Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1898-11-18
etched forth her hand. -Randy

QcdI. SuC Wills pSACOs
Merriam reused himself with sud-
den start. Forgive me, Floy, Floy
darling! But this is dreadful shock.
Will you mind my getting a paper?"
and he looked appealingly about him.
A waiter sprang forward. Did the cap
tain wish anything? The morning pa
per? Certainly. Which one? Oh, any
one-all of them in fact; and present
ly they were brought, as was the break
he read on through paper after paper,
fast, and the breakfast grew cold while
grewsome details in one and all. yet not
the details he sought.
And Florence had lost all appetite and
was intent only on him, waiting almost
meekly for him to speak. Some of the
papers declared the injuries mortal.
Randy passed the papers one after an
other without comment to her, as he
read them. She took each as it came,
obediently, helpfully, but folded and
laid it by her side, then returned to her
wordless study of his troubled face. AT
last the fourth sheet was finished, and
with long sigh he turned and saw
her. MY darling! my darling!" he
whispered, a great shame and sorrow
overpowering him as he noted the in
tensity of her sympathy ming1ing with
the mournful sense of her utter moth
ingness to him at the moment. ''Oh,
Florence, how could I be so forgetful
of you? But I have had a dreadful
shock. You do not know what this
means, what it would mean if McLane
should die now-and cannot tell YOU"
And all she said was: ''Hushi Randy,
Hpor 60ptf ich 10 {oI1
But McLane did not iie-at once, at
least. Three weeks the police worked
at that clew and the doctors at him,
and neither with much success-cer-
tainly with little help from the victim,
who was in woeful state of collapse
much of the time, protesting ignorance
of any excuse for shooting on the part
of anybody, and consumed with dread
full fear of death. 1t was wonder that
under the circumstances he rallied suff1-
GENTLY to be up and able to be moved.
The, March winds of Frisco were
leagued against him. The doctors
wished to take him back to Coronado,
but he declared that any part of Cali
fornia would be death to him. He
wished to go home at once. Within
the week of the shooting Ned Parry ar
rived from Chicago, and had some long
interviews with his sister-in-law, but
was not allowed to see the patient:
neither was she except at rare inter
walls, an affection which she bore with
Christian resignation. Then Parry had
to go back, but not before he had re-
ceived a note from Merriam, had visited
him, and had shown every attention to
and deep interest in his gentle bride,
and had had one long conference with
the husband, alone.
When Mr.. McLane was declared we'll
enough to move they carried him
aboard steamer and sent him TO Pana-
ma. Fanny, his wife, in attendance, as
in duty bound. But even the best and
biggest stateroom was close and stuffy,
as she said, and her hours were mainly
spent on deck. 1t was the nurse who
had to bear with Macs ceaseless plants.
He had grown suddenly old, childish,
decrepit, fearful. They had to stay
some days at Panama, and had a
wretched time, at least he did, being
transferred thence to Havana, where
he was enjoined to remain at least six
weeks. But some morbid longing
drew him irresistibly back to New
York. Go he would, and in April they
exchanged the summer seas, the soft,
perfume-laden air, the warm sunshine
of the tropics for the fogs and buster
of the North Atlantic seaboard. Pneu-
monia set in and claimed the feeble
wreck for it's own. Several weeks be-
fore the anniversary of that brilliant
wedding and still more brilliant re-
ception, Fanny McLane was weeping
decorous,y in widows weeds and listen
ing to the details of the last will and
testament.
Much, but not all, had been left to his
beloved wife, Frances Hayward Nc
Lane, but even that much was curiously
bestowed. Why should Uncle Mellen
be so largely a beneficiary? Why
should he be placed in charge of her
property? Was she not old enough to
look after what was her own? Why
should Uncle Melien here and Uncle
Mellen there appear on page after page
of that formidable document? With
alarming suddenness the tears had van-
ished, dried off, presumably, by the hot
flush on her lovely cheek. Some one
had obtained undue influence over her
husband in his last moments, she de-
clared. Some one had swindled her.
Some one should be given TO understand
she was child-a puppet-no longer,
and two some ones, Uncle and Aunt
Mellen, had a tremendous scene with
the widow before the funeral baked
meats were fairly cold-before thef1ow-
ers began to droop about the new
filled grave. One row led to another,
and then to litigation, and then Sister
Charlotte had relented, sister love and
tenderness triumphing over the sense
of indignation which followed Fans