The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1875-04-09

the black veins, filed almost TO bursting. |
I could not move. still sat in the |
shade of the tent and watched him.
The hvid face turned te meet the
skies the slim, sun-burned hands slow
" lifted to the heavens-lifted as the |
hands of one chained who sees the hang |
ing mountains falling upon him. A
look of horor came and settled down
upon his brow. It was not fear; the
| look was too hopeless for fear. It was
not despair !; the look was too still, too
quiet for despair. 1t was horror-cold,
| wordless, stony horror. The damned
! looked SO, who lie In the deepest depths
| of hell, and know, as no mortal can
| know, that awful word eternity. They,
In their torment. groaning, helpless,
look SO.
He was going on from the camp in
company with o small party of travellers,
who were about to start by the old mill
tary road, which passes by way of Wick
enberg, across the mouth of the Rio
| Salade, where it joins the Gila, below
Maricopa Wells. He had by accident
met them, and had arranged 10 travel
with them. / noticed, however, when
the party left he did not go with them,
but remained in camp. did not ask
him why, but, in some surprise, spoke
10 member OF tle party WAOm met Dy
myself. He seemed at a loss to reply !;
but looking around uneasily, he finally,
with some hesitation, said that he did
not like to travel with that man. They
! could not tell why, but there was some
thing about him that threw dread upon
them, which they could not shake of,
So they had told him they preferred to
J travel alone. He did not look surprised,
but simply bowed his head, as though
he had expected it. There was a look in
the eyes as of one who felt himself in the
grasp of fate against which he could not
l even struggle look of abject, hope
); less submission.
1 I thought of the voice of the sick man
s reading, GA fugitive and vagabond
, shalt thou be in the earth -
t The party left without him. He went
d the next day alone. The third day two
+ other men went on the same road. A
}, week afterward, squad of cavalry,
a. patroling the road, found the stripped,
/, mutilated bodies of both the first and
the last parties, murdered by the
4 Apaches. His body they did not find
: Many months afterward, when the hos
tile Indians had gone upon reservation
:, one of them told of war party waylayne
o the road and killing small band of trav
q elers The next day, he said, o single
white man rode by, but they laid quie
q and did not molest him. The third day
o they killed two more men. When asked
why they had spared the man who hat
8 passed their ambush, travelling alone, b,
!, said he did not know only something
II some strange feeling they could not un
e derstand, had held them back, and KEEP
n them from harming him.
}; Had the Lord set mark upon him
y 'sLest any finding him should kill him2
d met him again, year later, at CAM
Bowie, Apache Pass, where was theI
stationed. was asked to go and see
q hill where small party were encampe
d near the spring. He was lying In th
le shade Of wagon, sleeping. Lstood an
10 watched him.
p When I was child used to heal
= among old nursery tales, one that mul
u derer always afterward slept with hi
OF eyes partly open. Children viii hes
n. and relate such odd fancies. As gre
3! older, of course, knew better, and th
<! shared the fate of my many other chile
ne ish delusion.
II I stood and watched him as he slep
StrangeI I shivered; it was foolish, bl
e, could not help it. The eyelids hun
ne half open. The eyeballs were not turne
~ up, as one often sees in sleep, shown
lCs only the whites. The dark pupils glare
ze out with dull, glazed, stony stare. [
lI- the dead stare so In their graves?
." Foolish know it is foolish. I ha'
~ seen sick people in the hospitals slet
~ ~ with the eyes only partly closed -pebp
ss sh who were near death. I know it is foc
i10 ish; yet it was strange how those fl
NJ eye-balls glared into the day with tn
aAs 1as dead. stony stare.
1a,. saw him once again. was settl
in Los Angeles. I sat one evening
tt the dusky twilight in my Office. u
he sun had gone down behind fog bank
a. the west, and the dark shadows we
IN falling from the hills. L sat and look
IN an out into the gray gloom. Then-t
a chill crept over me. I knew that he W
nd there. turned and looked. The eve
hat ing gloom had grown thicker. Low
nat clouds drifted quickly by. In the op
he door, against the cold, gray sky as
his background, he stood stood as o
On. palsied.
Then over the haggard face, 4
led God! can ever shut it out fri
ant my sight?) over the hollow cheel
air. the starting eyes, the distorted, elaml
irst brow, crept again the stony, hopel'
eve horror never saw him again.
les In the northwest corner of San B
nardino county, lying partly In In
los- county, and by the newly y-surveyed III
e. partly also In the State of Nevada, il
eor region paraIleled by lew OLner Sp
of upon the face of the earth. We say
his world is instinct with Life. Here, If
len phraseology may be pardoned, is a pli
: At instinct with death. A huge bas
eu- whose rim is the ancient hills, stricl
.kv with the barrenness of eternal desc
ICE ton whose bosom, the blasted waste
the the desert, treeless, shrubless and wal
less, save few bitter pools like the
,vlv of potash-water surrounded by mo
~ tair1s that tower thousands of feet alb,
.ns, ~, the sea-leve1, itself lying 800 feet be
~. w. the sea- It Is very s. Gehenna "
.rs a.o place of death and bones. Birds do
.leu - Nv oyer it. Animals do not enter
~ Vegetation cannot exist in it.
uss broad sands absorb the heat, the b
mountains reflect it, the unclouded
sat daily adds 10 it. Ninety degrees in
ten shade (artifcial shade, there is no oti
nan means winter One hundred and th
Rsy, and 140 degrees, that Is summer.
asa The hot air grows hotter, wav
as.s ~: tremhles with heal, until nature goa
a11l- to madness, can endure it no more