The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1898-03-12

singed by the flames over which it had
passed. Four beautiful deer, massive
stag with magnificent antlers and three
soft-eyed does, came at full bound from
the covert to the left of the road, the
buck leading in a frightened run and
the females following with that star
tied, almost human, look in their large
eyes that one notices in animals at bay.
A long, glossy black snake writhed its
swift way through the underbrush,
across the road and was lost to view in
an instant. I scarcely know how man.
aged to see all these minor features in
the play which afterwards came SO near
being tragedy, but every little thing
is indelibly impressed upon my mind,
even to this hour.
Our old horse was now fully alive to
the danger we were in. He trembled
and shook in every limb and drew the
rickety old vehicle along at rate il
had never gone before. held the reins
and spoke encouraging words TO him,
and tried to comfort the brave girl al
my side. Tess was trying to keep the
cinders off us with little silk parasol
lone of my gifts to her-but soon there
were so many holes burned in that
dainty relic Of civilization that it be-
came veritable colander, through
which poured a red-hot binding food
of sparks and smoke. A great kissing,
cracking cinder lighted on her Tam
o'-Shanter and that soon was so near a
blaze that / snatched it off and threw
it away. Tess looked like an angry
goddess. Her long brown hair had es-
capped from its fastenings and swept
out behind in the wind our passage
created. AS she held the reins while
warded off great blazing fir bough
that came hurting down upon US, with
her eyes sparkling with excitement, her
face pale as ashes, and her lips set, she
looked like another Queen Boadicea
driving her chariot of wrath over the
necks of her proud Roman insulters.
Even in those moments of agony i won
dered how she kept up so marvelously.
The heat was frightful. Clouds of
dense white smoke settled about us in
suffocating closeness, while the thun-
der of the falling giants of the forest,
together with the sharp fusillade pro-
duced by their swapping branches and
the eyer-increasing roar of the flames,
made up grand and awful diapason.
And the fire came closer and closer
and finally--it reached us.
"Tess!" I shouted, as put my arm
about her waist and drew her down be-
low the sides of the crazy old vehicle,
'dear girl, our time has come! Good
by!"
Dear Ben, good-by!" / read rather
than heard from her lips. 1t was i'm.
possible to hear her words.
And after that, as the novelists say,
all was like dream. have confused
recollection of heat so terrible as to
almost force my eyes from their sock
cts and shrivel my skin up to parch-
nient--of the old horse dropping to the
ground-of standing over my brave
Tess fighting off the blazing branches
of agonizing burns on my head, face
and hands. And then there came ter
rible crash! Iseemed to see 10000 stars
and all was darkness!
never knew just how long was un-
conscious, but it must have been for
many hours, for when consciousness
again mounted her throne in my soul
it was broad day. AT first could not
open my eyes at all. Then managed to
just separate the lids, but it was the
acutest torment to do SO. l afterwards
found that they had been horribly
burned.
Full sensibility came back very slow
ly. For awhile was dazed. could not
think-only gaze upward stupidity at
the clear sky and wonder what had
happened. Soon, however, it all came
back-all the horror and pain-and
attempted to start up.
my God! Tess!r groaned, as re-
allied fully where was and what had
transpired. But l found 1 was too
weak to do anything except barely
move my head.
When 1 could see about me, what a
desolate scene it was that met my
blurred and crippled vision. AS far as
my poor sight could reach there was
nothing but blackness, except overhead
| "a landscape in jet silhouetted sharp.
ly against the soft azure of the clear
sky. A few feet from me lay the fig
ure of human being! My Godl 1t
was Tess! And was she dead? Merci.
full Heaven! About half of her clothes
were gone and she lay motionless, as
though dead.
How I suffered at that sight no one
but myself can ever know. 1t was
worse than my own misery. But ]
could not move, and the not tears, of