The Penn's Grove record., 1886-07-03
MOLLY'S HORSE THIEF.

"There's the shotgun, Molly, and
here's my revolver. Both loaded"
Eyes, Tom,"
"Now, mind, child, there ISN'T one
chance in ten thousand that there will
be a soul near you. Ii 1 thought there
was, Molly, 1 wouldn't leave you. You
understand thatP"
Eyes, Tom"
"If any one does come, it will be a
neighbor or a neighbor's boy. The
bandits and desperadoes have all Joined
travelling shows. If you don't go scar
ing yourself to death, you will be all
right"
Eyes, Tom."
"But there's a lot of moral support
in a shooting-iron, and maybe you'll
feel a little safer with these"
He stopped to kiss her, feeling her
lips tremble a 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 fourteen Mary Allison's mother
died. Then her father, with broken
health and spirits, gathered up the
wreck of his fortunes and went away
to the green wilderness of q Kansas
ranch, leaving the girl in an Eastern
school. Toms college course being at
an end, he went with his father, and
presently found himself making a pro-
itable business of sheep to the remem-
bered rythm of Greek and Latin clas-
sizes. Whey, four years later, Miss
Allison had been properly graduated
with much ceremony and white mus
lin, her father, too, had ''JUined the
majority" and she found Tom living
in a ~precarious fashion at the hands of
a native housekeeper, and enthusiast.
cally glad to welcome even this very
inexperienced head to his small house
hold.
That was in July, and ON that radi-
ant September afternoon, Tom found
himself i~mperatively called to the hear
est town twenty miles away. The
woman who ruled the kitchen had
taken herself over the creek to visit
her kinsfolks," and the herders were
at all ends of the earth with their
focks, when Tom sank out of sight
behind the low prairie swell5. Miss
Allison had the whole green world to
herself as far IS she could see.
The simply built house had the New
England requisite of space within, and
the southwestern 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
made her afternoon toilet, and took
her sewing chair and work-basket out
to a shady corner.
1t was easier to dream than to sew
Truth to tell, MISS Allison had no spe-
cial vocation for employment for the
sake of work. She sat now with slen-
der brown hands clasped behind her
head, and drifted on a tide Of aimless
| fancies.
She awoke with a sudden start,
broad awake, after a most unaccus'
toned fashion. All her senses came
back to her instantly. The whole wide
heaven wa aglow with sunset. an un'
broken, unlocked arch Of color fading
| down through every tender tint to the
cool gray of the short twilight. She
took it all in at a glance, and against
the glory a mans figure standing black
and m~otlonless.
She was on her feet at once. Not q
neighbor nor a neighbor's boy; some.
body coatless, bare headed, with white,
drawn face, and a helpless arm swung
in a blood-stained bandage.
She stood speechless, m~otionless, an
awful, helpless terror clutching heI
heart. The moral support of Toms
armory was quite out of reach in the
house. That the man was already
wounded-that he looked as if the
merest push of her unarmed hand
would be too much for him, did not
matter. Such an appearance in the
heart of that calm loneliness was mol
to be accounted for in any ordinary
fashion. He might be the climax Of
any dreadful sequence OF events. Ii
Miss Allison had reasoned, she would
have found herself afraid of what hac
happened, rather than of what might
come.
"What do you wantP" She came
forward a step to say it, and tried moi
to let her heart choke her voice.
The figure put up n weak, appeal
ing hand, uttered an a~rticulate sound
and dropped forward face down on thu
grass.
Miss Allison looked about her a min
ute. AL the little lashy pools In the
prairie caught the reflection from
above, and shone red in the glitterinl
gloom about them. A slender new
moon and a single great white stal
hung calm in the fading glow. Sh'
saw it all, and saw herself alone will
that PROSTATE figure lying black befor'
her,
She went toward him over the grass
He neither spoke nor stirred. She
gathered back her dress and stoucheC
him with her foot. 1t was IN inyolun
tary, half-unconscious gesture; but tn
woman In her reacted spontaneously
In an instant she was On her knee
beside him, touching the cold hands ar'
forehead.
lie has faintedi" she said aloud
quite coolly. There was that redeem
ing quality In Miss Allison. Her VIII
were at hand IN an emergency.
In two minutes camphor and ammo
MIA had done their appointed worA
The stranger Law gasplng feebly, Du