no sympathy for her on the range; the story of her comical mail-order husband's desertion would overshadow the diverting news of her marriage which had spread around with chuckles and grins lately. About the surest way for him to play even with Mrs. Peck was to speed her anxious husband in his unfaithful design. Peck went on with his argument, as if he had read Rawlins' thoughts and hoped to bring him around.

"If you'll let me take a bill of that money—just one bill, I don't care how little it is—I'll hit it up so fast away from here I'll set the grass afire. She'll never ketch me this time if you'll let me go, Rawlins. You can't prove nothing on her, you've only got my word for it she was at the bottom of this steal, but if you'll let me hit it up for St. Joe right now you'll put a crimp in her that'll double her up like she had cholera morbus. You can take the rest of that dan money and stick it in your jeans for damages and trouble and hurt feelin's and let me hop out of here before she shows up. She'll think I took it all."

"And you'll hop off somewhere and get a gun and come back and shoot me in the neck," Rawlins said

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/303


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/304

 with recriminatory bitterness. "You're so crooked I wouldn't trust you around the corner of the house."

"If I ever pick up a gun again," said Peck, lifting his hand as if taking his oath on it, "you can shoot me with a bootjack on sight. I've had enough of that dan gun, I wish to criminy I never saw it. I tell you, Rawlins, I'm done with guns; I'm through."

"If I thought you were tellin' the truth, Peck, I'd let you go. But how am I to know?"

"Well, I tell you, Rawlins: you come with me to Lost Cabin and hold that gun of yours agin my ribs till you see me on the stage hittin' it up for the railroad, if you doubt my word. I tell you I'm cured. I wouldn't no more touch another gun than I'd pick up a red-hot horseshoe. Give me a bill off that pile to pay my way to the railroad and I'll ride the bumpers to St. Joe. You can keep the rest; you can tell her I took it all."

"I don't want any of it, Peck. Leave me the wallet and this paper you had drawn up for me to sign. I can use them. Take the rest and go."

Peck jumped at the word as if he had heard thunder. He stiffened eagerly, his red eyes shining.

"Say, you ain't stringin' me, are you, Rawlins?" he asked doubtfully.

"Take it and go—before I change my mind."

Peck grabbed the money and put it in the side pocket of his notable bullet-proof jumper, snatched his big hat off the side of bacon and broke for the door. He stuck his head out for a look around, tooling it in his peculiar way as if testing the wind before hoisting his sail. Then he set out one foot, cautiously, with a long, strid-

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/304


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/305

 ing movement, just as if his wife stood sentinel out there a little way, and he had to go with great cunning to slip past her rough and ready hand.

The heel of the other foot was the last sight Rawlins had of anything belonging to the corporeal entity of Dowell Peck. Which way he went, or how fast, Rawlins never knew. When he went out in a little while to see, Peck had disappeared as completely as if he had taken one hop that was to land him in St. Joe.

Rawlins was not troubled about the possibility of Peck's vengeful return. Heeled with that much money, urged on by the desire to be free of his matrimonial entanglements and back among the sartorial charms of St. Joe, Peck would go right on. If he should miss the stage at Lost Cabin he very likely would beat it to the railroad. Rawlins believed, and correctly, as time proved, that the sheeplands would know Peck no more.

Rawlins picked up the unsigned bill of sale and read it, not having seen the contents before. It carried out what Peck had said, for, while the writing doubtless was Peck's, with many capitals for common words, many flourishes and some short cuts in spelling, there was a cunning about the composition beyond the capacity of that romantic cavalier. It was the hand of Peck, but the mind of his wife.

Together with the greasy wallet, now empty to the leather, Rawlins put the bill of sale in the drawer of the kitchen table that served him for all purposes, left the pan of onions where it was, but got Peck's gun and belt from under the cot and hung them behind the door.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/305


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/306

 Then he went outside to watch around for the next act in that day's eventful doings.

It was at least two hours after Peck's going, the sun standing at mid afternoon, when he saw Mrs. Peck approaching from the direction of the sheep, which Peck had ranged out that morning some distance farther up the creek than ever before. She stopped at the top of every slight rise as she came along, to search the valley in the vicinity of the sheep, which were spread wide. She was looking for Peck, Rawlins knew. Very likely she had appointed to meet him there to get the news of his success, being too crafty to compromise herself by appearing at the house before the thing was settled.

Watching her wary, doubtful progress toward the house, Rawlins concluded to conceal himself in the buffalo wallow and see how she would take it when she arrived. He left the door standing open, the butcher knife on the floor where he had dropped it, the pan of onions beside the table as Peck had released it from the embrace of his romantic legs. But Peck's pistol he belted around himself, and his own rifle he took down from the wall and hid.

Mrs. Peck rode up from the creek in the same perplexed, hesitant, cautious way. Every little while she stopped, looking around anxiously. When she reached the house she hesitated a distance off, as if debating whether to dismount or ride to the door. Finally she rode on, slowly, drew up in front of the door some twenty or thirty feet away from it, leaned and looked into the house. Then she dismounted, leaving her horse standing, and went in.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/306


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/307

 She came out almost at once, so quickly that Rawlins, who had left his concealment to go to the house and have it out with her, had to dodge behind a bush, for he was not ready to be seen as long as she was piling up evidence of her guilt by her baffled and anxious search of the premises for signs of something that would account for the apparent desertion of the place. When she had disappeared around the house, Rawlins went forward. He met her as she reappeared, bursting around the corner fairly panting with the impatience of her suspense.

"Oh, there you are, Ned," she said, startled, turning as white as her tough harsh skin could become without a long bleaching. "I've been lookin' all over for you."

"Without expecting to find me," he said, with such a cold, hard manner as to cause her to glance at him quickly, feigning she did not understand.

"I thought I'd either find you or Mr. Peck around the place," she said.

"Sure. Especially Mr. Peck. Well, Mr. Peck isn't here."

She was looking at the two guns swinging on Rawlins, one of which she recognized with a start that seemed to make her eyes jump. She read the suggestion of what had happened to Peck in the display of his gun, as Rawlins had intended her to get it right between the eyes that way.

She stood looking at Rawlins, the blood gone out of her face, her mouth open without a word to fill it. She was a squat, broad, coarse figure in her man's coat and upturned overalls, with greasy sombrero pulled down

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/307


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/308

 on the back of her head to the ears. Her sex did not assert itself in one gentle, comely line.

"He did the best he could to put through what you started him out to do, madam," Rawlins said with stern arraignment, "but you went too heavy on a chance shot that made a weak bad man out of a fool. Peck was a crow down in his gizzard. He isn't here any longer."

She stood there swallowing dry lumps, gulping, staring, wetting her lips with her tongue.

"You didn't—you didn't—kill him, did you, Ned?"

"He was too damned onery to kill!" said Rawlins vehemently. "But he's dead to you from this day on."

Mrs. Peck appeared entirely overwhelmed, whether by guilt, remorse, a sense of her treachery, Rawlins could not tell. Only that she was crushed, smashed flat, her boisterous assurance gone, her loud authority silenced in her vulgar mouth. She did not attempt any denial, nor utter one weak word of defence. She was caught and convicted, and she realized it. Whatever her accomplishments in a business way, effrontery she had not learned.

"Come in; I've got something of yours I want to give you," Rawlins ordered, rather than invited.

Perhaps Mrs. Peck thought it was the money. At any rate she did not hesitate, but entered as Rawlins stepped aside at the door to let her pass. She stopped short a little way within the door, looking around with renewed fear on sight of the disorder that had urged her out a few minutes before in search of the answer. She was about to get the answer now, and she was afraid.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/308


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/309

 Rawlins took the empty wallet from the drawer, handed it to her, silently. She took it, opened it, turned it with hopeless blankness, a stricken, sick look in her eyes. Rawlins unfolded the paper with Peck's writing on it, which, if he had signed under the threat of Peck's gun, would have made him homeless, displaying it at arm's length before her eyes.

"You see it isn't signed," he said, and folded it again, and put it in his pocket. "Here," he offered, pushing the pan of onions toward her with his foot, "take these away with you if you want them—they're seasoned with Peck's tears. You'll never see him again. He took the money you gave him to force on me at the point of his gun, and left. He was glad to go. I let him leave because he said, and I believed him, it would hurt you more to have him desert you than to have him killed."

Mrs. Peck turned to the door, went out, stood a little while looking around as if she expected to see Peck's vanishing figure at the top of the hills somewhere. Rawlins went out after her, wondering what the reaction would be. Violent, he believed, judging from the smothered fire which was so entirely buried under this load of guilt and inescapable scandalous disgrace that not a spark of it was to be seen in her eyes.

"You're to blame," she said, sorrowfully rather than vindictively; "you drove him away."

"No, you're the one that did it," he corrected her. "He's been waiting for his chance ever since you started to make a sheepman out of him, and you know it."

Somebody was coming in a wagon from the direction

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/309


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/310

 of Lost Cabin, along the old trail that used to run across the creek at that place in the days before Galloway's fence was built. The mark of the old road was to be seen yet between Rawlins' stackyard and house, and this wagon, the sudden sound of its clucking as it lurched over the long-disused road startling their 'attention, was heading down that way. It was not more than a quarter of a mile off when they saw it first, two people on the seat, a led horse following behind.

Mrs. Peck turned to Rawlins with a little color in her face, a little glinting of unfriendly vindictive fire in her eyes.

"That's Edith and Tippie," she said. "He follered her to Jasper the day she left. They run off there and got married."

She said this with hateful, cruel malevolence, glad in this moment of her great humiliation to put her tongue to something that would give him pain.

"Give me an invellup and some paper—I want to leave her a note."

Whatever the writing, it was soon done. Mrs. Peck handed the message to Rawlins, requesting him to deliver it to Edith when she arrived. She was mounting to ride off about her business when Rawlins hurried to her, the unsigned bill of sale in his hand.

"You may have this—it's no use to me," he said, putting the paper in her hand. "Nobody knows anything about it but you and I and Peck. If you keep it under your hat nobody will ever know."

Mrs. Peck crumpled the paper and stuck it in her pocket, and swung to the saddle with an agility surprising for her weight and years. She looked down at

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/310


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/311

 Rawlins with something unsaid in her open mouth, and looked at the wagon which was drawing near, some indication of emotion in her hard features which Rawlins interpreted as sorrowful contrition. She thrust her hand toward him suddenly, without a word, as if asking him to forget and forgive while making it farewell.

Rawlins let her hand hang there unmet for a little while, the hardness of his wrong, the resentment of her cunning treachery, holding back all friendly concession. Then his redundant generosity rose and leveled everything. He took her rough hand for a quick clasp, and waved her away, secretly wishing her better fortune with her next man, although he knew she deserved no less than she was suffering that minute.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/311


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/312

bounced out of the wagon as soon she drove into Rawlins' yard and came running to him, cencern in her face, breathless in her inquiry about his wound.

"The sheriff told me about it, that was the first I'd heard of the fight you and Peck were in," she explained. "I was down at Jasper. I only got back to-day. I passed by here this morning and knocked on your door, but there wasn't anybody around."

Rawlins was not very successful in his attempt at unreserved cordiality, although he greeted Tippie warmly when he came over in his deliberate fashion, which neither mischance to other men nor good fortune to himself seemed sufficient to accelerate. The wound was troublesome, but not serious, Rawlins told them. The doctor said he would be all right in six weeks or two months. It was unlucky to happen to a man who had hay to cut, but he had to take the bad with the good.

"Wasn't that Aunt Lila lopin' off as we came up?" Edith asked.

Yes, it was Aunt Lila, and she had left a note. Rawlins produced it as he spoke, and delivered it, glad of the diversion it caused, thankful that the congratulations he felt bound to offer in keeping with conventions, although so contrary to his honest desire, could be

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/312


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/313

 staved off for a little while. Let them spring it, he told himself, with the feeling of a deeply injured party. He was not supposed to know anything about their business, although on the face of appearances it was plain enough for anybody to conclude.—"That's funny," said Edith, her face a puzzle of cross-running emotions as she stood looking at the brief writing Mrs. Peck had left. "That's darned funny," she amended, a little more forcefully, passing the note on to Tippie.

"Um-m-m," said Tippie, glum as glue, seeming to study the note. "Not as funny as some things I've read."

He handed it to Rawlins, who asked Edith's permission in a questioning glance. Edith flushed, laughed queerly, nodded.

Rawlins read the hastily written line or two; read again, grinned a feeble, knocked-out sort of grin, looking from one to the other. The writing ran:

"Wedding present!" said Edith, red as a geranium. "Well, I like"

"Sure," said Tippie. "Weddin' present."

"I con" Rawlins began, to be stopped by Edith with interdictory hand.

"Sh-h-h! you might say something," she said, a laugh in her eyes.

"Sure; weddin' present," Tippie repeated. "The old lady thinks you're goin' to get married."

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/313


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/314

 "No, she don't, Elmer," Edith corrected him, laughter growing in her bright, happy eyes, "she thinks we're married already!"

"You and Ned? How in the thunder could she think?"

"No, you and I."

"She don't think you're that big a fool," Tippie said, sarcastically positive.

Rawlins felt as if he had gone through some dreaded initiation. The relief of having it over, and knowing that his worst fears were unfounded, gave him such a feeling of lightness he could have flapped his wings and crowed. He saw now how impossible it was. Tippie would have been the last man to think of such a thing, good old Tippie, honest old Tippie. Rawlins felt like embracing him, for saving him, in his goodness, from such a disaster.

"That's what she thinks," Edith insisted. "And look how she signs her name: 'Lila Duke.' What do you think she means by that?" Edith appealed to them with bafiled eyes.

"Habit," said Tippie.

"She's a widow again," Rawlins explained.

"Did they kill him?" Tippie asked, eagerly hopeful.

"No; he's run off again. This time he'll make it stick."

"She'll be the feller to get the divorce, then," said Tippie. "That's what she means by signin' the old name. She considers it settled already."

Edith seemed indecisive between laughter and tears. The thought of Peck persisting in his efforts to get a free leg once more moved the deep appreciation of

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/314


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/315

 humor in her soul; but the reflection on her aunt's bitter humiliation and misery checked the outburst.

"Yes, it's off for good this time," she said. "Aunt Lila won't send the sheriff after him any more. Poor old soul! she deserves it, but I'm sorry for her, just the same."

"How long's he been gone?" Tippie inquired.

"I don't know just when he left—he was around here this morning," Rawlins prevaricated, determined that Edith never should know of her aunt's greedy plotting to oust him from his homestead if it depended on him to tell.

"I think I'd better go over there and keep my eye on your sheep a while then, Edith," Tippie proposed. "I'm afraid the old lady might experience a change of heart and drive 'em out of here."

Tippie took the saddled horse hitched at the tail of the wagon and rode off, Edith and Rawlins watching him go, the silence of embarrassment between them. Edith was the first to recover, as the woman always is.

"She had her nerve to think I'd marry Elmer," she said.

"Didn't she?" He thought it far better to say nothing of Mrs. Peck's first positive assertion that she had run away to meet a mail-order man.

"She knew all the time I was going to Jasper to file on a homestead in here—I told her I was going to, I asked her to tell you."

"File on a homestead! Edith! You don't tell me? Why, she never"

"I've got the papers, I can prove it," Edith laughed. "That's mine, joining you on the east."

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/315


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/316

 "Well, I never thought I'd have you for a neighbor," he said, his delight dampened not a little by the thought that she never intended to be anything more. "And she never said a word."

"We had a little fuss," Edith said.

"I thought as much."

"We'd had plenty of them before. About my money, you know. She said I'd used it all up in board, and education and care, and that kind of stuff, when I've worked my way ever since I've been with her. She never was my legal guardian, you know, Ned. She wasn't under bond, or anything. Father asked her to look after me when he was dying; he turned over his insurance and all he had to her to keep for me."

"So that was the way of it. I didn't know."

"There wasn't much. We compromised on fifteen hundred dollars, she paid me, and I struck out for Jasper to file on that land while the filin' was good."

"You took a long chance, I'm afraid, Edith. Hewitt was here with the last bunch that raided us, when Peck killed one of them. He isn't the kind of man to let it drop, even though we've got the sheriff behind us now. I've been looking for them every day."

Edith heard him out with a queer look of incredulity and surprise.

"Why, is it possible you haven't heard the news, Ned? Sheep limit's off; you've won your fight."

"Nobody's been around here to tell me about it," he replied, a little sarcastically, as if to say if that was her notion of a joke he couldn't see it.

"But you've been over in town to-day, and that's all they're talking about there," she said.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/316


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/317

 "I didn't see anybody but the doctor, and he failed to mention it. What's the big news, Edith?"

"What I told you, Ned: sheep limit's off. Galloway was in town himself this morning trying to square it and explain all this shootin' up his gang's been doing to you."

"You don't tell me?"

"He was; the sheriff told us about it. The sheepmen are already hittin' the road to Jasper in droves to file on land in here—the sheriff says there'll be a hundred thousand sheep on this new range inside of a week."

"Well, I wish Galloway'd done his talkin' a little sooner," Rawlins said. "How does he explain it? What's behind his change of heart?"

"The Wool Growers' Association is behind it," Edith explained. "They're gettin' to be a power in politics in this country, and Galloway's uneasy about his job. He says his lease is just about out on this land, anyhow, and he intended to take his fence away. He's been passin' out the word that the limit's off, tellin' the sheepmen to go to it. He says the shootin' his men did tryin' to drive you out wasn't authorized by him. He side-steps all responsibility, the sheriff says."

Rawlins was not highly elated over the news that Galloway had declared sheep limit off. It seemed to him, somehow, that he had failed, that Galloway had forestalled his triumph and taken every mark of credit from his hand. It would appear to the public that his fight had been useless, untimely, ill-advised. If he had waited a little while, the general impression would be,

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/317


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/318

 he might have taken possession in peace, as the rest of them would do.

Still, there would be some who would understand Galloway's hand had been forced by his assertion of rights inside the fence. Those sheepmen who had been there twice as a coroner's jury knew the effort to oust him had been a viciously earnest one. It would be hard to make them believe Galloway had any intention of giving up the land until he saw this persistent homesteader was there to stay, and his staying would be the rift in the fence that would admit so many more that senatorial prerogative must give way before the rush.

Let the credit go where it might, sheep limit was off, the big white spot, like a desert in a geography map, would be blank and mysterious no more. He had won what he had put his foot inside the fence to win, and much sooner, even though at greater cost, than he had expected.

"It's all right," he said, drawing a deep inspiration, releasing all his straining and watch-weariness with it. "But I wish Galloway had begun to talk a little sooner. You've got your homestead, anyhow. You were lucky to get down ahead of the rush, and I appreciate your courage and—and yournerve, much more than I can tell you. Are you going on to the ranch?"

"No, it's all off down there for me. I've got my tent and all I need in the wagon—that's what I went on to Lost Cabin for this morning. I traded in my saddle horse to Smith Phogenphole on that team and wagon. What do you think of the outfit, Ned?"

"It looks like a good team, and I guess the wagon's all right. You know more about that sort of thing

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/318


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/319

 than I do, Edith. Are you going to camp on your homestead?"

"Sure. I'm here to stay. And I suppose"—seriously, face averted—"I'll have to marry somebody now, or lose the sheep. No wedding, no present. That's the way Aunt Lila'll figure it."

"I wish there wasn't a sheep in the world!" he said, with such bitterness it seemed he must have taken a's udden dislike for the woolly genus.

"That's no kind of talk for a sheepman," she corrected him gently.

"I couldn't ask you to marry me just to save a band of dirty sheep," he said, ridiculously, as he realized when he saw her put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. "I always intended to," he drove on, "I've planned toward it ever since I first saw you, Edith. And now—darn it, Edith, you'd think I wanted to marry you just to save the sheep!"

"Foolish!" said Edith, facing round with an encouraging grin. "It would be just the same with me if there wasn't any sheep. What do you suppose I took up that homestead for?"

"Why," pleadingly, hopefully, "you didn't take it up just because you wanted to be my neighbor always, did you, Edith?"

"I took it up because I had to do it while I was single, and I wanted that land in the family."

"Edith," earnestly, firmly, "when Elmer comes back I'll ask him to stay around here till we go over to town and—and"

"Get it over with?" she laughed. "No, there's not going to be any grand rush about this thing, Ned. I'm

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/319


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/320

 going to camp over on my claim, but I'm going to look after you till your arm gets well. It'll be all right—Elmer's going to be here with us. He's taken up the half-section on the west of you."

"The old rascal! not to say a word to me about it."

"Yes, he's quit Aunt Lila, he's going to stock up with a fine breed of sheep and go into it on a big scale. I expect Aunt Lila 'll sell out now; she's talked of it a good while."

Tippie was coming back from his survey of the sheep, evidently satisfied that Mrs. Peck was not hovering around them in the indecision of a changing heart.

"You're a hospitable and neighborly man, I must say," Edith pretended to accuse Rawlins, with the freedom of a lady whose claims on a man have been adjusted to her entire satisfaction. "I've seen the outside of your house from the hills a hundred times, and now when I'm up to it you don't even invite me to look inside."

"It's all kicked up and thrown around in there," he tried to justify himself. "I've been one-sided for a week, and Peck wasn't much good for housework. You must excuse appearances, Edith, and not judge my habits by what you see."

Edith laughed at the disorder, at the crude housekeeping attempts, and unwashed dishes which were spread around, some of them even on Rawlins' cot. But it was the pan of peeled onions under the table that threw her off her balance.

She rocked from heel to toe with the merriment the sight of such generous preparations of onions for one man—there was nearly half a bushel—moved in her.

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/320


text:
Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/321

 She pointed and pantomimed, speechless in her mirth, tears streaming from her eyes as if the vapors which had vexed Peck's orbs still lingered in the room.

She wore it out presently, and braced up, standing slim and flushed, graceful, strong and altogether lovely in a young man's eyes, sombrero in her hand, her sun-tinted hair coiled quaintly around her head.

"What on earth did you clean them all at once for, Ned?" she wanted to know. "Or did you do it? Of course not, with one hand. It must have been Peck. But why? Were you expecting company?"

Rawlins stood by grinning, feeling himself cornered for a reasonable explanation. He wished he had put the pan under the bed when he had come in for a minute after Mrs. Peck's departure to take off Peck's gun. And seeing the gun lying on the cot where he had thrown it, his lips pressed back in that foolish-looking tomcat grin, the little Scottish tune issuing faintly, very faintly and dispiritedly, indeed, between his teeth, the answer came.

"It was done on a little bet this morning between Peck and me," he said. "Peck bet me his gun he could clean all the onions without shedding a tear, and he lost."

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/321


text: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/322

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/322


text: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/323

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/323


text: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/324

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/324


text: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/325

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/325


text: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/326

title: Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/326


text: Sheep Limit

title: Sheep Limit


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 1

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 1


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 2

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 2


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 3

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 3


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 4

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 4


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 5

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 5


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 6

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 6


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 7

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 7


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 8

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 8


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 9

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 9


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 10

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 10


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 11

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 11


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 12

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 12


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 13

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 13


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 14

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 14


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 15

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 15


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 16

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 16


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 17

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 17


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 18

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 18


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 19

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 19


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 20

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 20


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 21

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 21


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 22

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 22


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 23

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 23


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 24

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 24


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 25

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 25


text: Sheep Limit/Chapter 26

title: Sheep Limit/Chapter 26


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/48

" are your plans, Mr. Ringold?" asked Blake, as he and his chum, with C. C., sat in the Pullman car, talking over the situation.

"I really haven't had time to make any very definite ones," answered the manager. "I'm taking out a supply of money, I don't mind saying that," he went on, and Mr. Piper suddenly gave a quick look about the coach, and uttered a stagy hiss, as a caution to be silent.

"What's up now?" asked Joe.

"I don't think it's wise to speak so plainly about money," replied the gloomy comedian. "You might be robbed, Mr. Ringold."

"Did you see any suspicious characters following us?" the manager wanted to know.

"Well, I wouldn't say they were exactly suspicious," went on the actor, "but I did see two men hanging around us when we were having our baggage checked in the depot. They seemed


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/49

Rh very anxious to know where we were going."

"Is that so?" asked Mr. Ringold, and he seemed unusually interested. "What sort of looking chaps were they?"

The actor described them. Blake and Joe looked at each other quickly.

"I don't seem to recognize them as friends of mine," went on the manager, musingly.

"I should say not!" cried Blake. "Certainly not friends! Say, I'm sure those men were James Munson, and one of his tools, Jake Black. They made a lot of trouble for us, and at the fire, last night, Munson and I had an argument. Do you think they can be following us?"

"It's just as well to be on the safe side," said Mr. Ringold. "Suppose you boys take a look through the train, and see if you can pick them out. I don't like the idea of being followed by a rival moving picture man, when I may have a chance to get some exclusive, and valuable films."

Blake and Joe each went through half the train, but they saw no signs of Munson, or his crony. The boys even penetrated to the smoking car, where the two suspects would probably stay, but they were not there.

"False alarm, I guess," reported Blake, when he and Joe had completed their search.

"Well, they were hanging around, all right,"


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/50

40 declared the sad actor, "though they may not be here now. But, just the same, I wouldn't mention about having so much money—not in public. Something might happen, Mr. Ringold."

"I think there is little danger. I have only a small part of it in cash. The rest is in letters of credit, that are only good when I have signed them. I'm not worrying.

"But as to plans. The only thing I see to do is to go direct to Hannibal, and see if we can get on the trail of the missing ones there."

"That does seem to be about the only thing to do," agreed Blake. "I wish we were there now. It's maddening to know you've got a lot to do, and not be able to do it. I want action!"

"And so do I!" cried his chum.

However, there was nothing for it but to wait until they reached the flooded district. On and on sped their train, making but few stops. When they did reach a large city, the boys would go out and buy the latest papers, to get news of the flood along the Mississippi.

The reports were not reassuring. The rains still continued at intervals, and the rivers, not only the Mississippi, but tributary streams also, were rising, which added to the swollen condition of the big waterway.

Pitiful tales of suffering of men, women and


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/51

Rh children began to filter in, and it was reported that relief measures were being undertaken by the various states. In some places the National Guard was being ordered out, to aid in rescue work, and several detachments of the Regulars had been sent to the flooded districts.

The first day and night passed without incident to our friends speeding to the West. No trace was seen of Munson, or any of his tools, and it was certain that if he had not boarded the train in New York, at which station the actor said he had seen him, the rival was behind, and not ahead of our friends.

"What's the matter, Blake?" asked Mr. Ringold, on the second day out. "Are you restless?" for the youth was pacing up and down the aisle of the car.

"Yes, I am, Mr. Ringold," he answered. "I wish I had something to film. I'm tired sitting around."

"You didn't mind it when we were out in the country," remarked Joe.

"No, but then we were on a vacation, and we were entitled to a rest. But now we're back on the job again, and I want action. I almost wish something would happen, to give me a chance to make a film."

"Don't say that! Don't say that!" cried Mr.


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/52

42 Piper, with upraised hand. "Don't wish for anything to happen, or it may. This train is going very fast, and there may be a smash-up any minute."

Hardly had he spoken, than there sounded the sudden application of the air brakes. The wheels groaned and whined under the pressure, and the train came to a quick stop.

"There!" cried the gloomy comedian. "What did I tell you? That's what you get for wishing for an accident!"

"I didn't wish for one," replied Blake, quickly, as he reached for the carrier containing his moving picture camera, "and I don't believe it is an accident. Anyhow, nothing has happened to us," he added. "But I'm going to see what it is. Come on, Joe."

The two boys, as well as Mr. Ringold, the actor, and several other passengers, hurried from the car, as the train had now come to a full stop. And what Blake and Joe saw was a danger signal set against the train, on the approach to a long bridge that spanned a turbulent stream.

"What's the matter?" asked Joe, of a trainman.

"Bridge is weakened by high water," was the answer. "The bridge-tender must have discovered it suddenly, for he flashed down the signal


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/53

Rh against us in a hurry. The engineer had to put on the emergency air, in order to stop in time."

They all walked forward along the track to the first span of the bridge. It looked to be all right, but the rushing, muddy water that flowed beneath it was close to the ties and rails.

"I think one of the piers is weakened a little," said the bridge-tender. "And if the water rises much more she'll tear away, sure. I've sent for the repair gang. They're only five miles away, and they may be able to brace it temporarily."

"Then we'll be delayed?" asked Mr. Ringold.

"I'm afraid so," answered the conductor. "I can't take any chances with this train on a weak bridge."

Of course he was right, but everyone fretted over the delay, especially our friends, who wanted to start their rescue work.

"We'll, [sic] I've got something to film, anyhow!" cried Blake. "I'll make pictures showing the repairs to the bridge."

The construction and wrecking crews were soon on hand, and a careful examination disclosed the fact that the bridge had been slightly weakened.

"But we can brace her temporarily—that is, unless the water rises suddenly," said the foreman.


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/54

44 "Our first taste of the flood," murmured Blake, as he and Joe set up the camera to make moving pictures.

The boys were much interested in the work of strengthening the bridge, and got some good views of it. The work took several hours, but was finally completed enough for the train to proceed slowly—in two sections.

The locomotive took over part of the cars, shunted them to a switch, and then pulled over the remainder. The train was then made up again, and proceeded. But considerable time had been lost.

The night passed without incident, and on arriving at the junction point, a large city, where they were to change trains, the boys found a further chance to make films.

"What's going on?" asked Blake, as he saw, in the depot, a number of soldiers boarding the cars. Boxes, bales and barrels were also being rushed into baggage and express cars.

"One of the relief trains, for the flood victims," said a depot attendant. "They're rushing food and supplies to the homeless ones, and the soldiers are going to help in the rescue work."

"More pictures, Joe!" cried Blake. "We've got time before our train leaves to make a short film of this rescue train."


text: The Moving Picture Boys and the Flood/Chapter 5


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/55

and varied were the scenes about the relief train. Wagons were constantly being driven up to the station, loaded with supplies that had been contributed by generous merchants, or bought with public subscriptions.

The soldiers wore serious faces, for it was reported, in a few of the large cities, that rioting and robbery had followed the trail of the flood.

"Well, I'd just like to get my hands on some of those human fiends who'll rob at a time like this!" exclaimed a big trooper, as he banged his gun down on the platform. "I'd show him what's what!"

"That's right!" chimed in his comrades.

More soldiers kept arriving. They were mostly National Guardsmen, though one company of Regulars was on the train.

Some doctors were being taken along, and a quantity of medical stores, for sickness had


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/56

46 broken out, it was reported. A large supply of tents was being shipped, for many of the sufferers had been driven from home by high water, had been forced to flee to the hills, where they were camping in the open. And tents were much needed for shelter, for, though it was Summer, there was considerable rain, and this made it very uncomfortable for the refugees, especially the women and children, to stay out unprotected.

All these scenes Joe and Blake took with their moving picture camera. Now and then they moved up or down the big depot, to get varied views. Sometimes they would film a pathetic scene, as when a little girl, who had evidently read about the relief subscriptions, brought her bank filled with pennies.

"Here, Mr. Soldier-man," she said, to a bearded Regular. "I've got a dollar an' nineteen cents saved up, and I want you to take it and buy some little girl a pair of rubber boots, so she can wade in the water, and not get drowned."

"All right," cried the soldier, as he wiped away something that glistened in his eyes, and blew his nose unnecessarily hard, it seemed. "All right, little one. I'll take care of your money for you."


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/57

Rh "And don't forget to buy the boots!" cried the tot, shaking her finger at him to impress it on his mind.

"I won't," he promised, and as he stood looking at the penny-bank, rather uncertain what to do with it, Blake filmed him, as a conclusion of the little scene.

"I wonder if I oughn't to make the kid take back this money?" the soldier said, speaking to the boys. "Maybe her folks wouldn't like her to give it away."

"I guess they wouldn't mind," remarked Blake, with a smile. "Anyhow, she's gone now," for she had quickly slipped away in the throng.

"But what am I to do with the stuff?" asked the bewildered trooper.

"Turn it over to some of the ladies," suggested Joe, for a committee of Red Cross women were to go with the relief train.

"I guess I will," the man said, with an air of relief.

There was a dog who refused to be separated from his soldier-master, and every time the animal was put out of the depot it came rushing back again, determined to board the train. The boys got a picture of this odd little scene, and finally the dog had to be given in charge of a


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/58

48 porter, to be led away at the end of a rope, howling his protest at the separation.

"Good work, boys!" complimented Mr. Ringold, when he saw what they were doing. "I'll use some of these films as part of one of the flood dramas, if we're lucky enough to be able to get other scenes."

"Oh, we'll get some!" declared Blake, confidently.

"That ought to be a fine one," went on the manager, referring to the relief train scene. "Take good care of that film, boys."

It was placed in a metal light-tight box, to be developed later, as was the film of repairing the bridge. Blake and Joe intended leaving them at an agency they knew of, farther West, there to be developed, and printed.

"All aboard!" called the conductor of the relief train, and there was the last scurrying and hurrying to finish up the work. This train pulled out ahead of the one the boys and their friends were to take, and it had the right of way, for help was now urgently needed in the flooded district.

Progress from then on, for those who were seeking the lost actors and actresses, was rather slow and uncertain. They were now on the edge of the flooded district, and, though they saw no


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/59

Rh scenes of actual suffering, as yet, they were held up by such happenings as bridges washed away, or made unsafe, tracks undermined by the rain, and landslides covering the rails.

So they were two days longer on the road than otherwise they would have been. Relief trains, too, had the right of way, and even the regular passenger trains were held back, or switched to other tracks, while the cars laden with soldiers and supplies were rushed forward.

Mr. Ringold fretted and fumed at the delay, but there was no help for it. Those suffering must be cared for first.

"We ought to be at Hannibal to-morrow," said the manager, one night, as the sleeping berths were being made up. "Then we can start in, and do something. I only hope we can find them," he added, referring to his lost company.

Joe and Blake had sections opposite each other, and, after talking across the aisle in low tones for a few minutes, they dropped off to sleep.

It was past midnight when Blake thought he felt someone fumbling at the curtains of his berth.

"That you, Joe?" he asked, sleepily.

"What's that?" inquired his chum, evidently also just awakened.


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/60

50 "I asked if that was you at my berth just now," repeated Blake. "I'm sure I felt some one."

"So did I. I thought it was you," said Joe. "Were you up?"

"Not a bit of it! Say, maybe we'd better look around a bit. The films are under my berth."

Blake slipped on a bathrobe over his pajamas, and got out in the aisle. The narrow, curtained passage contained no one. Joe thrust his head out between his curtains, to watch Blake as he felt under the berth.

"Joe, they're gone!" cried the young operator, as he faced about. "The cases containing the relief train and bridge films are gone!"

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. I left them right between my two valises, and they're not there now."

"Maybe the porter took them by mistake," suggested Joe.

"I'll ring and find out," declared Blake, as he pushed the button in his berth.

A sleepy colored man shuffled out from the end of the car.

Ju ring, sah?" he yawned.

"Yes," exclaimed Blake. "Did you take anything from under my berth?"


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/61

Rh "Yais, sah. Ah done tuck yo' all shoes jest now, fo' to shine 'em. I allers does dat 'long 'bout dish yeah time. I done tuck dat gen'man's shoes, too," and he nodded at Joe.

"Did you just take them?" Blake wanted to know.

"Yais, sah. 'Long 'bout two er free minutes ago. Didn't yo' all want me to?"

"Oh, that's all right," said Blake, as a puzzled look came over his face. "Then it was you who woke me up—taking my shoes?"

"Ah's mighty sorry, sah," spoke the porter, as he saw a vanishing vision of a tip. "Ah didn't go fo' t' do it, sah!"

"I don't mind about that," said Blake, "but there are some films missing from under my berth. Did you see, or take them?"

Deed an' Ah didn't, boss!" was the quick reply. "Ah ain't got no use fo' movin' picture films, 'deed an' Ah ain't!"

The man was evidently honest.

"Then they must have been taken earlier in the night," said Blake, slowly.

"By whom?" asked Joe.

"There's only one person I suspect—Munson. He must be on our trail, and that means trouble, Joe," spoke Blake, soberly.


text: The Moving Picture Boys and the Flood/Chapter 6


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/62

"'s going on?" asked Mr. Ringold, who had been awakened in his berth, near the two boys, by hearing the talk. "Has any thing happened?"

"There certainly has," replied Blake, taking care not to speak too loudly, for fear of awakening the other passengers. "Our undeveloped films have been stolen—the ones showing the relief train, and the bridge work."

"Stolen!" exclaimed the manager, thrusting his head out from between the curtains.

"Well, they're gone, and that's the only way I can account for it," went on Blake, as he told the story, the colored porter standing by, and listening with open mouth.

"We haven't made any stops since you put the films under your berth; have we?" asked Mr. Ringold.

"No, sah, dish yean train ain't done made no stops since dark," answered the porter.

"Then the thief must be aboard still!" cried


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/63

Rh the manager. "We must find him. It's probably Munson, just as you suspect. Wait until I get some clothes on, and we'll search."

It was not an easy matter to look for Munson aboard a train consisting mostly of sleeping cars, the occupants of which had, in the main, retired. But when the urgency of the matter was explained to the conductor, he lent his aid, and by questioning the porters and brakemen, and such passengers as were aroused, it was learned that no one answering Munson's description had been seen.

"Of course it may not have been he," said Blake, when the fruitless search was over, "and, if it was, he may have jumped from the train."

"He could have done that," the conductor admitted. "We struck a pretty stiff grade not long ago and had to reduce speed. He could have jumped off, if he hit the right place, with little chance of injury."

Nothing more could be done, and, regretting the loss of the valuable films, Blake, Joe and the others returned to their berths.

"I'll wire all the agencies and warn them against buying those films," said Mr. Ringold. "That may help some. And I'll get a detective agency after Munson. Those pictures are too valuable to lose."


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/64

54 Breakfast was eaten aboard the train just before coming into Hannibal, and at the first stop Ringold sent off his telegrams. A more complete search of the train, by daylight, failed to disclose Munson, or any suspicious characters whom he might have engaged to trail our friends, and steal from them.

"Well, we'll be there soon, now," Joe said, as he rose from the table in the dining car. "We'd better get our things together, Blake."

"That's right. Say, it's raining again!"

"So it is!" agreed Joe, looking out of the car window. "This is fierce! Isn't it ever going to let up?"

It had rained at intervals for the last two days, and that fact, coupled with the knowledge that it had been pouring more or less steadily before that, did not give much assurance that the flood would soon abate.

"The Mississippi will be higher than ever," murmured Blake. "It's going to make it bad all around—bad for us and bad for those who are lost. We'll have hard work finding them."

"We'll never find them," broke in the gloomy voice of C. C. Piper. "They are gone forever."

The faces of Blake and Joe, no less than that of Mr. Ringold, were grave. There were grown men and women in the party of players reported


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/65

Rh as being lost, but the two boys thought most of Miss Birdie Lee. It was almost as though their own sister were lost, so near and dear did they feel toward the little actress.

Rain, rain, and still more rain! The big drops splashed on the car windows, and on either side of the track were to be seen wet and sodden fields, many of them almost out of sight under sheets of water. They passed through miles of dripping forest, to come out perhaps near the bank of some stream that was filled to overflowing. Once the tracks were partly under water, at a point where a small river had overflowed the banks, and the engineer had to slow down for fear of spreading rails.

It was a dreary outlook, and when they stopped at a station where they could get newspapers, the printed reports of the flood were most alarming.

"Isn't it ever going to let up raining?" asked Blake, as he wiped the moisture from a window and looked out for a possible sign of a break in the clouds.

"It'll rain for forty days—or longer," said Christopher Cutler Piper, in still more gloomy tones.

A passenger in the seat ahead of the comedian turned around, gave one look at the actor, and


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/66

56 then, taking a bottle from his valise gravely offered it to C. C.

"Here," he said, "take some of this. It will do you good."

"Hey! What is it?" asked the comedian, suspiciously.

"Liver medicine," went on the passenger, who looked as though he might be a country doctor. "I know what's the matter with you. You've got liver complaint. I've had it, and I know just how mean it makes you feel."

"But there's nothing the matter with my liver!" protested the actor. "Nothing at all!"

"Don't tell me! I know better!" declared the other, with emphasis. "I put this medicine up myself, and it's the greatest liver regulator and revivifier in the world. One dose will make you feel like a new man, and two will almost cure you. I won't charge you anything for it, either. I hate to see anyone suffer as you do."

"But I don't suffer," cried Mr. Piper, at a loss to understand the other's queer action. The actor looked around as though for help, in case the man should become violent.

"You don't suffer!" the country doctor cried. "Why, you have the worst complaint in the world. You're a pessimist!"

"Huh!" grunted C. C.


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/67

Rh "You're always looking on the dark side of things," went on the doctor, "and that shows your liver is affected. One bottle of my celebrated revivifier will make you look at things through rose-colored spectacles. Don't take my word for it, though. Take the medicine."

"All right," agreed Mr. Piper, while the boys and Mr. Ringold smiled in appreciation of the joke. "I'll take some later," and he laid the bottle aside. The doctor turned away, apparantly satisfied, and a little later Mr. Piper began telling to Joe and Blake one of the many humorous stories for which he had been famous while on the vaudeville stage, before taking up moving picture work.

He brought the tale to an end, amid laughter from the boys, and the doctor, hearing, turned around.

"That's more like it," he said, casting a glance of approval at C. C. Piper. "I knew you'd feel happier after one dose of my liver revivifier."

"But I didn't take it!" said the actor. "Though I'm going to!" he added quickly, as he noted the look on the other's face. "I'm sure it's good," he said, and then, when Blake told the medical man that it was only C. C. Piper's invariable habit to look on the gloomy side, even while cracking a joke, the patentee of


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/68

58 the revivifier shook his head in a puzzled fashion.

"Queerest case I ever heard of," he said. He went several seats up in the car after that, as though he were afraid C. C. might, in a fit of sudden despair, do him some injury.

This little incident served to somewhat enliven a day that had begun gloomily enough, and which seemed as though it would continue so, for the rain showed no signs of stopping.

"It's lucky we brought along rubber boots and our rain-coats," remarked Blake, as he and Joe were gathering their baggage and cameras together, preparatory to leaving the train, which would soon arrive in Hannibal.

"Yes, we'll need 'em all right," agreed his chum. "And say, we're going to have trouble getting pictures if this downpour keeps up. We'll get nothing but blurs on the films."

"Oh, it's bound to let up some time," spoke Blake, hopefully.

The train had been proceeding slowly for some time now. The tracks ran along the river, occasional glimpses of which could be had.

"Look at that!" suddenly cried Joe, as the train rounded a curve, giving the best view yet had, of the flooded Mississippi. "Say, that's some water, all right!"

"I should say yes!" exclaimed Blake.


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/69

Rh The boys looked out on a big stretch of muddy water, in which numerous trees, and other debris, could be seen floating. The current seemed sluggish enough, though doubtless it moved with considerable power. Now and then small buildings could be noted in the yellow water, having been carried down from some farms further up stream.

"There goes a house!" exclaimed Mr. Ringold, who was at the adjoining window. "Say boys, this surely is serious!"

The house, a small one, was turning slowly about in the current.

"Say, I wish we could get some pictures," murmured Blake.

"You'll have enough chance to get them later," spoke a brakeman, going through the car. "You haven't begun to see things yet!"

"Are they very bad?" asked Joe.

"I should say so! I doubt if we can get in. The river has gone up two feet since yesterday, and it's still rising."

"You mean we won't get into Hannibal?" asked Blake.

"That's about it. I don't see how we're going on much farther. The track just ahead of us was on the edge of the water last night, so I heard, and it's bound to be covered now. There are a


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/70

60 couple of bridges, too, that were in danger of being washed away."

"I knew it! I knew something would happen!" cried Mr. Piper.

"Say, hadn't you better take some of that liver regulator?" asked Mr. Ringold, with a smile at the comedian.

The train, which had been proceeding more and more slowly, now came to a stop. The passengers glanced uneasily about, and Joe and Blake hurried out.

"Any accident?" Joe asked, of the brakeman who had spoken of the flood.

"No; at least not to the train. We're stuck, that's all."

"Stuck?"

"Yes, stalled! We can't go any farther." He pointed ahead, to where the line swept around a curve, and at the bend stood a man with a red flag.

"Come on, let's see what it is," proposed Blake. He and his chum ran to where the flagman stood, and, as they rounded the curve, they saw ahead of them a break in the line, where a bridge had been swept away. The train could go no farther.

"Look at that river!" cried Joe, pointing to the big stream. It was not the Mississippi, but a side stream, swollen by the heavy rain, and it


text:
Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/71

Rh was adding its waters to those of the big river.

There was scarcely any sound to be heard, save the splatter of the rain, the river not rushing along with a roar, as flooded streams sometimes do. But that there was terrible power in this silent current could not be doubted. And much debris was being carried along in the muddy waters.

"What is it?" asked Mr, Ringold, as he came up to join the boys. They pointed to where the bridge had been swept away.

"Well, we'll have to get a boat, to take us on to Hannibal, I guess," said the manager, always practical in an emergency. "Can we get one around here?" he asked of the flagman.

"The railroad has sent for a tug to take the passengers on to the city," the man answered. "I expect she'll be here soon."

"Come on, we'll get our stuff together," said Mr. Ringold. "I'm anxious to get to the city and make some inquiries for the lost ones."


text: The Moving Picture Boys and the Flood/Chapter 7


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/105

CHAP. VI.

was about one-and-twenty, and Ferdinand in his eighteenth year, when walking one evening in the suburbs of Baden, they met an elderly woman, plainly but cleanly dressed, with a young one by her side, whose uncommon beauty instantly attracted the eyes of both the brothers. By mutual consent they turned and followed her; they observed them enter a mean-looking house correspondent to their appearance:—Both were eager to make inquiries, and were informed by a neighbour that the woman's name was Dupree, and the young girl, who


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/106

 was her niece, was called Claudina; they had only resided a few months in the town, and appeared to have but a very slender income. With this intelligence they returned home, both thoughtful, and each suspecting the sentiments of the other, which was, a desire of seeing and knowing a little more of this lovely Claudina.

When they met next morning, Rhodophil began to talk of the "pretty girl" they had seen; but in a lively manner, and in a tone of indifference that surprised Ferdinand, whose young heart had received a first impression, and who could not mention her but in terms of rapture that drew upon him the pleasantry of his brother. Ferdinand, incapable of art or dissimulation, openly avowed his intention of going in search of another view of his charmer; his brother laughed at his folly, and said he should take a different route.

Not to dwell too long on this part of the story, we shall only say, that Ferdinand found means to get acquainted with this young


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/107

 woman, and very soon engaged his heart to her, and acquired no small share of her's.—Mean time overtures were made to the woman by a friend of her's to sell her niece, or in other words, she was offered a handsome sum for herself, and a settlement on Claudina by a young Nobleman. Dupree, mercenary and poor, could not withstand the temptation; she endeavoured, to the utmost of her skill, to seduce the mind of her niece, by a display of all the advantages such an attachment would secure to her; but Claudina had the best security for the preservation of her honor, which was her love for Ferdinand, and the hope that, though not an elder brother, he would have a handsome fortune, and that his affection for her was an honourable one.—Those splendid overtures were therefore firmly rejected, though often renewed, and her lover felt himself under additional ties of love and obligation to a young woman, whose affection and good principles had stood the test of every temptation.


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/108

 Mean time his mind could not be easy; he had every reason to imagine his father never would approve of a connexion so mean and unsuitable to the future views he had for his establishment; he dared not mention his attachment, and hourly dreaded the discovery and its consequences. His brother often rallied him upon his passion, and at first persuaded him greatly against the indulgence of a love so improper; but finding Ferdinand inflexibly determined to persevere, he had for some time ceased to speak on the subject. This young man grew daily more enamoured, and every moment more vexed and mortified at her humble situation, and the dangers to which she was exposed by her residence with an unprincipled woman. He had her taught privately several branches of education, and was charmed with her docility and the progress she made in her studies; every hour his love increased, and he determined to marry her privately.

One day walking in the garden, in a very pensive mood, Rhodophil joined him, and


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/109

 affectionately inquired into the cause of his melancholy.—Ferdinand, whose love for Claudina had by no means lessened his affections towards his brother, after a little hesitation, confessed the cause of his embarrassment, his resolution to wed Claudina, and the dread he entertained of displeasing so good a father, whom he dearly loved and honoured.

"If your resolution is taken," replied Rhodophil, "it would be a waste of time to enter into any arguments with you on the subject; the disadvantages attending it must be as obvious to yourself as to me. Your father never will give his consent, and if you do marry her, you must keep the affair secret; your father cannot live for ever."

This last observation shocked Ferdinand extremely.—"Good God!" exclaimed he, "shall I enter into an union where my only chance of happiness must arise from the death of a parent so tender and respectable? Perish the thought! No, let me be miserable from the disappointment of my wishes, but never


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/110

 let me be criminal, detestable in my own eyes." Rhodophil observed, that he was more hurt than was necessary at the hint he had dropped, which meant nothing more than a natural conclusion: "However," added he, 'to prove the sincerity of my fraternal affection, marry Claudina; I will add to your allowance by a portion of mine; you will then be enabled to maintain her, and by removing her to a different quarter of the town may elude all suspicion and observation."

How unequal was the prudence and resolution of eighteen to withstand the incitements of passion, or decline the indulgence of it when sanctioned by a brother! Ferdinand embraced his generous brother with transport, and, blind to all the ill effects that might be dreaded from an union so rash and unsuitable, he no longer hesitated, but the following day he informed Claudina and her aunt of his resolution, and for the first time asked, "Who, and what were her parents?" The aunt answered, "That her father, in


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/111

 early life, had been in the army, an officer; but dying soon after her birth, her mother had only a small pension to live on, which poorly supported her for about three years, when she also died, leaving Claudina to her care; that she (Dupree) having only a hundred crowns a year to live on, had remained in the country until this last year, when she thought it best to remove near the city, in the hope that her niece's beauty would get her a good husband." With this account Ferdinand was satisfied, and not a little pleased to find his mistress owed her birth to an officer, though she was poor and friendless. In a very few days he was united to his Claudina, and removed her to another quarter in the suburbs, where she lived decently, if not elegantly, and having an affectionate heart, and a good understanding, she was grateful for the advantages Ferdinand's love procured for her, without extending her wishes beyond them.

He had been married about six months; his wife promised an increase to their family,


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/112

 when one morning his father, who had appeared uncommonly grave at breakfast, ordered Ferdinand to attend him to the library. He obeyed; the manner, more than the words, struck him, and with an agitated heart he appeared before him.

"Ferdinand," said the Count, in a tone of solemnity, "I ardently wish to see you settled in life, an opportunity now offers not to be rejected. Count Benhorff has offered to give you his daughter, the Lady Amelia, whose large fortune and personal charms render the alliance most truly desirable, and entirely unobjectionable." He stopped, Ferdinand was thunderstruck; this was an occurrence that he had never once dreamt of. He hesitated, faltered, at length muttered out something about 'the impropriety of being married before his brother."

"That is not your business, Sir," resumed the Count; "your brother has other views; Count Benhorff and his daughter have done you the honour of a distinguished preference, and it only remains for you to receive my


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/113

 orders, and I should suppose, to comply with them immediately with gratitude and transport, suitable to an offer so splendid, and so much superior to my expectations of settling you in life; as you well know you have only a share of my personal fortune to expect." "With whatever share you have the goodness to appropriate for me, Sir, I hope I shall be content and thankful, nor meanly wish to aggrandize myself by marriage without I could love and honour the Lady. Pardon me, Sir," added he, gathering a little more courage, "pardon me, therefore, if I do not so readily accord to your wishes as you may expect, but never will I marry a woman I cannot love."

"And what, Sir," said the Count, kindling into a rage, "should prevent you from loving the Lady Amelia, who has a hundred adorers, though she has condescended to single you out, undeserving as I fear you are of the distinction. Tell me, Sir, what are the obstacles to your being attached to so charming a young woman?" Never did Fer-


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/114

 dinand experience equal perplexity to that moment; he trembled, and his emotions scarcely permitted him to speak.

"I have no knowledge of her temper; her."

"Say no more," cried the Count, interrupting him; "no more equivocation, I see I have not been misinformed, you have formed another attachment; say, tell me, is it not so?"

"I am above uttering a falsehood," answered Ferdinand; "I own it, Sir, there is a young woman."

"Foolish, imprudent boy!" exclaimed the Count, in a violent rage; "your youth hath been seduced into an intrigue with an artful wanton."

"By Heavens! No," cried Ferdinand, "I have not been seduced, nor is she a wanton."

"Hold, insolent!" returned the Count, "and hear me; if you have formed an imprudent connexion, break it off, I will enable you to give a handsome sum, and have done


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/115

 with it. Prepare to carry your addresses to the Lady Amelia; these are my absolute commands, which I expect you to obey, or you are no longer a son of mine."

"Oh! my father," cried Ferdinand,—"reverse that cruel sentence, command not impossibilities."

"I do not," answered the Count, a little softened; "an affair of gallantry has nothing to do with an engagement of honour, an union for life. You are young, and have been drawn away by your passions; but decency forbids you to continue your attachment whilst you are soliciting the Lady Amelia's hand: I therefore request you, Ferdinand, I will not command, I desire you to dissolve your present connexion, and let me have the happiness of seeing you established in my life-time. You are the only pledge left me of a too tender affection: Your angel mother died in giving you life; let not that life so dearly purchased render my latter days unhappy; let me meet her in the realms


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/116

 above with the conscious delight of having completed the happiness of her child."

The Count's voice faltered as he pronounced the last words. Ferdinand was in agonies; he threw himself at his father's feet:—"Spare me, spare your wretched son; oh! Sir, happiness and Lady Amelia cannot be joined with me; happiness consists not in titles, grandeur, or riches: I am moderate in my wishes; my brother will aggrandize your house."

"And you," said the Count, interrupting him with fury, "you resolve to disgrace it. Just Heaven! how am I punished for my errors in the person of my darling son! Yes, you are my punisher; you have chosen to be the instrument of vengeance, to retaliate upon your father, and hasten the few short days that are allotted to me, full of sorrow and despair: But hear me, once more I command you to promise me that you will give up your present infatuation, that you will quit the society of that woman who has se-


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/117

 duced you from your duty. Speak, say you will obey me."

"I dare not deceive my father," replied Ferdinand, with grief and horror in his countenance; "I dare not forfeit my integrity."

"You persist then in your folly, in your crimes," exclaimed the other, in a rage little short of madness; 'then mark my words: The allowance I have given you, I shall resume as long as you resist my will; the creature who has bewitched you I will punish, and if you dare to form any legal sacred connexion with her, my everlasting curses attend you both!"

"Stop, oh! stop," cried the frantic Ferdinand, "she is my wife!" The Count dropped into a chair.

"Wretch! unnatural wretch! what hast thou done?" said he, in a tone of horror, "thou art now an alien to my blood. I recall not what I have denounced; my curses are registered above; go, leave me, see me no more; dare not to enter any mansion where I reside, for I solemnly protest this is


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/118

 the last time I will behold thee!"—He rose from his chair, withdrew to a closet, and rang the bell. Orders were given to carry every thing belonging to Ferdinand out of the Castle that instant, and never to admit him more within its gates.

CHAP. VII.

time the unhappy youth had fainted on the floor, where he was found by his brother, who recovered and tried to sooth him into composure; but the dreadful curse still vibrated in his ears, distraction was in his looks, and his tongue refused utterance to the emotions of his heart. He


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/119

 was conveyed to Rhodophil's apartment, who assured him he would leave nothing undone to soften his father's displeasure.—"Comfort yourself, my brother," said he, "all violences must subside, time must be allowed, fear not, I will be your friend and advocate, and for means of subsistence you may rely on me."—Ferdinand could make no reply; he pressed his brother's hand, and, attended by the faithful Ernest, left the Castle, and returned to his wife. The moment she saw him she screamed. Never was a man so altered in so short a time. Ernest was obliged to explain to her the discovery which had been made, and she no longer wondered at the grief and despair visible in her husband; she blamed and execrated herself as the cause; and in the height of her agitations absolutely proposed to him to give her up, to renounce her society, and permit her to spend her days in sorrow and obscurity. But Ferdinand would not be outdone in affection and generosity.—"You are my wife," said he; "you have not offended, and it is both my incli-


text:
Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/106

80

Plate V.

36-37 Capparis decidua.

36 T. S. of the axis as far as the wood.

Oc. 5; Ob. C.

37 T. S. of the axis showing the wood and pith.

Oc. 5; Ob. C.

38-39 Polygala erioptera.

38 T. S. of the leaf.

Oc. 6 Com; Ob. 8 mm. Ap.

39 T. S. of the axis.

Oc. 6 Com; Ob. 8 mm. Ap. 40-41 Polygala irregularis.

40 T. S. of the axis.

Oc. 6 Com.; Ob. 8 mm. Ap.

41 Stoma in the T. S of the axis.

Oc. 6 Com.; Ob. 3 mm. Ap.

42 Polycarpæa corymbosa. T. S. of the leaf.

Oc. 8 Com; Ob. 8 mm. Ap.

N.B.—To get the original dimensions multiply by 1·7.


text:
Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 1).djvu/120

 ation and my duty to protect you, my dearest consolation, under every affliction." Ernest endeavoured to calm the grief and agitations of both; he promised to assist the entreaties of Rhodophil, by every representation that could soften the Count towards Ferdinand, and induce him to think favourably of Claudina.

But in vain was every effort to mitigate the Count's resentment, until one day, long after Claudina had been brought to bed of a boy, (whom Ferdinand named Charles Rhodophil, after his father and brother) when she was walking with her child in her arms, in the skirts of the forest for air, the Count and Rhodophil, who had been on a hunting party, met her; the latter dropped back to speak to her; the Count eyed her attentively, and when his son came up, inquired who she was; with some hesitation he acknowledged she was the wife of Ferdinand. He started, and was silent for several minutes; at length, sighing deeply, "I own," said he, "she is extremely beautiful; she has a child too!—-