The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-23

What more poetical and startlingly effective
than to connect him with Greasy. He re-
piled promptly:
"Mithter Thtathy. He gived her watch
and ring of truly gold. Coin to be mar
ried at Thacramento.
"You lynn limb, said Seth, seizing him
roughly.
But Mrs. McKinstry interposed.
"Let that brat go" she said, with gleam-
ing eyes, 81 want to talk to you"
Seth released Johnny.
"It's trick he said, ''he's bin put up to it
by that Ford"
But Johnny, after securing a safe van
tage behind the blackberry bush, deter
mined to give them another trial-with
facts.
81 know MORN that" he called out.
"Git-you measly pup" said Seth, saw
agely.
~ know Theriff Briggth, he rid over the
boundary with lot o men and horthes,"
said Johnny, with that hurried delivery
with which he was able to est1p interrupt.
ton. "Theed 'em go by. Maur Harrithon
theth his dads goin' to chuck out ole Nc
Kinthtry Hoorayw
Mrs. McKinstry turned her dark face
sharply on Seth.
whats that he sezp
mo him but children's gassin'." he an
swered, Aeeting her eyes with an evil con-
seriousness half utish, half defiant. land
ef it war true, it would only sarve Hiram
NICK nstry right"
She laid her hand upon his shoulder with
swift suspicion.
"Out o. my way, Seth Davis" she said,
suddenly, pushing him aside. "Ef this ez
any underhanded work of yonrs, you'll pay
for itn
She strobe past him in the direction of
johnny, but at the approach of the tall
woman with the angry eyes, the boy flew.
She hesitated q moment. turned again with
threatening wave of the hand to Seth and
started off rapidly in tae direction of the
boundary.
She had not placed so much faith in the
boys story as in the vague revelation OF
evil in Davis manner. II there was any
"cussedness" afoot, Seth, convinced f Cres-
sy's unfaithfulness, and with no further
rope of any mediation from the parents,
would know it. Unless Hiram had been
warned, he was still lulled in his fatuous
dream of civiliz ton At that time he and
mis- men were in the tules with the stock; to
he satisfied she herself must 60 to the boun-
dairy
She reached the ridge of the cotton wood
and sycamores, and a few hundred yards
further brought her to the edge of that gen
tie southern slope which at last sank into
the broad meadow of the debatable
ground In spite of Stacsys invidlous
criticism of its intrinsic value this theater
of savage dissension, violence and bloodshei,
was by some irony OF nature Il pastoral
landscape of singular and peaceful repose
The soft glacis stretching before her was in
spring cerulean with lupins, and late
Starred with "mariposas. The meadow was
transversely crossed by a curving line OF
alders that indicated rare watercOurss, of
which in the dry season only a single pool
remained t. flash back the unvarying sky
There had been no attempt at cultivation of
this broad expanse; wild oats, mustard, and
rank grasses left it a tossing sea Of turbulent
and variegated color whose waves rode hi III
enough to engulf horse and rider in their
choking depths. Even the traces of human
struggle, the uprooted stakes, scattered
fence rails, and emp post holes were for
ever hidden under these pillows of verdure
Midway of the field and near the water
course arose McKinstry's barn-the solitary
human structure whose rude, misshapen,
hulging sides and swallow-haunted caves
bursting with hay from the neighboring
pasture, seemed, however, only an extrava
CANT growth of the prolific soil. Mrs. Nc
Kinstry gazed at it anxiously. There wa
no sign OF life or movement near or around
it it stood as it had always ST 'od. deserted
and solitary. But turning her eyes to the
right, beyond the watercourse, she could
see slight regular undulation of the
grassy sea and what appeared to be the
drifting on its surface of half a dozen
slouched hats in the di ection of he alders.
There was no longer any doubt; a party
from the other side was approaching the
border.
A shout and the quick galloping of hoofs
behind her sent a thrill of relief to her
heart. She had barely time to draw aside
as her husband and his followers swept past
her down the slope. But it needed not his
furious cry, 1.-THE Harriscns hev sold us
out" to IL her that the crisis had come.
She held her breath as the cavalcade di-
verged, and in open order furiously APP
preached the watercoursa and she could see
a sudden check and hesitation in the move
mont in the meadow of that unloOked-for
onset. Then she thought of tn barn. 1t
vould be a rallying point for them If
driven back-a tower Of defense if Desiged.
There were arms secreted beneath the hay
for such an emergency. She would run
there, swing-to its open doors, and get ready
to barricade them.
She ran crouchingly, seeking the higher
grasses aud brambles of the ridge to escape
oh ervation from meadow until she
could descend upon the barn from tho re r.
She threw aside her impeding shawl her
brown holland sunbonnet torn off her head
and hanging by its strings from her
shoulders, let her coarse. siiver-threaded
hair strea n like name over her back; her
face and hands were bleeding from thorns
and whitened by dust. Bat she struggled
on hercelv like some hunted animal until
she reached the descending trail, when, let
ting herself go blindy, only withheld by
the long grasses, she clutrhed at wildly on
either side, she half fell half stu nbled
down the slope and emerged beside the
harm breathlesS md exhausted.
But what a contrast was therel For an
instant she could scarcely believe that she
had left the ridge with her husbands saw
age cutlery in her ears, and in her eyes the
swift vision of his furious cavalcade. The
boundary meadow was hidden bv the soft
lines of graceful willows in whose dim re-
cesses the figures of the passionate horsemen
seemed to have melted for ever. There was
nothing now to interrupt the long vista OF
peaceful beauty that stretched before her
through this lonely hollow to the distant
sleeping hills. The bursting barn in the
foreground, heapei with grain that fringed
its caves and bristled from its windows aud
doors until its unloyely bulk was hidde in
trailing feathery outlines; the gentle futter
of wings and soothing twitter OF swallows
and Jays around its open rafters, aud the
drifting shadows of few circling crows
bove it; tie drowsy song Of bees on the
wild must ard that half hid its walls with
yellow bloom; the sound of family trick
ling water in one Of those oil Indian
haunted springs that had given its name to
the locality; all these for an instanG touched
the senses OF this hard, fierce woman as she
had not been touched since she was girl.
For one brief moment the joys of peace