Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-05-30
Babe in the Woods.

Some weeks ago q little girl OF five
summers strayed of one day about noon
from her fathers residence on Cedar
creek, Scott coun'y, causing the deep
est distress and widest CONSERVATION to
her parents and neighbors. The child
was a peculiar one, having q strange
dispositiOn for girl, often evincing q
passionate fondness for the woods and
wanting to follow her father dogs in.
to the mountains near by to hunt. She
seemed from babyhood almost to love
the wild, strange scenes, the stern old
mountains and darksome forests with
which her home was grit about. She
loved to listen to and initiate the drear,
weird howl of the wolf, ringing al
niehtfall down the dismal slope of the
mountains and through the sombre
aisles of the forests. She was curl
Gus child. so the neighbors said. a
queer little girl, and uncommonly
strange, but she WAS gone. and no one
knew where. Her little pattering foot
falls about the door were missed. The
rooms were haunted, the barn and out.
houses searched, the garden. the fields
and patches agonizingly explored. but
all in vain. The strange little girl had
gone. Then the neighbors assembled
together, and they hunted all the even
ing, and throughout the long spring
night their torches flashed through the
darkness Of many a lonesome glen. The
startled buck, dazed with surprise,
sprang from his leafy bed into the dark
ness the mountain owl ceased his
hooting. while the hunters halloo
echoed from peak to peak and down to
the deep gorges and through the shad-
owy wales. The prowling wildcat
crouched low as the party passed the
rocky Businesses of his home, and the
skulking fox sought denser thicket'.
The night passed Oh. guns were fred
and horns were winded but the mad
March blasts waited back no answering
cry, and when the sun rose mp slowly
from behind the mountain crest and
morning landscape, the child was not
yet found. The excitement spread like
wildtire the people througed in from
other neighborhoods the search was
renewed with double vigor. Women
boldly took the painless woods with
brave hearts and streaming eyes, and all
that day and night following the noun
tains, the valleys, the glens and the
thickets were secured but when the
sun rose again it dawned upon IL scene
of sadness, for the little girl was still
lost. The suspense Was dreadful, for
the nights were cold and bleak, and the
country wild, very wild, and infested
with wolves, panthers and bears.
The little girl was lnotherless, but had
a father, and the agony of his heart ~
day and night he trampled the forests
through in fruitless search for his little
pet may not be told. But the hunt Was
kept up next day. The worn. out, tired
settlers never ceased their labOrs,
though disheartened, and the weary
searchers sought no rest. Troops of
hardy horsemen, abreast in skirmish
line. secured the level lowlands, while
the cliffs and caverns high up the noun
tain's side were scaled and ransacked
by footmen bold and tireless but the
day grew on apace, the evening shades
began to thicken, and here and there to
blot and blur with dreamy darkness on
the lovely landscape OF the lonely val
leys. The birds had hushed their
singing, the wolf had walked and stirred
from his secret couch, the deer had
ceased to browse and sought his nightly
lair. 1t was twilight, and the tall pines
had cast their shadows long, like pencil
marks adown the mountains eastern
slope, where, on moss.grown rock, a
little group of hunters, three or four,
who had met there by chance, sat and
listened to tho low murmuring of IL
tiny little mountain stream that slyly
slipped and wound its way among the
powders big and ancient tree roots.
Long they sat in sombre stiffness rest
ing, for they had hunted all the day and
were tired. The night stole on /;
whip-poor-will" whispered his first
lowly greeting to the iron-gray dark
ness. The feathery pine tops began to
sigh to the moaning March wind as it
swept up tue gorge. The hunters listen
cd, and as they listened there came up
on the wind q sound, soft sob, n
weakly. weary wall from q voice 30
faint and for that it could scarcely be
heard above the ripple of the brooklet.
AS If startled by an electric shock, each
man sprang upright on his feet, and
still as marble statues, stood listening.
~A6"AA WAC oouAN was AlCaIu, uLNt Wult
ing now no longer, in eager haste they
started down the slope with long elastic
strides. They had gone perhaps two
hundred yards, and were passing
through thicket of almost inky dark
ness, when suddenly the leader stopped,
for prone upon the ground he saw lit
tie form a human shape stretched up
on the chill, bleak earth, shivering
with cold and softly weeping all alone.
1t was the little lost girl still alive and
unhurt, but oh, so weak and white and
wan, SO pinched and pale. She was
clad in a single garment and lying ex-
hausted near the brink of the little
mountain brook her fair, soft ripglets
We're damp with the evening dsws her
startled eyes stared wild and vacant.
The dimples from her cheeks were
gone. and her tiny, tapering ankles and
shapely feet were bare, and bore the
marks of many a cruel bruise and this
tie cut that had cleft her tender flesh.
For two days and half and two nights
she had wandered through the noun
tains lost and without food, and here at
last and all alOne the little thing had