Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-05-12
"Just as you please" 1 said. III am

"What q good fellow you are, JackI"
he said. standing up and looking at me.
A casual observer might have thought
his face only pale from overwork or
of rest. To me it was dead, like
a fine portrait without any light in the
eyes.
l thrust my hands in my pockets and
shuf1ed my feet, overcome by the en-
barrassment which words Of sincere
kindness always excite in me. -,
Can't help your Tell me some
thing to do for YOU"
"The kindest thing you a do is to
let me alone" |
l sidled to the door.
500 go, Jack" he burst out, i'm
petuously. 81 can't bear to have even
you"
Before he could finish his sentence 1
was on the other side of the door.
lfelt that Mrs. Fitzgerald's letter had
merely confirmed the newspaper report.
II the marriage which had been but a
legal form could be annulled, 1 sus-
pected that Fitzgerald would do it. I
had no doubt that he would scorn to
strike the woman who had wounded
him mortally. When l fell asleep that
night all my suspicious and beliefs had
merged into burning anger against her,
and a determination to seek the oppor-
tunity to inf1ict on her some imperish-
able i'll.
I fell asleep with this one idea in my
brain, and 1 was awakened from that
sleep by a cry:
"Jack! Jack! Help! help!"
My senses were penetrated by the
voice of a man in agony, crying for
succor, crying to me, and the voice was
the voice Of my friend Fitzgerald.
1 tried to lift myself from nv bed,
but a heavy weight held me down. 1
struggled to speak, but my tongue was
tied. | rubbed my eyes, but the lids
seemed glued. At last they parted
slowly, and 1 saw hat of which my
mind has never lost the faintcst impress
sion. l was not lying On my bed; 1
was not in the low, square room, with
half a dozen men sleeping about me. I
was standing on the rivers brink sew
eral miles below the station, standing
there alone in the awful stiffness of a
winter night in the wilderness. The
moonlight was so brilliant that every
object was distinctly visible.
l saw not twenty feet from me a
break in the ice, and the blue water
bubbling up clearly. Above the water
rose a mans fair, strong head, and two
hands grasping, trying to lift the body
beneath up to the ice, which broke and
crumbled away from their touch.
He was dying before my eyes, and I
could not stir an inch to save him. I
saw the beating of his hands grow
feebler and the TENSION of his face relax.
"Spare her, Jack!-spare her!" he
cried.
/ was silent. {..tt
Then nee again he cried, and that
sound 1 think will always echo about the
world with me: .speak to me. Give
me a sign" ,H.ft 81
Iforgot my hatred of her and my re-
solve to hurt her; Iwas.sensible only of
his pitiful pleading. By a great effort
I flung up my right arm as a sign Of ac-
quiescence.
His hands fell, his head sank back
ward, and the blue water sparkled and
dubbed in the moonlight. 1 shouted:
Fitzgerald! Fitzgerald" 1 seemed to
spring forward, when the whole scene
was transformed. I was sitting up in
bed, and the watch by the fire was say
ing, drowsily:
"What's the matterp What are you
making such a row about?"
''Where is Fitzgerald?" I said, look
ing round, and seeing that his place in
the row of mattresses was vacant.
"He went out about an hour ago. He
said he couldn't sleep, and was going
to skate up the river to Thompson's
Station tr -f'
1 got up slowly, and the motion was
painful, for my whole body was numb.
I spoke with hesitation, as if the power
of speech was new to me.
Fitzgerald did not go up the river;
he went down toward Carriers Station.
He has been drowned six miles below"
My shout had reused most of the men.
They all exclaimed incredulously that 1
had been dreaming. I stood my
ground, and was already getting ready
to go out. The logged persistence of
such a matter-of-fact fellow as I inn
pressed them, and they prepared to &C
company me. When we reached the
river we put on our skates We could
not distinguish tracks, for we had re-
Ceutly UcoA ohaIiuS Sicd1 ucd1, tdhtuS
advantage of the clear ice, rare so late
in the season. I led down the river,
the others following, laughing at my
expense. Soon the infection of my pro-
found hopelessness spread, and in ten
minutes all were skating swiftly, silent
ly, toward what awaited us. When but
a sharp headland lay between us and
the spot I had seen in my. vision, I
halted. "
'He is lying just beyond there. If
the ice is broken we shall know"
We rounded the point in line. The
ice was broken and thrown up in pieces,
and the water still bubbling.
I have not much more to tell. 1t was
afterward discovered that he struck
one of the shallow springs on a sandy
bottom which never freeze solidly. The
water would not have covered him
standing, but the numbing influence of
the intense cold and the frailness Of the
surrounding ice had prevented his saw
ing himself. l offer no explanation of
what 1 have said that 1 saw and heard,
but six men can testify that when miles
AWAY from him I saw the diving face