Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-03-26

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He took aim at the young mans head.
In his brute rage it seemed to him that
he had been foully dealt with-that an
enemy In the guise of friend had in.
vested his camp and laid it waste-that
he was being stabbed with knife drawn
from his own sheath. This man had
listened to his story, had encouraged him
IN his aspirations, had counseled, sym
lpathized and suggested, and then, like a
thief IN the night, had crept in and
stolen the treasure
In the burning heat of wrong and out
rage all possibility of justice, all power
of rational discernment We're consumed.
his identification of the woman with the
Icmld had been so complete that his mind
mad no longer power to separate them.
He could not think; he could only feel
All the earth, and the air, and the spaces
of the infinite were pulsing madly with
his wrong. His passion made his heart
beat like the sledge on burning metal.
sent the blood TO his brain and oppressed
its power of perception, and filed his
ears with dull roaring as of imprisoned
waters ere the ice breaks to rush and
rend and destroy.
A door opened and closed quickly;
footsteps sounded on the porch, the
steps, the walk in front of the house; n
whistle clear and joyous as that Of
schoolbov cleft the brooding air. Dan
was on his way home now to the house
across the ravine, where the door was on
the latch and the gift ON the crowded
table. Somehow Anthony drew back
Under the shadow Of the trees, out of
sight. and let him pass
| The moon still hung poised above the
Cedars. bat it was now free from the OBJ
struction Of their branches and cast
what light was in its gift to the earth
ungrudgingly. The path was light
enough, but under the trees the shadows
lay dense and black. Dan came down
the walk whistlng; his step was light,
as though, in the sense of universal good
new born within him, the touch of earth
were pleasant 70 his sect He neared
the shadow where his friend lay en-
pushed, passed it and went on in the
pale moonlight. Anthony's hand was in
the breast pocket of his coat and his ewes
CLEANED narrow through the dropping
lids.
At the gate Dan paused TO light
cigar, striking the match against the up
per bar; his hands We're raised, protecting
the fame instinctively, although the air
was STILL his back was toward the
shadow. AnthoEy's hand stole forth
with the revolver: his right hand stiff
fened as he took aim at the young mans
head; his eye was steady and his finger
ON the trigger was as firm as the metal
it touched; the moonlight made little
track along the barrel of the pistol.
The arm twitched, the finger on the
trigger shook, the eye faltered and the
aim grew unsteady. A thought had
flashed through the maddened brain, a
recollection powerful enough to balk
the deadly purpose, to strike the arm to
his side. Was it ruth or memory of
friendship or compassion for the woman
whom he loved, and whose love he was
about to slay? Not one of these things
would have moved him. What did was
the simple fact that Dan was unarlned,
and that his back was toward him.
He stood and watched his rival pass
through the gate and down the path
which led across the ravine by the
longer way-the same on which Mary
had left him in Indignation some months
before. A baffled, beaten feeling was
growing in his breast, a sense of impo-
tence and failure; jealousy and brute
luminosity strained on the leash like
bloodhounds, but rough honor held
them back with strong hand. and the
oh Co.
cursing under his breath. He could moi
shoot down an unarmed man from be.
hind.
Turning in the opposite direction he
retraced his steps through the old gar
den. He was not going home; he had
no wish to meet his rival-the sense of
impotence was growing. What had
come of it aIl-the long struggle, the
waiting and working. the ambition and
the final success? What had it availed
him? Money! A place among meni A
monster fortune OF what use was the
money? He wanted love-this love, no
other; and all the wealth of that fab
ulous mine of his was inadequate for its
purchase.
His mind went back to that lonely
canyon, the redwood hut by the snow
, fed tarn, the leper driven forth to die,
and die alone. Of what use had this
gold been to the leper? Could it buy
him pity, sympathy, tendance, even toll
! erance among his fellows? Had it been
powerful to avert misery, loathsome-
ness, death? He remembered how he
himself had sickened at the sight of the
SCARED visage and had shrunk from the
touch of the leprous hands: how the cup