The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-03-22

are sorry for the blunder," and with a
courteous gesture of farewell TO Helen
the party rode away.
Both leaders lay dead in their tracks.
Clearly there was nothing to do but to
wait for the Pine Valley coach. Helen
was made comfortable with shawls and
wraps on bed of pine boughs and fell
asleep quietly under the stars. She did
not wake even when the coach came up.
Now, Helen" a voice said, and she
opened her eyes to find Harry standing
beside her. and with him tall figure,
dark in the starlight. Another road
agent?'' she said, half asleep.
Harry laughed. 1--WE don't know
what he may develop into. At present
he is Frank Bronson.
Helen rose to her feet, broad awake
at once.
You've had stirring introduction
to your new life, a pleasant voice said,
land popular report makes you out
heroine -
Helen flushed little resentfully. He
might have been talking to girl Of 16
in that voice Of easy patronage. She
was silent. Harry, used to that peculiar
ity, did not notice.
Frank Bronson began again, I'm
afraid you'll be inconveniently crowd
ed, Miss Tryon."
81 beg your pardon" in her slow,
cold way, 81 am Mrs Morse. -
They came out just then into the
glare of the lamps Bronson looked at
her curiously.
Harry did not tell me-, he said,
with sudden air of constrained bash
fulness.
At the journeys end the passenger
whose pocketbook she had saved took
finger "a memento, madam, simply
nomento. The ring was in the wallet.
You saved me $15, 900 last night by
your presence of mind.
She would not take it, but few
weeks later there came to her through
the postofice the stone reset in another
ring heavy enough for an armlet She
smiled, slipping it over her slender fin
ger Then she met Bronson s eyes watch
ing her.
'My good deeds pursue me. am the
heroine of Pine Gulch. Would you
have suspected it? And there is no ad-
dress. She dropped the ring into his
hand and walked away.
They were settled now in their new
home. A very sketchy sort of home it
was, but enough for the needs of a eli
| mate where house is not needed much
more or much oftener than an umbrel-
la. They had camped with the luxuries
of wall tents while the young men did
their own building. A sitting room,
two sleeping rooms and kitchen, that
was all, and the canvas Of the tents
made an awning under which ham.
mock might be swung. The new pine
boards were aromatic in the hot sun
shine; the conventional requirements Of
living were reduced to their very SIM
plest form.
1t was a solitary enough life for a
woman. One of Harry's experimental
gang of Chinese workers had been de-
tailed to kitchen duties, and the peace
of the house was profound But
Helen liked it. Dreamy and silent she
was still, but somehow, little by little,
she seemed to come back toward human
sympathies and interests. Half uncon-
sciously her black garments were laid
aside as oppressive in the heat of the
long, bright days. The young men COM
ing home at night found white draped
presence awaiting them. Harry thought
without spoken comment that some-
thing of her girlhood as he remembered
it was coming back into her face and
into the rounding outlines of her figure.
Once or twice he heard an echo of the
old imperious infections Of speech when
something went wrong in the simple
programme of their housekeeping. Once
or twice she laughed aloud at some Of
Sam Lees achievements At least the
old mOnotonous calm was broken. She
had is of depression, felt keenly in the
sensitive household atmosphere.
1t was the evening after the coming
of the ring. Helen found herself at the
very bottom Of her register nf feeling
They We're all out of doors in the large
starred, dewless southwestern night
| The two men, outstretched ON their
blankets, lay silently smoking Helen,
swinging in her hammock, was speech
less too. By and by Earry asked her
| some trivial question, and the voice that
answered him was hoarse with tears
He took no notice, and minute after
she went into the house. Harry followed
her and eame back after awhile, his
own voice rot oversteady.
"That Il has broken down at last.
It's the time in years. and not easy
years either. | doubt if any one has
seen her cry since she came home'
Mrs. Morse?''
WHO eise?" testify. How hate
the name! never think of it if can
help it. You don't know the story?'
81 have guessed-that Is. mean l
conldn't help knowing there was some-
thing painful. Mrs. Morse is young to
be widow"
''Sho is 25," brusquely. Helen al
ways would have her own way She
had it when she was II and married a
scoundrel. He got life sentence for
train robbery and was killed trying to
make his escape from prison. She got
the news the day her only child was
buried"
Bronson gave half groan, sound
almost like sob, as 4ryon paused in
his blunt recital
That was two years ago. She never
whimpered under it, and tonight she is
crying as if she would kill herself And
| don't know but she Fill Think of a
woman's life going to wrceh l:ke thatr'