Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1893-06-29

She had calculated all the chances;
Mrs. Loriner was unfailingly due in
| the dairy at that time of day. Lorimer
! as unfailingly at the corn-crib, super
vising the mules evening meal; Dick
and Rafe, her most devoted squires,
were fortunately out at the landing,
keeping watch and ward over a big
shipment of cotton.
She drew ner shawl closer about her
shoulders as she passed from under the
shelter of the portico. It was cooler
than she had expected to find it, and
there was suggestion of rain in the
raw autumn air. At less excited mo-.
ment, she would probably have turned
back and given up her rash expedition,
or else prepared herself for disagree
able possibilities with waterproof and
umbrella.
She did neither. She pushed on as
rapidly as possible; past the struggling
negro cabins, whence the odor of frying
bacon and weak coffee floated siclsen-
ingly to her Disguised nostrils; beyond
the large wooden boundary-gate, which
sagged SO badly on it's hinges that it re-
quired both her hands and all her
strength to open it; out into the I'M
cultivated parts of the place, where
the dry rafting corn and cotton-stalls
gave way TO broad eXpanses of tall red
dish sedge-grass which lined the clayey
slopes, and made acceptable bits of
color, in bright contrast with the vivid
evergreen of the dwarf pines that soon
closed her in from possible detection
from the house.
She moved forward without any def
mite plan Of action, or any defined
course. Wherever she detected the
slightest indication of a trodden path
among the slippery pine needles, she
followed it to its termination; perhaps
it would end suddenly where a stray
Cling growth of cane had tempted the
hungry cattle into pleasant by-ways.
She could hear the soft tinlxle of cow
bells amidst the dense greenery of the
cane that waved far above their horned
heads and closed them in from sight.
Perhapsit would end, in the most incon-
sequential fashion, in the midst of a
clump of pines, over whose dwarfed
heads she could see chill pallid pink
glow feebly painting the western sky.
With abrupt suddenness one of
these blind leads began to descend. At
her feet lay a ravine. Deep, deep down
wards it extended, its ragged sides
ClOChco Win "OOl1tho gro" GI1S Ol HELL
fold sorts. Tall trees there We're. vine
clad with rI1ddy-leaved creepers to
their very apex. standing SO far
down in the ravine that their leafy
crowns were on level with her
own unsheltered head. A tangled will
derness of shrubs and trees spread at
her feet. She could hear sleepy birds
twittering among the branches of the
She could Iuhora
tangled growth of vine, shrub and
tree, that fell abruptly away from her
where she stood on grassy projection,
climbed upward again as abruptly
across an intervening space of perhaps
fifty feet.
''This must be Dry bayou! And to
think she never should have heard of it
before!''
She came to a halt with her feet
planted among the soft green MOSES,
while the red-brown plumes of the
sedge-grass waved closely about hersle
der shoulders twas very still out there.
'.Solomoly beautiful" she called it.
The soft gray twilight enwrapped the
earth earlier there than elsewhere.
Stretching at her feet was a narrow but
distinct trail. She shranl1 from the de-
pleasant thing to lose ones self down
there among those bosky shadows.
Close to her, so close that she could
have leaned against it's trunk had she
been so minded, stood an oak tree whose
life current had been Slapped by the
usurping mistletoe that clothed the
gray dead branches with clusters of
living green. A hooking bird futtered
across the shadowy ravine, and, light
ing upon a mistletoe bough woke the
echoes with his varied melody. Johns
wife pushed the damp hair that was
clinging to her temples back behind her
small ears, with a gesture of Impotence
that was linked to pain.
The hooking bird was calling to his
mate. Where was the wanderer? The
plaintive note of a wood pigeon foated
up to her from the shadowy recesses of
Dry Bayou It furnished a dulcet minor
to the hooking birds clear notes. 1t
struck a responsive chord in the excited
fancy of that lonely listener there
among the russell grasses
''She is lonely, that unseen dove! So
am 1! Oh! John, so am I!' She laughed
historically at what she called, in audi
BILE tones, wild foolish fancy begot-
ten of the hour and the place. Her
moods We're as variant as the notes of
the hooking bird still shrilling his love
song under the mistletoe bough. With
a sudden outf1inging of her arms, she
called aloud: ''Johni John Lorimer!
Husband! Where are you, John?"
The hooking bird hushed his whist
ling and few away, startled. Only the
far off tinkling of COW bell and the
nearer plaintive moan of the wood pi-
geon broke the deathlike stiffness. Her
excited nerves were not soothed by ma
lures plant mood. She stamped her
foot passionately, crying aloud: ''A
sweet, wild trysting place for saint
and married man! I abhor myself I
abhor him."
Then reason itself seemed to fly away
startled, as the hooking bird had done,
and left Johns wife standing there,
quivering, wonder-struck. passion
swayed woman, no longer capable of
rational action or thought.
Two moving objects had come upon
the still landscape, across the narrow
ravine, blurring and blotting out all
the beauty of it for Nora Lorimer.
From her coigne of vantage she could
plainly discern Johns tall, muscular
figure in its parb of drab cOrflurOy He