The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1869-04-01

At first she fell down helpIessIy, sank

At first she fell down helplessly, sank
inanimstely with no wish to stir. But
iB a moment his ceaseless efforts had some
effect, and he could compel her to use her
muscles slightly, though her head droop-
ed in an unknowing stupor.
Russell felt that he had never suffered
before. He thought the pain and sor-
rows of all his life were crowded into
that one night. By slow degrees, almost
hopelessly slow, consciousness and horri-
BILE suffering returned.
His face was pale and sick. as he knew
the sgonies she endured. But pain was
the signal of life, and not now would he
despair.
At last she looked at hin with recog-
nizing eyes, and when everything else
had failed, love reached the fountain of
crimson, and sent wave of its red to her
face.
Week, suffering, she reclined upon his
arm, unable to move or to speak. Could
he keep the life he had saved, through a
much longer journeyf
When he left the city there were few
houses scattered by the roadside for two
or three families. The dim glimmer of
their lights he had seen but since then
he had noticed nothing-iE was a waste
through which he was riding, with
no lamp of hope held out to him
And the delicate girl, but half resuscita-
ted, he thought-oh, how many miles be-
fore safety?
An half hour passed, and through
Ne ha6 oil d11 faA
the first doubt. Human endurance could
net last forever, and it was more than he
could do to preserve the feeble life he had
recalled. In another half hour ice and
cold might conquer him. BE would die
with her; he could not live when that
dear face was beneath the sod.
A quarter of mile further on, and he
saw through the storm a dark object by
the road side. 1t was building of some
kind. and it could shelter them. He
turned his horses heads that way, and
plunged through the snow 20 the door
There was no door. 1t was dismantled
log hut, with its door gone, and its one
little window broken out. But it was
better than the fury without, and in an
other fvo minutes Alice was sheltered
from the wind. With painful but patient
fumbling he succeeded in fastening the
buffalo skin in front of the doorway, thus
forming an insufficient barrier. Then he
drew from his pocket his cigar case and
his matches, and lighting one of the latter,
looked eagerly round the room, in the
Pickering light. That glance told him
that there was an immense fireplace at
one side of the hut, and divine light
streamed into his soul, at the sight.
AS bis horses had dragged the cutter
TO the house, the runner had grated over
the top rail of fence, and the unseen
post had nearly upset the light cutter.
The white>fngered fair-faced English>
man worked with power that was moro
like fury, and when at last ruddy blaze
flew up the broad chimney, tears of joy
actually started from his eyes.
Exhausted, happy, he knelt at the feet
of Alice, and hid his face in her hands.
With that reviying warmth came little
of strength to her weary soul She lean
ed forward, a smile upon her lips, and
in her eyes, and murmured-
''It was heaven itself who sent you
here, Robert"
Two hours later, gray dawn was
struggling through the clouds a broad
strip of blue encircied tho west the
wind moaned in lower tones. The old
hut was golden with the wood fret
threw its radiance over the two horses
that had been led in, and stood wild and
grateful in corner, their eyes starting at
the fire.
Renovated, though weak, with hap
piness beyond words, warm in heart,
Alice Malcolm greeted her wedding day.
She had told her story to Robert-the
story of her desertion in the snow. AS
the storm had come on more furiously,
her driver, whom she believed trust
worthy, announced his intention of re-
turning. She had discovered that he
was in a semi intoxicated state, but she
refused to return, and he would not 60
step farther, and had cut the traces and
mounting one of the horses left her to her
fate.
She did not know when she spoke,
that a mile back, within few miles of
the city, he lay frozen to death, the ed
dying snow drifting over his body. He
had found fate, which his mistress lad
escaped.
Backward, through vista of happy
years, looked Russell and his wife to that
night of horror in Canada, when peril re~
veaIed to them the full depth of their de-
votion-the infinitude of their love.
"ARrEMUs WARD" remarked that
"There is something indescribably beau