Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-14

ture pastoral landscape of singular and
peaceful repose. The soft glacis stretch
ing before her was i'll spring cerulean with
lupins, and later starred with mariposas.
The meadow was transyersely crossed by
| a curving line of alderS that indicated a
| rare watercourse, of which i'll the dry
season only single pool remained to
flash back the unvarying sky. There had
been no attempt at cultivation of this
broad expanse: wild oats, mustard and
| rank grasses left il a tossing sea of turbu-
lent and varigated color, whose waves
| rode high enough to engulf horse and
rider in their choking depths. Even the
traces of human struggle, the uprooted
stakes, scattered fence rails, and empty
| poSt-hOles were forever hidden under
these pillows of verdure. Midway of the
| field and near the watercOurSe arose Nc
| Kinstry IS barn-the solitary human struc-
| ture whose rude, miSShapen, bullying
| sides and swallow haunted caves bursting
with hay from the neighboring pasture,
seemed, however. only an eXtravagant
| growth of the prolific soil. Mrs Mckins-
try gaZed at it anXiously. There was no
sign of life or movement near or around
it; il stood as it had always stood de-
serted and solitary. But turning her
eyes to the right, beyond the watercOurSe,
| she COull see Il sll1tI TcSuitlT
of the grassy sea and what appeared to be
the drifting on its surface of half a dozen
Slouched hats i'll the direction of the
| alders. There was no longer any doubt;
| a party from the other side was approach
| ing the border.
\ shout and the quick galloping of
hoOfs behind her sent 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 Hari-
sons hey sold us out - to tell her that the
crisis had come.
She held her breath as the cavalcade
| diverged, and in open order furioms!y 2F-
| preached the water course and she could
see a sudden check and hesitation in the
| movement in the meadow at that I'M
! looked-fOr onset. Then she thought of
| the barn. 1t would be rallying point
| for them if driven back-a tower of de-
| fence if besieged. There were arms
$ecreted beneath the hay for such an
| emergency. She would run there, swing
| to its open doors, and get ready TO barri-
cade them.
She ran crouchingly, seeking the higher
| grasses and brambles of the ridge to eS-
cape observation from the meadow until
SIlC CptIi't NescSilli upon jllt IlOil Inc
rear. She threw aside her impeding
| shawl; her brown holland sun bonnet torn
| off her head and hanging by its strings
| from her shoulders, let her coarse silver
threaded hair stream like Il name over
| her back: her face and hands were bleed
| ing from thOrnS and whitened by dust.
But she struggled on fiercely like some
| hunted animal until she reached the de-
| scending trail, when, letting herself 20
| blindly, only withheld by the long grasses
she clUtched at wildly on either side, she
half fell, half stumbled down the slope
and emerged beside the barn, breathieSs
and exhausted.
But what Il contrast was therei For
an instant she could scarcely believe she
had left the ridge with her husband s
savage outcry III her ears, and i'll her eyes
the swift vision of his furious cavalcade.
The boundary meadow was hidden by the
soft lines of graceful willows in whose
dim recesses the figures Of the passionate
hOrSemen seemed to have melted forever.
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 III the foreground, heaped
with grain that fringed its caves and
bristled from its windows and doors until
its unlovely bulk was hidded in trailing
feathery outlines; the gentle tlutter Of
wings and shooting twitter of swallows
and jays around its open rafters, and the
drifting shadows of a few circling crows
above it; the drOwsy song of bees on the
wild mustard that half hid its walls with
yellow bloom; the sound of family trick
ling water in one of those old Indian
haunted springs that had given its name
to the locality; all these for an instant
touched the senses of this hard fierce wo-
man as she had not been touched since
she was q girl. For one brief moment
the joys of peace and that matured re-
pose that never had been hers, flashed
upon her; but with it came the savage
consciousness that even now it was being
wre<ted away, and the thought fired her
blood again. She listened eagerly for
second in the direction of the meadow:
there was no report of tirearr,S-there
was vet time to prepare the barn for de-
fence. She ran to the front of the build
ing and seized the latch of the half closed
door 4 little feminine cry that was half
a laugh came from within, with the
rapid rustic of skirt, and as the door
swung open light figure vanished
through the rear window. The slanting
sunlight falling in the Swallowed interior
disclosed only the single, erect figure OF
| the NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Ford.
The first confusion and embarrassment
of an interrupted rendezvous that had
colOred Ford 5 cheeks, gave way to
look of alarm as he caught sight of the
bleeding face and dishevelled figure of
Mrs. McKinstry. She saw it. To her
| distorted fancy it seemed only proof of
deeper guilt. Without Il word she closed
the heavy door behind her and swung the
! huge cross bar unaided to its place. She
then turned and confronted him, wiping
the dust from her face and arms with her
torn and dangling sunbonnet in way
that recalled her attitude on the first day
he had met her.
''Tnat was Cress with ye?' she
said
He hesitated, still gazing at her in
| wonder.
"Don t lie.''
He started. ''I don 'tpropose to - he
retorted Indignantly. cit was
81 don t ask yer how long this yer's
bid goin' on, - she said, pointing to
Cressy's bonnet, few books and
scattered nosegay of wild flowers lying on
the hay: land don 7 want to know. In -.
FIVE minutes either her father will bez
here, or them hell-hounds of Harrison s
who We sold him out will swarm round
this barn TO git possesshun. Eff this
ha nnintal ortn