Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-04-23
not tn nm her, SO ye needn't TEX it tn
heart, fur I'll bring her back yit."
CHAPTER IT.


went through the ensuing summer and
winter he would have been led a weary
way to and fro. False clews like the
fatal 1gnls fatuus tempted him hither
and yon. Now some one had seen a
child who resembled Cordia on the
squalld levee at Vicksburg, and forth
with Zeb would set forth in high spirit.
row down to the battered city of the
bluffs, scour its markets and its DUR
heus In search of her and return discon-
solate and cast down. Or perhaps a
vague rumor would float to him that she
was IN Greenville or Osceola, and he
would go there. There was no Ievee
camp for miles and miles that he did not
visit, no town that was left unsearched.
And saddest of all was the weary coming
home again to the shack back of '95"
after these fruitless pilgrimages.
1t was pitiful to see how eagerly he
started on each fresh scent or with what
intense and hopeful eagerness he pressed
1t to its dreary end But as the months
came and went the expression of de-
jechon deepened upon his face, and in
ms eyes there was the pitiable reproach
which you may have sometimes seen in
the great innocent eyes of dog who has
followed you little way from home
only to be unwillingly driven back. The
stoop in the thin shoulders was a little
more pronounced, the step took on the
old careless shuttle, the long arms hung
listlessly by his side, but the same I'M
quenchable fire burned in his breast, and
If he grow more silent and shy than was
even his wont, it was only because he
was yet unsuccessful in fulfilling his
VOW, and not that the arnor of his de-
termination had been so much as pricked
by the lance of sloth.
AT last, after much fruitless going
hither and thither, a fisherman on the
bar In Mllhken's bend told him he had
seen girl with yellow hair in company
with rough looking man get off a little
steamer at Rolling Fork, away back in
the Delta country of Mississippi but
few weeks before, and straightway Zeb
rowed down to the mouth of the Yazoo,
and pulling up through its shallow
w1ndlngs reached the confluence of Beer
creek, and up it went to Rolling Fork.
1t was ten days pull by skiff, but he
little cornmeal and on the fish he caught,
While now and then he shot a dove or a
squirrel to replenish and diversity his
larder 1t was almost two years since
Cordia had been taken away, and it was
autumn again. At Rolling Fork he
found no trace of the child The little
cluster of Imprinted frame houses looked
so desolate and dreary that Zeb grew
faint and sick at heart. The stupid peo-
pie he met knew nothing of her he
sought, and were too istless or too in
dolent to care to give him so much as a
sympathetic hearing.
He hurried back to his boat, and was
just getting into it to push off when a
passenger train on the Louisville, New
Orleans asst Texas railway, which
touches this point, came along and Zeb
waited to see it go hurrying by. He had
never Travelled on a railroad, and had so
seldom seen train of cars that the sight
had not lost its novelty. The train did
not run very fast, yet to him it seemed
to be going with incredible speed. With
an inward quaking he looked at the black
ignivomous monster in front, with its
Furnishings of steel and brass, its plume
of smoke and kissing steam valves 1t
seemed the incarnation of power-almost
human; so strong as to be well nigh god
like; so malevolent as to be fraught with
devilish purpose. The great glass disk
of the headlight shone in the afternoon
sun like luminous eye fastened upon
him. He almost feared the monster with
its line of yellow cars would bound off
the bank and overtake and devour him.
But as he watched it, half in fear and
half in wonder, a strange thing happened.
As the Last car reached point just OBJ
posite Zeb, he saw an old darby sitting
on the step, and STOPPING over him with
his hands on the side rails was a white
man, who, if Zeb had known more of
such things, he would have recognized as
the conductor. The old darby was look
ing at the white man, who seemed to be
speaking, but suddenly the latter drew
back his foot as though to deliver a mus
GUAR kick, and the colored man, with
out waiting for further developments,
sprang off the flying train. He scared
through the air with his ample blue
army overcoat spread out in the breeze,
ASOnAiiS iOA al IllS WOTlu a great
bat, and then softly he fell upon the
spongy soil and rolled down in a tattered
and disheveled ball, over and over. al
most to Zeb's feet.
"Woofr he calculated as he picked
himself up slowly and shook his clothes
into shape. 'Is dis Mississippi or is
ded?"
Zeb looked at him inquiringly, and
ignoring the question, simply queried:
SIS 20 heert, nigger?''
II don't 'spect Use heert much, but eff
de angel Gabriel hedn't jess put he's arms
bout me an let line down easy like I'd
done ben ded for dis"
81 wouldn't ride on those pesky things
nohow," said Zeb, slowly. 81 reckon it
ed pretty nigh kill me to get off. Ell
I'd been 20 I'd staid on tell she ried
up sumwhar."
gGT1bo-e 3acS die Tod