The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-08-30

subtle strain of pity. AS year by year
his daughter and the boy twined them
selves ever closer about his heart, Van
dimes hate against the man who had
wronged them both kept ever deepen
ing 10 a keener anguish.
But now at last the day had come.
When first he had caught sight of Mac
Pherson in the yard below. the impulse
to rush down and throttle him was so
tremendous that as he curbed it the
blood forsook his face, leaving it the
color of ashes, and for few seconds he
could not tend his saw. Presently.
when the yelping little demon was again
at work biting across the timbers, the
foreman drew near and Nandine asked
him: Who's the new hand down yon-
der?''
OH said the forman, leaning a lit
tie over the bench to follow Vandine's
pointing. "yon's one Sandy Macpherson.
from over on the Kennebec. He's been
working in Maine these seven year
past, but says he kind of got a banker
ing after his own country, an SO he's
come back. Good handr'
THAT sou was all Vandine replied.
All the long forenoon. amid the wild.
or menacing. or warning, complain
ing crescendos and diminuendOs of the
unresting saws. the mans brain seethed
with plans of vengeance After all
these years of waiting he would be salts
fed with no common retribution. To
merely kill the betrayer would be in
sufficient He would wiring his soul and
quench his manhood with some strange,
unheard-of horror. ere dealing the final
stroke that should rid earth of his
presence.
Scheme after scheme burned through
his mind. and at times his gaunt face
would crease itself in a dreadful smile
as he pulled the lever that drove the
blade through the deals. Finding no
plan altogether to his taste, however.
he resolved to postpone his revenge till
night, at least, that he might have the
more time to think ii over. and to In
dulge the luxury of anticipation with
realization so easily within his grasp.
At noon, Vandine muttering to him
self, climbed the steep path to the lit
tie cottage on the hillside. He ate his
dinner in silence, with apparently no
perception of what was being set be-
fore him. His daughter dared not break
in upon his preoccupatiOn. Even his
idolized Stevie could win from him no
notice, save a smile of grim triumph
that frightened the child. Just as he
was leaving the cottage to return to
the mill, he saw Sarah start back from
the window and sit down suddenly,
grasping at her bosom, and blanching
TO the lips as if she had seen a ghost.
CHANGING downward to the black road,
deep with rotted sawdust, he saw Mac
PhersOn passing.
Who is it?" he asked the girl.
SANDY, she murnlure0, nuSnlnR
scarlet and averting her face.
Her father turned away without a
word and started down the hill. Pres
emily the girl remembered that there
was something terrifying in the EXPIRES
sion of his face as he asked the curt
question. With a sudden, vague fear
rising in her breast, she ran to the
cottage door.
Father she cried, father But
Vandine paid no heed to her calls. and
after pause she turned back into the
room TO answer Stevie's demand for a
cup of milk.
Along about the middle of the after
noon, when Sandy MACPHERSON was still
carting sawdust and Vandine tending
! his circular amid the bewildering din,
Stevie and some other children came
down to play around the mill. The IA
vorite amusement with these embryo mill
hands. steam drivers and lumbermen
was to get on the planks as they
emerged from the upper story of the
| mill. and so careering swiftly and
smoothly down the sides. till. just be
fore coming to the final plunge, they
would jump off and fall on the heap of
sawdust- This was game that to
strangers looked perilous enough, but
there had never been an accident, so
at Aspohegan mills it had outgrown the
disapproval of the hands. To Sandy
MACPHERSON, however, it was new, and
/ from time TO time he eyed the sport ap-
prehensively. And all the while Vandine
glared upon him from his corner in the
upper story, and the children raced
shouting down the slides, and tum-
bled with bright laughter into the saw
dust
Among the children none enjoyed
more than Stevie this racing down the
slides His mother looking out Of the
window on the hillside, saw the merry
little figure, bareheaded the long yellow
| curls floating out behind him as he half
knelt, half sat on the sliding plank
ready to jump off at the proper moment.
She had no thought of danger as she
resumed her homework Neither had
Stevie. At length it happened. however,
| that just as he was nearing the end
of the decent, an eagle came sailing
low overhead. caught the little fellows
eye. and diverted his attention for a
moment. 1t was the fatal moment.
Just as he looked down again. gather
ing himself to jump his heart sprang
into his throat, and the plank with a
sickening lurch plunged into the churn-
ing basin. The child's shrill. frightened
shrek was not half uttered ere the
waters choked it.
Vandine had just let the buzzing little
circular slip back into its recess, when
he saw Macpherson spring from his
cart and dash madly down to the shore
At the same instant came that shrill
cry, so abruptly silenced. Vandine's
| heart stood still with awful terror-he
| had recognized the child's voice. In
| second he had swung himself down over
the scaffolding, alighting on a sawdust
| heap.
Hold back the dealsv' he yelled in a
| voice that pierced the din. 1t was not
| five seconds ere every one in the mill
seemed to know what had happened
| Two men sprang on the slides and
| checked the stream of deals. Then the
| great turbines ceased to grumble. and
| all the clamOr of the saws was hushed
! The unexpected silence was like a blow,
| and sickened the nerves
And meanwhile-Stevie? The plank
that bore his weight, clinging desper-
| ately to it. plunged deeper than his
! fellows and came up somewhat further
| from the slide, but not now with Stevie
/ upon it, The child had lost his hold
| and when he rose it was only to strike
| against the bottoms of three or four
| deals that lay clustered together
| This, though apparently fatal, was in
| reality the child's salvation, for during
| the half or three-quarters of a min
J ute that interviewed before the slides
! could be stopped the great planks kept
/ dropping and plunging and crashing
| about him. and had il not been for
| those very timbers that cut him off
! from the air he was choking to breath
| he would have been crushed and bat
| tered out of all human semblance in a.
second. AS ii was, ere he had time to
| suffocate. MACPHERSON was on the spot
In an instant the young mans heavy
| boots were kicked off. and without paus-
ing to count the odds, which We're hid