River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1897-01-21

Claiming granted her permission L"
;oin him at the railroad town. She was
very poor. Generally she was ecnsid-
crate and scIf-sacrificing. Now she
clamored, and would not be quieted I'M
til a mortgage was raised on the
wretched little house that was all in
the world her mother and crippled sis
ter owned. She bought her ticket
with the money. and ten days after the
receipt of Channing's letter she was at
the meeting place-alone.
She spent a day and two nights in
the mean little depot hotel, very nearly
out of her mind with loneliness, fright,
and at last an acknowledged distrust.
Then Channing's mother arr, ed. and
an officer met them with a. ambulance.
Claiming was dying III fever, the
mother told her. The doctor had tele'
graphed for her, without her sons
knowledge, the day after the girl had
left the village. Then Anna re-
preached herself for her suspicious
with unreasoning bitterness.
The drive TO the post took two days
II was a horrible experience for the OF
ficer. The road stretched on, on, on
across desert and bad lands. "here
even the greasewood and mesquite WAS
burned by the terrible sun. The old
woman sank from the dust and the
heat into an almost senseless state.
The girl, being young and strong and
alive. fought with the strangling dust
gasped. twisted her small hands. and
bit her lips in a perfectly silent strug-
gle. Sometimes, as the lieutenant SAL
opposite them, he wished that they
could cry or make a sound.
The beautiful daughter OF Col. Ross
was standing by Channing's bed alone
when the doctor led the mother and her
youngcompanion in. The lieutenanthad
been dead 20 minutes. The dark-eyec
woman did not turn, she had forgotten
everything in all the world. save only
Channing's face. When the southern
girl dropped down at the bedside and
screamed for her husband, she started
as the poor thing crazy?" she asked
DULY, of Mrs. Claiming.
"No. But she was not married to
him. Only she was 10 have been mar
ried at Santa Maria, two or three days
ago; forget when. He sent for her."
THAT can't be true, because am his
wife"
Mrs. Claiming caught at the bedpost
with her shriveled old hand. "Non
sense!" she said.
Indeed, il is true. Aren't you his
mother?" She put her arm tenderly
about the bent shoulders. Il thought
you were. You look like him. He and
were married last night at midnight
when they told us he was going to die. :
ANIMAL Come away, Anna! You've
n right there. Get up. This girls his
wife. He didn't love you. He married
her. He married her-last night"
1t was cruel, but Mrs. Claiming had
| gone mad.
For five years afterward Col. Ros;
cared for the insane mother of his
I daughters husband-even when his
daughter was dead.
But until Claiming was buried in thu
graveyard on the hill, where the coyotes
dug up the mounds at night. and the
prairie dogs barked shrilly. and the
Snakes glided along the dry. baked
earth into their holes-untiI he was
buried there the two women stayed by
her. Their trust in the dead man never
faltered. The girl believed he had been
ensnared on his death-bed; the wife
that he had never loved the childish
pretty Virginian. Yet neither-out OF
pity-spolle her convictions.
;s ,Ia,- 3,
the room where he had died, and lis
tened to the thud of the soldiers feet
as they marched by outside, following
the young officers fiag-covered coffin
Then there was long. long silence
They were wide apart-the wife with
her beautiful head in her hands; the
girl, looking straight at the wall; tho
old woman muttering and scratching al
her gown with her crooked fingers.
At last care the sound If far-o'
volley of musketry. The girl jumped
up. whats that?''
"The firing over his grave"
In a moment it came again. The girl
stood swaying. The wife sat with he-
head still bowed. II was no new sound
to her.
A pause-then the last volley. The
girl fell. and the woman. lifting her
head, stared stupidity at the pretty. dead
face, at the fixed, childish eyes. tina;
still looked hurt; while the mother
muttered in the corner and taps shrilled
from the bugle over the grave of the
man they had loved.-San Francisco
ArgonaCt