The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1893-04-15

excited, and his big hands clutched
with firm grip the rifle he carried. His
hurried manner would indicate that
he was either beng pursued or was in
pursuit of some one.
He ran noiselessly, his cat-like tread
sending TO warning echoes into the
valley. At a point in the path thickly
inclosed en- every side with a dense
growth of mountain snrubbery, he
paused, and, holding his gun in readl-
ness before him, assumed a listening
attitude. The most intense excitement
showed itself in his attitude OF trem-
bling expectancy. His rough young
face was liz up with hat peculiar AMI
mal-like expression which comes to the
faces of rough, unrefined men of fierce
passions when they are violently
wrought VI.
B~reathlessly he waited. The noun
tain stiffness was unbroken. The spot
where the athletic young mountaineer
stood was little frequented, lying on
the rugged little pathway that led
down into the valley where the little
mountain stream trickled, and beside
which, in d hidden nook, the big still
house stood. And yet, unfrequented
and known only to the mountaineers
as it was, Big Dolph was by no means
sure that the shrewd young event
officer was not upon his heels.
Ten minutes before Big Dolph had
been sitting beside Maidie Dexter, his
sweetheart. at her fathers home, and
between holding her soft little hand,
now and then stealing a kiss, and
watching tn. lovely shadows come and
go in her cheeks, his bliss was perfect.
In the midst of it bewhiskered, hardy
and fierce-looking old John Dexter had
run in upon them with a startling bit
of news. The revenues" were in the
n~eighborhood, and in five minutes
would be at DeAter's door.
s'Dolph," said old Dexter, they've
been prowling about for two days, and
they've done it like sneaks. That
young cuss, Jack Haggard, is one OF
'em." The import of the news was not
underestimated by Big Dolph, and at
the mention of young Haggard's name
a fierce fire lit up his eyes.
He grabbed his rifle, and, kissing
Maidie, stepped out. At the door he
caught sight of the well-known figure
of Jack Haggard, climbing up the
steep toward the house, not two han,
dred yards away. Dolph disappeared
around the house. His strong, well
trained neither limbs carried him fast
as the wind into a covering of trees
several hundred yards south, where he
came into the mountain path. Once in
this he sped like a racer, now ano
then hating for a second to listen, per
haps for the sound of firing. At last
he drew up, quite out of breath, ano
at a fever heat of excitement, where
placed him in the opening paragraph
Big Dolph was not afraid; he wished
to avoid discovery and capture. HI
had never been caught, though Jacl
Haggard had carried off SO many O
his neighbors. The secluded nool
where he and old Dexter had been op
Grating for years had so long remained
undisturbed that they had begun to re
gard It as invulnerable. Their only
fear was Haggard.
For him Big Dolph had the ierces
hatred-a feeling that had its origin il
q matter entirely independent Of thu
natural feeling of hatred hat is in
stinctive in the breast of every moon
sinner toward q revenue official. Hag