Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1898-01-27
The Old SILVER Trail.
BY MhRY E. STlCKNEY.
lcOpyrieh, 1896. by }. B uippircou Col
CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XII.
It 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 a 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 a touch of red, more often with the
dark disks of dead sunflowcrs bent low
on their shriyeled stems. Behind them
the mountains had caught q 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 shiverand turn blue
again with the cold. The quaking asps
Haunted in lines of Pickering yellow
flame up every gulch. d flame that daily
burned more low; and down by the
creek the cottonwoods. erstwhiI'.
clothed in palest yellows and faded
green's, were leavesl all over with SHIN
1nering 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 n 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 back ground.
Harvey Neil, bolstercd 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
apathetfc 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 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 a 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 discomf fort of his bed and the grow
ing grievance of over-much beef tea:
but now he was fast mcnding, the pro-
test of his appetite taking form in an
intense desire for varied and generally
taboocd forms of refrcshment. while
other interests of life were gradually
reawaliening.
Tie had made his nurse move the bed
nearer the window. that he might look
out; but there was little of entertain
n4ent to be derived there. The room
was at the back of the house. overlook
irg the creek, and q few struggling cab
ms, their back yards abruptly sloping
to the stream. while behind them
showed the dreary sequence of bare,
barn-1ike 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 n cunning contrivance OF Chi
nese boxes. Beyond the mill were the
tree-fringed tops of the hills hedging
the creek where the Tomtown road
crept along by its side: and many a
time. as he looked. it had seemed to
Ned as though the old mill had dis
solved to nothingness, so clear before
his staring eyes was the shaded visia
of roadway where a young girl in a
ad-brimmed hat ard dainty mus
lin gown seemed forever looking at
hin, in smiling greeting.
To-day, however. he was hardly
thinking of the Tomt ovyHroatl or even
of Dorothy Meredith: hardly thinking
OF anything beyond the soul-sickeniEg
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 it all; so hear T.
sick; so homesick. He had spared his
mother knowledge of his sickness. sit
ting up in bed now and then to pencil
her brief scrawis for which he apollo
gized, on special pleas Of haste: but
now, lying here alone in the dreary
little hotel chamber. he felt himself
fairly starving for her sympathy. her
encompassing love. He Ionged to &c
away, to be at home. to forget Windy
Gulch. the Tomtown road-everything
Ills mind was SO weary of traversina
over and over the same treadmill round
of thought. thoughts which began and
ended with her, Dorothy Meredith
Why should he keep alive q memory
which could hold for him nothing ol
sweetness that was not swallowed uI
in chagrin? 1t was time he learned the
lesson of forgetting; but here. where
everything served to recall her. it wa.
saapossible. lie must get away. 81.