The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-03-17
A DESERT DREAM
By E. and h. Heron.

OF THE four who had steamed past
the Needless and away under the
low back of the Dorsetshire coast six
months before, only two were left. OF
these two Lee-Carson was the worst
case.
The fever mist was drawn like silk
en- cobweb low across the swamp, hid
ing the black eye-shaped pools and the
variegated putrescence of rotting vege-
tation. The heavy air rang with the
shrill pinioning of wild-fowl changing
their haunts, and the ceaseless "troat-
troat' of the bullfroGs in the quagmires
round.
The two men were making fire on a
dark green ridge somewhat raised
above the chilling level of the marsh.
The mist is rising" said Carson;
''oh, for a sixth-story attic!"
I'D better go and shoot something
before it gets any higher" said the
other man.
What was it you knocked over down
there?" nodding back at the swamp.
Only a long beaked atrocity, species
unknown. A brace of duck or wild
geon would suit us better
Give me flesh and not fowl-the ooze-
bred, mud-breasted progeny of this for
saken swamp. Give me corned beef or
German sausage, for I'm sick of feath-
ers,"
Three more days should do it," re-
marked Grammel, cheerfully, with a
broad optimistic glance westward,
where, however, there was no reassur-
ing break in the dead sea-like level of
the horizon, above which brooded sui
len sunset.
Then go and leave me here with
food and ammunition. You can come
back for me afterwards"
'I'll get supper first" said Grammel;
S'keep the fire in
When his companion was gone, Lee
Carson lay down beside the shoulder
ing blaze, and his eyes wandered slow
1y over the unending vista of seething
mist Presently he began to talk out
loud.
"Grammel could reach the highlands
II | were out of the way. I'm dying any.
how, and it seems q pity
"a day less or more, at sea or shore,
We die-does it matter when?'
mo, it doesn't matter. It's a relief
Grammel won't leave me, so I'll leave
him"
He drew shotgun towards him.
Loaded for swamp-fowl," he said, as
ha Snnnna1 il on1 lnil 4
-'Tll not write a note to you, Grammel
because you would worry yourself, be
ing fool. No, I'll come to nicely ar
ranged natural end. It's waste to let
two men die when death only puts in
claim for one. Grammel will get
through this and lecture before the Ge
ographical society about the swamps
md the forests and our scientific re-
searches, and then he'll write boob
with the help of female literary
cousin, and marry her afterwards. anC
then thefe'll be little Grammels, and
I'm be forgotten"
Then he made his arrangements
with the gun. 1t had 32-inch bar
rel, and Lee-Carson's hand was un
steady, for he was very weak. There
fore, when the charge sputtered into t.
the mud and brush behind his shoulder
he sank down insensible.
When Grammel returned he founC
the fire blackening, and his conrad,
with his feet tangled in tuft of grass
and the gun lying across his chest
Grammel examined him hastily.
$50 that was your little game, was it
AS if l shouldn't have known!' he ex
claimed. IT'S all so like the young as
too" he added, gently.
Within an hour the night had closec
in. and Lee-Carson, wrapped up in
blanket and a couple of empty provi
sion sacks, sat blinking over the fir,
male of dried reeds and the moiderin.
Y"mnants of Il forest, and shivcred, hi
head hummirg with the 20 grains o
Guinine which WAS to be his garrison
against the now almost due attack o
s'va NJ fever.
''.-Al -, tsem tie a'hcr side of tn