Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-30

constrained to mingle few nervous, ex-
cited tears with his brothers. outbreak.
Whereat Johnny admitting the allevia-
ton of an orange, four-bladed knife
and the reyersionary interest in much of
Rupert IS personal property, became
more subdued. Sitting there with their
arms entwined about each other,
the sunlight searching the shiftless
desolation of their motherless home, the
few cheap playthings they had known
lying around them, they beguild them
selves with those charming illusions of
| their future intentions common to their
years-illusions they only half believed
| themselves and half accepted of each
| other. Rupert was quite certain that he
| would return in few days with gold
watch and a present for Johnny, and
| Johnny, with baleful vision of never
| seeing him again, and a catching breath,
magnificently undertook to BRING in the
wood and build the fire and wash the
| dishes "all of himself - And then
| there were few childish con-
| fidences regarding their alb
| sent father - then ingenuously
| playing poker in the Magnolia Saloon
that might have made that public
spirited, genial companion somewhat I'M
comfortable, and more tears that were
half smiling and some brave silences that
were wholly pathetic, and then the hour
for Rupert's departure all too suddenly
arrived. They separated with ostenta-
tious whooping, and then Johnny sud-
denly overcome with the dreadfulness of
all earthly things, and the hollowness of
life generally, instantly resolved to run
away!
To do this he prepared himself with Il
purposeless Ratchet, an Inconsistent but
long-treasured lump of putty and all the
sugar that was left in the cracked sugar
bowl. Thus accoutred he sailed forth,
first to remove all traces of his hated eX-
istence that might be left in his desk at
school. If the master were there he
would say Rupert had sent him; if he
WASH t he would climb in at the window.
The sun was already sinking when he
reached the clearing and found a caval-
cade of armed men around the building.
Johnny's first conviction was that the
master had killed Uncle Ben or Mas
tiers, and that the men, taking advantage
of the absence of his-.IOhnny 's-big
brother, were about to summarily exc
cute him. Observing no struggle from
within, his second belief was that the
master had been suddenly elected gov
ernor of California and was about to
start with Il state escort from the school
house, and that he, Johnny, was i'll time
to see the procession.
Bnt when the master appeared with
McKinstry, followed by part Of the
crowd afoot, this quickwitted child
OF the frontier, from his secure outlook
in the brush'' gathered enough from
their fragmentary speech to guess the
serious purport of their errand and thrill
with anticipation and slightly creepy eX-
element.
A duel. A thing hitherto witnessed
only by grown up men, afterwards sWag-
gering with importance and strange
technical blood-thirsty words, and now
for the first time reserved for a bOy--and
that boy, him, Johnny! to behold i'll all
its fearful completeness. A duel! Of
which he, Johnny, meanly abandoned by
his brother was now exalted perhaps to
be the only survivor! He could scarcely
credit his senses. 1t was 100 much!
To creep through the brush while
the preliminaries were being settled,
reach a certain silver fir on the ap-
pointed ground, and with the aid Of
his new lucky Ratchet climb unseen
to its upper boughs, was an exciting
and difficult task, but one eventually
overcome by his short but energetic legs.
Here he could not only see all that Oc-
CURED but by a fortunate chance the
large pine next to him had been selected
as the limit of the ground. The sharp
eyes Of3the boy had long since penetrated
the dIst19ses of the remaining masked
men, and74shen the long, lank figure of
the master 3 self-appointed second took
up its position, beneath the pine in full
view of him although hidden from the
spectators, J6Esiny- instantly recognized
it to be none dtIeys than SetiiaQavis.
The manifest Inconsistency of his appear
ance as Mr.. Ford 'slseeond with what
johnny knew of his rsftienstq the mass.
ter was the one thing tRat :ffsghfS fixed the 4
incident in the boys n9mory:sssSts ..,... n.
The men were .slEssdy in .qositioi':s =
word. Johnny's down hanging legs
Why didn It they begin? What were they
waiting for? What if it were interrupted,
or-terrible thought-made up at the
last moment? Would they "holler'' out
when they were Int, or stagger around
convulsively as they did at the - cirkiss?''
Would they all run away afterwards and
leave Johnny alone to tell the tale?
And-horrible thought.-would anybody
believe him? Would Rupert? Rupert,
had he con y knowed this,' wouldn't
have gone away.
Cone
With a child perfect faith in the in
vulnerable superiority of his friends, he
had not even looked at the master, but
only at his destined victim. Yet as the
word s'two' rang out Johnny's attAn-
ton was suddenly attracted to the sur
prisng fact that the masters second,
Seth Davis, had also drawn pistol, and
from behind his tree was deliberately and
steathily aiming at McKinstryl He I'M
derstood it all now-he was a friend of
the masters, bully for Seth.
"Three!''
Crack, Z-i-i-pl Crackle! What a
funny noise! And yet he was obliged to
throw himself fiat upon the bough to
keep from falling. 1t seemed to have
snapped beneath him and benumbed his |
right leg. He did not know that the |
masters bullet, fired in the air, had |
ranged along the bough, stripping the |
bark throughout its length and CHANGING
with half-serpent force to intlict slight |
flesh wound on his leg!
He was giddy and little frightened. |
And he had seen nobody hit, nor nothin'.
1t was all humbug! Seth had disap- |
pparPd So had the others There was |