The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1897-09-15
The OLD SILVER TRAIL.
BY MARY {. STlCKNEY.
copyright 1896. by J. B. Lippinoott Col
CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XII.
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, eN
quisite blue, the heat at midday OPP
pressive, although al 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 u touch of red, more often with the
dark disks of dead sunflowers bent low
on their shriveed stems. Behind them
the mountains had caught 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 qualling asps
Haunted in lines of flickering yellow
flame up every gulch, flame that daily
burned more low; and down by the
creek the cottonwoods, erstwhil"
clothed in palest yellows and faded
greens, 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 wthal 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
npathetic disgust for it all that hardly
took shape of words even in his
thoughts. He had been i'll of that form
oftyphus known us 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 overmuch beef tea;
but now he was fast mending, the pro-
test of his appetite taking form in an
intense desire for varied and generally
taboocd 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
irg the creek, and few struggling cab
ms, their back yards abruptly sloping
TO the stream, while behind them
showed the dreary sequence of bare,
ba;n-like buildings housing the aban-
doned process of treating ores, each adj
dition in the line little lower and
smaller than its predecessor, so that the
whole wore an air of having been drawn
out like cunning contrivance of Chi
nese boxes. Beyond the mill were the
q tree-fringed tops of the hills hedging
y the creek where the Tomtown road
crept along by it's side; and many n
time, as he looked, it had seemed to
Neil as though the old mill had dis
solved to nothingncss, so clear before
his staring eyes was the shaded vista
of roadway where a young girl in q
broad brimmed hat and dainty mus.
lin gown seemed forever looking al
him in smiling greeting
To-day, however, he was hardly
thinking of the Tomtown road or even
of Dorothy Meredith hardly thinking
of anything beyond the soul-sickeninq
WEAKNESS of this environment which
held for him nothing that at the mo
ment he was willing to reckon good
He was so tired of il all; so heart
sick; so homesick. He had spared his
mother knowledge of his sickness. sit
Ting up in bed now and then to penci
her brief scrawls for which he apollo
gized on special pleas of haste; bu
now. lying here alone in the drearN
little hotel chamber. he felt himsel
fairly starving for her sympathy, he
eucompassing love. He longed to 20
away, to be at home, to forget Wind,
Gulch. the Tomtown road-everything
His mind was so weary of traversins
over ana over the same treadmill roun,
of thought. thoughts which began an,
ended with her. Dorothy Meredith
WHY should he keep alive n memor,
which could hold for him nothing o
sweetness that was not swallowed III
in charrin? II was time he learned th
lesson of forgetting; but here. wher
everything served 10 recall her. it wa
impcssible. lie must get away IL