The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-04-28

~H was W. intensely
excited, and his big hands clutchet
with firm grip the rife he carried. His
hurried manner would indicate thai
he was either beng pursued OF was in
yarsuit of some one.
He ran noiselessly, his cat-like tread
sending no warning echoes into the
valley. At point in the path thiclkly
inclosed on every side with dense
growth of mountain snrubbery, he
paused, and. holding his<gun in readi-
ness before him, assumed listening
attitude. The most intense excitement
showed itself in his attitude of trem-
bling expectancy. His rough young
face was lit up with that peculiar ami.
mal-like expression which comes to the
faces of rough, unrefned men OF fierce
passions when they are violently
wrought up.
Breathlessly 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 a 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 revenue
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 tbs lovely shadows come and
go in her cheeks. his bliss was perfect.
In the midst of it bewhiskered, hardy
and fierce-loolling old John Dexter had
run in upon them with a startling bit
of news. The revenues were in the
neighborhood, and in five minutes
would be at DeXter's door,
"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
EN-" 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 ham
dred yards away. Dolph disappeared
around the house. His strong, we'll
trained neither limbs carried him fast
as the wind into covering of trees
several hundred yards south, where he
came into the mountain path. Once in
this he sped like a racer, now and
then hating for second to listen, per-
haps for the sound of firing At last
he drew up, quite ont of breath, and
at a fever heat of excitement, where l
placed him in the opening paragraph.
Big Dolph was not afraid; he wished
to avoid discovery and capture He
had never been caught, though Jack
Haggard had carried of SO many of
his neighbors. The secluded nook
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 fiercest
hatred-a feeling that had its origin in
a matter entirely independent of the
natural feeling of hatred that is in
stinctive in the breast of every moon
sinner toward a revenue official Hag-
gard was often in the eighborhood,
looking out for stills, and he knew him
we'll One day he saw him encounter
Maidie on the mountain road, and, stop
ping his horse, talk with her for a long
while. Under the fascination of the
young officers manner Maidie forgot
that lie was revenue" and that it
was her duty to hate him, and, in talk
lng with him, her pretty young face
had betrayed an animation that moth
ing that he might say to her would call
forth He watched the talk. unob-