Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-01-01

There they stood in the same corne,
where the desolute widow had placed
them on that fearful day when her hus
band was carried home corpse. Nit
zell, regarding them with avaricious
glance, said: "..'|
III take them boots this time 70,
rent-that Is, eft they'll ft man."
And as he slowly drawled out thit
mean suggestion, he thought, savagely
I'D rather like to stand in that dead
mans shoes" -.
AT this moment his son appeared a,
the cabin door. He had noticed hit
father going thither, and fearing tina,
ne mlgnt In some rude way distress EN-
ma and her mother, he had ventured tx
follow. Then he could not resist the
hope OF seeing the lass he loved.
p"What do you mean, boy, by coming
here?" growled Mitzell, in conscious
shame.
"oh, father" pleaded Reynold, "donr
take the bootsl"
"silence" grufly replied the man
I'LL see first of they'll fit."
So saying, he took off his own shoes
and began to pull on the boots. He hac
to draw hard, for they were tight fit.
but having at last got them on, hi
stamped OUT without as much as good.
morning.
The widow covered her face with he,
apron and cried.
Mitzell marched along, his son at his
side. At first he plodded on with a
hard step, as if he were stamping down
John Hogan's grave; but after few
minutes he turned to his son, saying:
1.-THE boots hurt boy 1 was fool tc
take EN-" and he moved rather weari.
~. Again he stopped: ''Confound the
boots," he cried in a rage, ''I've got a
bad bargain" The pricking pain was
that OF millions of needles, and he
limped forward painfully.
Presently he spoke again, but slowly,
and with a thickening voice, and Rey
mold saw with alarm that his fathers
face was livid.
"Dang it, he suffered, "I-m-m
s-i-ck.''
Reynold took his arm and led him
along as best he could. His fathers
legs grew stiff, and his hands were cold.
BY this time they were not far from the
rock, Security" which was on their
way home, and his son, thinking the
rock comfortable place in the shade
of the tree, dragged him to its smooth:
wide surface
"W-h-a-t-a-i-l-s-m-e?" were the last
words to which his black and swoller
tongue gave utterance, as with moan
ing, shuddering breath, and fainter an6
fainter action of the paralyzed heart, he
ceased to breathe; laid out stark deac
on the bare, cold rock, Security" un
der the shade of the same upas thai
had sheltered John Hogan in his dying
throes-a dead man in a dead mans
shoes.
A horrid thought shot athwart the
half-crazed brain of Reynold as he
hastily pulled the boots from off his
fathers swollen limbs, and quickly cut
ting them open, noticed at one side:
near the sole, the half-inch fangs of the
deadly serpent, the crotalus hooridus:
most venomOus of monsters, still partly
filled with the virus that had killed his
father.
At that dreadful moment, looking up
he saw Emma, who had timidly fol-
lowed him at distance and now hurried
forward. Their glances met.
What a weird and strange coincidence
of place and circumstance between these
two deaths, for her!
Reynold, as he beheld the woman he
loved: held up to view the cut-ope1
boots, exclaiming:
Emma, my love, see the hand of Coo
in these fatal Observation-Disclosures Dahl
gren, in N. Y. Ledger.