The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-06-15
aud for their proper treatment until

land for their proper treatment until
cured.
John Smith remembered his mother,
whom his drunken father had long since
worried to her grave. He meditated
upon his past life and thought bitterly
of Edna.
"If she would only care for mel" be
sobbed.
'But why should she ?" said re-
morse. "What have 1 ever done for her
that she should care for me?"
Then the cravings of his diseased ap-
petite overcame remOrse and resolution.
With difficulty he rose again and stag
gered out into the street. Slowly and
totteringly he sought the saloon. But,
poor fellow, he had neither money nor
credit. With the fiery liquid all around
him he could not secure single drop to
cool his parchet tongue.
He wandered back to the cabin in his
despair. How his brain reeled How
his stomach gnawed! A pen with ink
and paper occupied conspicuous place
upon the rude mantel. He helped him
self to the writing materials and sat
down, quaking like an aspen.
"Life is failure" he wrote, in a
trembling, almost illegibe hand. "The
drunkard's hell gapes to receive me-" he
added, with more power. MAY God
have mercy, for man has none," he
wrote again. 'Forgive me, Edna,
mother, and my poor thwarted chill
dren," was his next sentence. And
then, 'T die by my own hand. May
God for"
There was nothing further added.
A huge knife lay upon the table, a
knife that Edna had used in her cook
ing. John raised it with surprising
strength of nerve and flashed it back
and forth in the streaming sunlight.
An instant and all was over. His
head was half severed from his culver
ing body, and when, an hour later, Mr..
Brief and a bevy of boon companions
went to call at the cabin to apprise him
of Edna's change of base, they found
the lifeIess body of the poor inebriate
weltering in a dismal sea of elotted
blood. There was horror depicted in
every cOuntenance as the news spread
through the mines and mountains of
Idaho Flat.
Edna was as one turned to adamant.
Much as she had detested the bonds that
had held her as an unwilling sacrifice to
the legal power of the man she loathed,
she possessed a depth of womanly SYM
pathy for which none gave her credit.
She did not weep, or scream, or swoon.
Under her directions the remains of the
poor victim of his own excesses were
decently prepared for burial. The
CHASTITY wound in his throat was con-
cealed by her own hands under a snowy
shawl that had been one of Sue Ran
dolph's bridal treasures.
The fine of Sue had been paid an hour
before by subscription fund raised at
the hotel by Edna's efforts, and she tenn
porarily took her benefactor's place as
cook at the hotel, thus giving Edna a
chance to bury her dead.
The funeral obsequies were largely at
tended. Mr.. and Mrs. LaSelIe came
over in their carriage from Boise, and
volunteered to adopt Edna's baby girl.
This offer was Indignantly spurned.
81 kept my children together, and fed
and clothed them while the laws of men
robbed me, through my unhappy hus-
band, of almost everything 1 could earn,
and 1 have no notion now of giving
them up, since death has removed my
shackles !' she said, haughtily.
They made grave for poor John
Smiths body hard by the overhanging
cliffs that crowned the summit of the
gulch beyond Edna's humble cabin.
Good Mr.. Handel did not know what
to do. He feared that the evil tongues
that had been all too busy in circulating
damaging reports concerning himself
and Edna would speedily interpret any
attempt at officiating on his part as a
tacit acknowledgment of wrong; and he
also feared that failure to do so would
be an indirect refusal to give the body
Christian burial.
In his dilemma he called upon Mr..
Shields, who counseled him to do his
whole duty without fear or favor of men.
"But, beg your pardon, sir, Mrs. Smith
has not invited me to officiate. There's
another difficulty.
''Then act according to the dictates of
your own Judgment" replied Mr..
Shields, testify.
In his heart be despised the eowardice
that would for an instant hesitate about
anything that was conceived to be duty.
''If 1 thought praying over John
Smiths dead body would be of any spec
ial benefit to the dead or the living, I'd
do it, though the heavens FELL" he ex-
claimed, decidedly.
"Then you think ought not to stand
upon ceremoDyw
81 think you ought always to act in
truth to your own inner consciousness,
by doing whatsoever you believe to be
right, no matter what Others NAV
Think
"But L would not intrude where I
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