The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-24
DELIRIUM OF EYES.
The Strange Adventure Western
Hunter Thought He Had.

From the Denver Republican.
Eph Baird had lived a good half of his
life in the mountains, and had never
been afraid. Then. at an age when his
experience should have been complete,
and mis- nerves hardened to any strain he
met with an adventure which, having first
dealt a rude blow TO his most cherished
theories and given him an unexpected in
sight into the subJbct of metaphysics, sent
him in haste to tine nearest mining town,
where he might, in the presence of sub
stantial human beings, get new hold up
on the reality of things. He is still try
ing for that hold, and il has been mat
ter OF no small wonder to many curious
people, though manifestly none of their
business, that the solitary, the nature-lov-
ing, croWd-hating Eph Baird should have
become so suddenly infatuated with the
common comforts of a fire of Goals, ana
the chatter Of a pungent barroom. The
strangest thing of all, moreover, is that
this revolution of haste is an inexplica-
Bile, though perhaps not so utterly mys-
FERROUS, to Baird as it is to the most eager
gossip IN the town; and IL any one, hay
ing read his narrative, can offer an ex-
PLANTATION that will be satisfactory to the
common sense of a plain man, why, let
him do it-and welcome to the honor
1t was at the close of an autumn day in
the year 49,. Eph Baird, in a very ugly
frame of mind, sat upon a bowlder near
the summit OF particularly wild and
rugged mountain in the Sangre de Cristo
range. For number of hours he had
been pursuing mountain sheep, which
There was, he growled to himself, some
thing queer about the beast, for no other
animal he had ever met had been able to
give him the slip in manner so haunting.
So 1t put him in vain rage, when, after
long pursuit, he saw the sheep stand
ing on a rock, the topmost of the noun
tain, his graceful body outlined in bold
silhouette against the red of the sinking
sun. He aimed his rifle at the statuesque
figure and fired-ired with as much sense
as If the sun itself had been his target. A
few seconds longer the sheep stood there
and then dropped out of sight and the
hunter was left alone in the twilight and
his own angry reflections.
The place where he rested was, he cal
culated, at least half dozen miles from
his camp, no great matter in level coun-
try, but not a pleasant thing to contem-
plate when the route was to be found and
would at best lead over heaped-up rocks
and precipitous descents all overgrown
with a tangle of brush and a shadowing
of spruce trees. Night was coming on. Be
low him the mute forests of pine were full
dark and the shivering shadows were
crawling upward toward the summit,
where twilght's sober hues still fingered.
With a last look at the pink glow along
the ragged top of the mountain, Baird
gathered up his tired limbs and started
down the bowlder-l Uttered slope.
He was getting along encouragingly and
was just about to congratulate himself
upon having the best of the ill-omened
animal after ALL when, of a sudden, a
bowlder gave way beneath his foot and
he was precipitated down steep decliv
of little gulch or ravine, one of those
deep, diminutive hollows hid away among
the hills and discernible at a distance
only as darker shadows on the mountain
Sides This one he had been trying to
avoid, as he picked his way downward.
not liking the looks of 1t. But finding him
self there, despite his inclinations, Baird
concluded in his WEAKNESS that to follow
the ravine, with all its possibilities, would
be an undertaking preferable to that of
climbing the steep declivity to his former
position So he struck out boldly, though,
with some trepidation, into the shades.
A great tangle of spruce and aspen and
fir with an annoying underground, OPP
posed him, and it was with a growing sense
of having tackled a bad job that he
forced himself desperately through it.
The vines tripped him, the stubborn limbs
bruised his body, and the needles scratch
ed his face, so that when he suddenly
burst through the distractions into what
seemed small clearing IN the pine grove;
he stopped in his tracks to breathe and
to mutter an imprecation upon the pesky
sheep, to which his superStitious miSgiV-
ings persisted in attributing the RESPONSE
bility for his misfortunes. He looked
about him and saw small leafy corri-
dor cleared of underground, as If by the
hand of man, but wholly shut In like
Through the arching roof of this green
cave Baird, as he looked curiouSly, dis
cerned the faint twinkling of a star or
dimly illuminated. As his glance fell
again upon the lower limbs of the trees
it was arrested with ShOck that reverb
Grated along all his nerves by the appear
ance of two burning, round spots, set in
the darkness not dozen feet from where
he stood and a trifie higher than the level
of his head He stared at them and his
fingers mechanically sought the lock of
his rife Then, as he studied the spots,
he was able to trace the vague outlines of
a thing perched upon the limb of a tree.
He laughed boisterously. Only an owl--to
be frightened by an owl! He felt a flush
Of chagrin chasing the pallor away from
his cheeks.
IAN right. old fellow" he calculated;