The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1897-03-30
O. HAT night after retiring,

day. The visit of the suspicious
stranger had aroused his fears that
the family was in danger. He surmised
that the stranger was a renegade spy
and that he was taking in the lay of
the land with view of bringing the
indians down upon the home of his
unsuspecting father. This idea be-
came fixed and permanent, and with
resolution formed to track the
stranger the next day and satisfy
himself, he went to sleep.
At break of day, after eating what
cold victuals he could find left over
from the last nights supper, he seiz-
ed his trusty rifle, buckled on his
hunting knife, and sprang into the
forest. That is the way all hunters
do. They spring into the forest.
Some people ride in, and some walk
in, but hunters in novels would not
be so undignified. They always
spring in. Our hero soon found1the
trail of the stranger. 1t was not a
difficult task to hunter like Albert.
His quick eye caught the red keel
marks of the traveller OH the gate
posts along the route, and when he
was at loss as he sometimes was of
course, he would inquire. And thus
he track ed the fugitive through the
virgin forest. The trail led up
through Athens, Jacksonville and
Logan. Albert might have taken
the train from Athens, but he was
afraid he might pass the stranger on
the way and miss HIM altogether, so
he hoofed it. At Athens, the trail
was lost, but meeting General Gros-
venor and Bronte Jewett, who We're
going out to try case before a
Squire at Canaanville, Albert learn
ed that his Weary Willie had passed
through Athens the day before, load
ed to the guards with fire water and
embellished with what looked to be
a tomato can in the last stages of dis
intergration and which had the
odor of very sour and very
stale extract of the fruit of the hop
vine. With this clew, our hero sped
on. The solitary track of the pursued
was visible in front of the Athens
court house and once more upon the
trail. he did not lose it until he
reached the wilds of Logan. Here
alone in the depths of the untrodden
our hero leaned against
one of the posts of the Remple House,
utterly nonplussed. Not footprint,
not a crushed limb, not keel mark,
could be seen. This wilderness, like
the ocean, has it's grandure, beauty
and sublimity. The boundless eX.
panse of woods and the boundless
expanse of waters inspire the same
feeling of awe in him who is alone
in the depths of one or alone On the
bosom of the other. Both speak in
the voiceless language of the great
Framer and Maker; and man alone,
solitude, with no human being near,
is strikingly impressed with his own
littleness and insignificance when
with the mightiness of
what surrounds him. We take the
spasnl from our friend
Emerson. He evidently had visited
Logan, and experienced the sensa-
tions that come to all visitors to this
primitive and uninhabited region,
this trackless, undisturbed rendez-
vous of the wolf, the fox, General
Weldy and Jacksonian simplicity.
And here our hero stood motion
less, watching the English sparrows
their nests in the flowing
locks of the free and unlimited Pop
ocrat and listening to the zephyrs
signing through the lace lambrequins
that decorate the cheeks of the sage
of the Hooking Sentinel, the local
and lonesome relic of Grover Cleve-
lands dying administration.
While standing there, lost in a seal
brown reverie, Albert felt hand up
on his shoulder, and, as may be
naturally conjectured, he made a
bound forward, clutching his rifle
and with all the dex-
terity he was master of, turning it
upon his supposed enemy. But the
latter had taken care to place Dick
Ramsey's corpulent barber pole be-
tween himself and the other, SO that
nothing of his person was visible and
as Albert, m"re rash than wise, ran
around the pole to get la sight of him,
ne avoided being seen, by moving
around the pole also, in perfect time g
with the other, as the center of
wheel revolves with the circumfer-
ence. In vain Albert went faster or
slower, turned back suddenly, or
darted ahead, he could only
get a glimpse of the futtering fringe
If the garments of his strange antag-
)nist. What he did see led him to
believe 1t was indian, notwith-
this was General Weldy's
for he appeared to be
covered with untanned skins worn
With the hair outside.' At length
wearied with his attempts to get
ullview of the stranger, and Ramsey
'eing engaged in shaving a customer,