Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1892-01-28
bitterer than anything that can Defall

bitterer than anything that can befalI
man"
''Must we say helpless, John.n
"Are we two an army, that we can
take them by forces She has definitely
closed any further communication on our
part. She said that could not have
failed to notice how Elder Sizzum dis
liked our presence. 1 must promise her
not to be seen with them i'll the morn
ing. Sizzum would find some means to
punish her father, and that would be
torture to her. It seems that villain
plays on the old mans religious super
stitions, and can terrify him almost ID
Madness
THE villainI And yet how far back
of him lies the blame, that such terrors
can exist in any mans mind when God
is love-"
Il promised her not to see her again
for you and myself; to see her no more.
That goodby was final Now let me
alone for awhile, my dear old boy; am
worn out and heartbrpken
He lnummied ias.4 ar in his blankets.
and lay on the grass. motionless as
dead man. 1t was not his way to shirk
camp duties. Indeed, his volunteer
services had left him in arrears.
/ put our firearms in order in case Of
attack and extinguished our fire. Our
horses, too, drove in and tethered close
by. My old suspicion of Murker and
Larrap had revived from their mutter-
ings. l thought that, after their great
winnings Of tonight, they would feel
that they could make nothing more Of
the mail party and might seize the
chance to stampede or steal some Of the
Mormon horses or ours. 1t was capital
chance in the sleepy hours after the
revel. Horse stealing, since the bad ex-
ample of Diomed, has never gone out of
fashion. Fulano and Pumps were great
prizes. knew that Larrap hated Brent
for his undisguised adherence and the
ugly words and collision Of today. The
pair bore good viii to neither of Us.
Their brutality had Jared with us from
the beginning. knew they would take
personal pleasure in serving us a shabby
trick out Of their dictionary On the
whole determined to watch all night.
Easy to purpose; hard to perform
leaned against my saddle and thought
over the day. How pitied poor Brent.
Piiied him the more thoroughly, since I
was hardly less lover than he. l
drowsed little A perturbed slumber
overcame me. The roaring night wind
aroused me at intervals with a blast
more furious, and | woke to perceive
ominous and turbulent dreams fitting
from my brain-dreams of violence,
tyranny and infamous outrage.
Suddenly another sensation went creep
right. There was feeling Of human
presence, of stealthy approach coming
up against the night wind and crushing
its roar with q sound more penetrating.
Brent, too, was on the alert.
"Solne one at our horses he whis-
pered.
We dashed forward. There was a
rustic of fight through the bushes. We
each fired shot. The noise ceased.
Stop said my friend. as was giving
chase 'sWe must not leave the lhorses.
They viii stampede them while ye are
Off"
They Perhaps it was only coyote
or wolf. Why, Fulano, Old fellowI7
Fvlnns srotsed Mp neishing ana licked
my hand. His Iariat had been cnt-a
clean cut with knife We were only
just in time.
I'VE must keep watch till morning,
said |. Il have been browsing. / VIII
take the first hour
Brent, with moan Of WEAKNESS,
threw himself down again on the grass.
sat watchful
The night wind went roaring on. 1t
loves those sweeps and surges of unten-
anted plain, as it loves the lifts and
levels of the barren sea. The fitful gale
rushed down as if it had boiled over the
sdge of some great hollow in the noun
tains, and then staid to gather force
for another overflow. In its pauses 1
could hear the stir and murmur Of the
Mormon cattle, a thousand and more.
But once there came a larger pause: the
air grew silent, as if it had never known
a breeze, or as if all life and motion be-
tween earth and sky were utterly and
forever quelled.
In that one instant of dead stiffness,
when the noise Of the cattle was hushed
and our horses ceased champing to listen,
| seemed to hear the clang of galloping
hoofs not far away to the southwark
Galloping hoofs, surely heard them.
Or was it only the charge Of fresh
blast down the mountain side, upr0ot-
ing ancient pines and hinging great
rocks from crag to chasn.
And that strange, terrible, human, in
human sound, outringing the E1ise Of
the hoofs and making tie silence a
ghastly horror-was it wolnan's
scream?
No; it could only be my fevered i'm
agination that found familiar sounds in
the inarticulate voices Of the wilderness.
| listened long and intently. The wind
sighed and raYed and threatened again.
l heard the dismal bowling Of wolves
far away in the darkness.
kept double WATCH of two hours,
and then calling Brent to do his share,
threw myself on the grass and slept
soundly.