, 1886-06-08
ONE NIGHT In KANSAS.

lhtit Nv NhOtkuh' Ahphy "'' ~ -
my revolver. Both loaded" "Yes, Tom.
Nov, mind, child, there isn't one chance
in ten thousand that there Will be a soul
near you. If l thought there was, Molly,
wouldn't leave you. You understand
that p
Yes, Tom"
"If any one does come, it will be a
neighbor or a neighbor's boy. The band
its and desperadoes ave all joined trav-
cling shows. If you don't go soaring
yourself to death, you will be all right"
@Yes, Tom"
But there's a lot of moral support in
a s~hooting-iron, and maybe you'll feel a
little safer with these"
He stopped to kiss her, feeling her lips
tremble n little as he touched them. But
she smiled as she raised her head, and
her goodbye was quite steady.
-Plucky little thing" he said to him.
self, as he rode down the trail at a long,
swinging lope.
AT IA Mary Allison's mother died.
Then her father, with broken health and
spirits, gathered up the wreck of his
fortunes and wen away to the green
wilderness of n Kansas ranch, leaving
the girl in an eastern school. Toms col
lege course being at an end. he went with
his father, and presently found himself
making a profitable business of sheep to
the remembered rhythm of Greek and
Latin classics. When, four years later,
Miss Allison had been properly gradu-
ated with much ceremony and white
muslin, her father, too, had Joined the
majority, and she found Tom living in
a precarious fashion at the hands of a
native h~ousekeeper, and enthusiastically
glad to welcome even this very inexper-
fenced mead to his small household.
That was in July, and on that radiant
September afternoon Tom found himself
imperatively called to the nearest town,
twenty miles away. The woman who
ruled the kitchen had taken herself over
the creek to visit her kinfolks," and the
herders were all Mt the ends of the earth
with their focks when Tom sank out of
sight behind the low prairie swclls. Miss
Allison had the whole green world to
herself as far as she could sec.
II s~lmply-built house had the New
England requisite of space within, and
the outhwestern necessity OF deep
porches without Somehow the empty
rooms had all kinds of echoes inhabiting
them, now that the exercising, manly
presence was removed. Miss Allison
nhaue her afternoon toilet, II took her
sewing-machine and work-basket out to
Il shady corner.
1t was easier to dream thar to sew.
Truth to tell, Miss Allison had no special
vocation for employment for the SAX of
work. She sat o with slender brown
Ids clasped behind her head, and
driited on n d of aimless fancies.
over her arched n wide sky of tender,
blue. Out to the bounding
ring oil the horizon swept the world of
green. From sky-edge to sky-edge n full
tide OF summer sunshine seemed to rise
ana iall IN great hre-heated pillows as
tne south WIND surged across the space.
There were no shadows, but the soft
glare did not blind nor scorch. And
before she knew it she was fast asleep.
she awoke with a sudden start, broad
awake after n most unaccustomed fash
ION. All her senses came back to her
instantly. The whole wide heaven was
agiow with sunset, an u~nbroken, I'M
necked arch OF color fading down
through every tender tint to the cool
gray oil the shor twilight. She took it
all IN at a single glance, and against the
glory a mans figure standing black and
motionless.
She was ON her feet at once. Not u
neighbor nor a neighbours boy; some
body coatless bareheaded, with white
Drawn lace. and a helpless arm swung
IN n blood-stained %bandage.
She stood speechless, motionless, an
awful, helpless terror clutching her heart.