The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1897-10-22
The Old SILVER TRAIL.
By MARY E. STICKNEY..
copyright 1896. by j. B. Lippincott Col
CHAPTER XII.

OI1A1 All.
1t was late October, but summer
seemed to have forgotten that it was
time to leave the Colorado world. Day
by day the sky was of an intense, ex-
quisite blue, the heat at midday OPP
pressive, although at morning and even
ing there was the chill in the air that
called for fires. The hills had turned to
duller browns, splashed here and there
with touch of red, more often with the
dark disks of dead sunfowers bent low
on their shriveled stems. Behind them
the mountains had caught a misty blue
that changed to rich lapis-lazuli in the
shadows, fading all day long to paler
tints, until with the going down of the
sun they seemed to SILVER and turn blue
again with the cold. The qual1ing asps
Haunted in lines of Pickering yellow
flame up every gulch, a flame that daily
burned more low; and down by the
creek the cottonwoods, erstwhil"
clothed in palest yellows and faded
green's, were leaved all over with SHIN
mering bits of bronze just touched with
gold where the sunshine played. Even
in the bloSsom-time of summer there
had not been so much of brightness
nor of beauty; but withal Windy Gulch
looked only a shade more dull and
lifeless than it had been before, its old
weather-beaten face borrowing new
ugliness from contrast with the evanes
cent. glory of its background.
Harvey Neil, bolstered up with many
pillows in his bed at the Palace hotel,
looked out at the small segment of land
scape to be seen between the Topped
back curtains of his window, with an
auathetic disgust for it all that hardly
took shape of words even in his
thoughts. He had been i'll of that form
of typhus known as mountain fever, and
the doctor, in order to give him all pos
sible attention, had induced the young
man to allow himself to be brought here
from his cabin at the mine. Here he had
been for nearly three weeks now, his
perceptions for most of the time dulled
beyond heed for anything outside of the
hot discomfort of his bed and the grow
ing grievance of over-much beef tea;
but now he was fast mending, the pro-
test of his appetite taking form in an
intense desire for varied and generally
ts.booed forms of refreShment, while
other interests of life were gradually
reawakening.
He had made his nurse move the bed
nearer the window, that he might look
out; but there was little of entertain
n,ent to be derived there. The room
was at the back of the house, overlook
irp the creek, and few struggling CAD
ms, their back yards abruptly sloplng
to the stream, while behind them
showed the dreary sequence of bare,
barn-Iike buildings housing the aban-
doned process of treating ores, each ad-
ditien in the line a little lower and
smaller than it's predecessor, SO that the
whole wore an air of having been drawn
out like a cunning contrivance OF Chi-
nese boxes. Beyond the mill were the
1ree-fringed tops of the hills hedging
the creek where the Tomtown road
crent along by it's side; and many a
time, as he looked, it had seemed TO
Neil as though the old mill had as
solved to nothingness, so clear DeIore
his staring eyes was the shaded VISTA
of roadway where young girl In
broad-brimmed hat and dainty mus
lin gown seemed forever looking at
him in smiling greeting.
To-day, however, he was haruly
thinking of the Tomtown road or even
of Dorothy Meredith; hardly thinking
of anything beyond the soul-slckening
WEAKNESS of this environment when
held for him nothing that at the mo-
ment he was willing to reckon good
He was so tired of it all; so heait-
sick: so homesick. He had spared ms
mother knowledge of his sickness, slt-
tine ND in bed now and then to pencil
her brief scrawls for which he apolo-
gized on special pleas OF haste; ou'
now, lying here alone in the dreary
little hotel chamber, he felt himself
fairly starving for her sympathy, mel
encompassing love. He longed TO GO
away. to be at home, to forget WINDY
Guleh. the Tomtown road-everythlng
Ills mind was so weary Of trayerslne
over and over the same treadmill rouno
Of thought. thoughts which began and
ended with her, Dorothy Meredith
(, wi should he keep alive memory
~ w}lch could hold for him nothing OF
sweetness that was not swallowed uI
in chagrin? 1t was time he learned tnt
lesson of forgetting; but here, wner'
everything served to recall her. II wa
!. sf,anossible. he must get away. H'