The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1892-04-21

va S1a0O QUO u00 V1l000 SOHO
she wish her lot had been with the
handsome The felt sure Jayne was good.
I looking) army officer instead Of with
the broken-down adventurer? It had
been a hard life he had led her, but
somehow in spite of himself everything
had gone wrong.
As he lay there he reviewed it all and
cursed himself and his "lucl," as he
| called it, while the low hum of voices
from the porch almost maddened him.
And then pity for himself followed
and jealousy came in its wake. Tie
| vowed vengeance on the more prosper
GUS rival-and then drifted off to sleep.
II do not understand john" said the
lieutenant to Mrs. Cumler few DAYS
later, when the old schoolboy friends
had had several reminiscent visits. HE
looks at me SO strangely and seems so
| different from his boyhood days."
HE has seen much trouble and is dis
couraged. I wish he could get some.
thing to do here-the Kansas prairies
are so beautiful"
The soldiers began to note Cumler's
| distracted state and talk of it. He had
| not talked with his wife about his new
| trouble, but avoided every mention of
the lieutenant.
Mrs. Cumler and Jayne were much
together and once when the officer had
been to the little prairie city ten miles
| away she met him out on the parade
ground and came in with flushed cheeks
and pleased expression. The SOL
diers had come to call her pretty. Cum
Ter saw the meeting and that evening
his walk over the plain lasted until
nearly midnight.
He slept late the next morning and
when he awoke his wife was gone.
What was more remarkable the team
which had been feeding in the stables
since the emigrants' arrival, was gone
too, and Lieut.. Jayne had left on
horseback before daylight.
Every man in the garrison pitied
Cumler that morning as he went about
making inquiries in a dazed kind of
way that told palmer than could fran
tic implications how severe was the
blow.
Mrs. Cumler had ordered the team,
so said the hostler, just at day break
and had driven off alone, though the
horses were very FESTIVE from their
long halt and good feeding. She had
gone toward the station where Jayne
had been the day before. AS for the
lieutenant no one noticed which d.
rection he took.
For an hour Cumler walked up and
down the parade ground. His face had
the pallor of death and his steps were
nervous and quick as of one whose
brain is throbbing. The summer sun
beat down on his -brimmed felt
hat, but he did not notice it.
Suddenly he was gone. The few
soldiers who were lounging in sight of
the parade ground did not see him de-
part and TIE guard had cha lenged no
one.
1t was judged that he had gone to-
ward Fairview, the railroad station,
but no one was sure of it until noon,
when the captain sweeping the plain
with his telescope made out lone fig
ure four miles away.
''Poor fellow!'' he murmured. HE
will never finish the chase
And then he volunteered the informa-
ton that Jayne had the night before
asked. for and received his months va
cation furlough.
That settled it in the soldiers minds.
There was but one explanation of the
mornings happenings-an erring wife,
a broken-hearted husband, soldier
lover. Some of the officers who had
known Jayne professed to be lieve him
incapable of such deed and declared
him the soul of honor, but they were in
the minority.
The prairie over which Cumler half
walked, half staggered, was dry and
brown. Though only midsummer the
drought and hot winds had eaten up the
sap of the grasses and they swished
against his feet with hard, crisp
sound. The sky was clear and the un-
softened Kansas sun had blazed the air
into pulsing waves of heat that met his
face in burning currents, borne by the
racing south wind that came steadily,
swiftly, like the blowing of a SIMEON.
Not house was in sight, for the gov
eminent claimed all the land there
abouts as a military reservation, and
the fort itself was distorted figure on
the horizon
Cumler struggled on with bowed head
and stumbling, week-kneed steps. He
did not see even the meadQwlarks that
struggled fitfully against the wind.
That wind-for three days it had
been blowing, rolling up from the
south, bearing on its back the debris of
hundreds of ill-tende9 fields and ILL
kept door yards. In the towns dust
clouds swept through the streets and in
the homes of toiler and capitalist alike
little ridges of dark, finely .pulverized
sand marked every crevice in wall or
window casing.
The third day of the wind storm a
darker cloud than that of dnss came
rolling out of the southern horizon.
1t was smoke!
The flames swept with peculiar
strength and apparent pleasure over the
government reservation, and the SOL
diers of the Seventh remember yet the
fight they had that afternoon to protect
the buildings of the post.
Cumler aroused to his danger only
when the long dancing line of flame
could be distinguished as it devoured
the dry grasses. The line was so long
that he knew he could not escape it on
foot, and he stood staring at it dumbly.
Then he turned and swept the remain
der of the horizon, hoping for a way of
escape.
Coming toward him from the east was
white-topped wagon. It must have
followed ravine that he did not see it
before. Now it was out on the high
prairie and the horses were approach
ing on a canter. AS it came nearer
throuph tho fin, If Srnol-o o1roolv al