The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-07-29

restlessly, hared up and fell, and in their
shifting light it seemed to Skokan that the
lace OF the dead man smiled coldly, and
then again was contorted with pain.
| In half an hour Jarosh returned, having
changed his clothes. He sat down in Sko-
kan's place by the hearth. Skokan limped
| home. The eastern sky was colored With
| the red light of dawn. Jarosh, sitting down
| at the hearth, took coal, with which he
| lighted the tobacco in his short, wooden
pipe, and smoked. gazing pensively at the
blue clouds which he blew from his lips.
The wife and boy had wept all the tears
out of their weary eyes, but they were still
crouched by the bed, Sobbing plaintiyely
Little suspicion had the son that he was the
occasion of his fathers death In an hour or
so it was known in all the cottages that
Zinka was dead, shot it was whispered. And
the women said: "That's how my man will
end one of these days. I'm always telling
him So"
The bailif was in his Office engaged in
looking over his accounts when the forester
came in with the news.
swell. we've got rid at last of that limping,
POaOuihB bCdots Ohohah' OJlO VI llt Bdult-
keepers finished him off with shot"
Then Zinka did not deceive u.s." said the
bailiff, coolly. I'VE win save his son from
being enlisted"
The subject was soon dropped, and they
talked of something else. Presently some
one came in at the door. and they turned to
see who it was. Pale as ghosts the bailiff
and the forester stood staring as if they had
been turned into stone. On the other side of
the table at which the rents were paid, put
ting down his silver forms, stood-Skokan.
The cunning old fox, in order to give an
Impression that he had no knowledge at all
of what had taken place the previous night,
had limped up coolly and humbly to pay his
rent. His experienced eye saw that there
was something amiss, but he had no
suspicion of the truth. For moment the
bailiff and the forester believed they saw a
ghost.
81 humbly kiss your honor's hand" he
said, bending his back in an awkward bow.
Il came to pay the rent and the tax" and.
turning his rough hat in his hands, he looked
down at the floor.
The bailiff wrote the receipt in his book,
and Skokan, carefully placing it in the
pocket of his shabby, knitted jersey, once
more bowed, and repeating, 81 kiss your
honor's hands," left the office.
The baiiff turned to the forester
1.-THE cursed thiefv' said the latter, II
myself saw him fall when the man shot at
him. He must have thrown himself down
on purpose to make us think that we had hit
| him Wall bova hin, Soma dovv
Later in the day the country doctor came
in. He bad been sent for, he said, to see
the dead body of Joseph Zinka. peasant.
who had died Of gunshot the previous
night. BE had his foot wounded, too, ap-
parently from having trodden on something
sharp. The baillff and, the forester ex-
changed q glance.
"He is no great loss," said the forester
when the doctor was gone. "a thief and a
poacher."
AS the doctor had been called in, sort of
Inquest was set on foot. The bailiff was
foremost in it. and that very day went
down to question Zinka's wife, but could
ascertain nothing except that Zinka had
come home in the night, from somewhere,
wounded, and had soon afterward died.
And that was all that ever came out. On
the fourth day the man was buried, and the
reports of the investigations lie somewhere
covered with dust and mold.
Zinka, however, had saved his son. The
lad was now his mothers only support, and
| so exempt. He kept away from poaching,
too, warned by his fathers death.
Skokan, Novak, and Jarosh, shocked by
the fate of their mate, abstained for a few
weeks from the Counts fish ponds. But
the impression of tae grizzly adventure
gradually became weaker, and after time
their old passion for poacbing gained the
victory and they went back to the mere just
as if nothing had happened.
Two years afterward Skokan disappeared.
In the Autumn feshless skeleton was
found at the bottom Of one of the big meres,
and it was generally supposed to be the re-
mains of the limping poacher.
Novak and Jarosh knew that it was so.
They had seen the shot fired at Skokan
standing up to his armpits in the water.
The two surviving poachers, when they
were old, were rheumatic, the consequence
of the frequent wading at night in the icy
meres and the wandering home in wet
clothes through the freezing morning mists
to their distant homes. Bent double and
scarcely able to move their joints, the old
sinners, unable any longer to poach on a
large scale, would betake themselves to the
neighboring stream and catch small fish
with rod, and meanwhile narrate to each
other the great catches of the days of their
youth. Sitting on the bank under the
shadow of the willows, watching with their
dim eyes the float dancing in the water, they
talked of their former mates who were now
gone there" They reminded each other of
how they had cone to 60 "there," and if
ever Zlnka and his fate came into their
memories they shook their heads, remarkiug
that there was some hitch in it that time"