Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1899-11-09
bad, late deals oat to them. They become
Injured to the fckleness Of the great element

bad. fate deals oat to them. They become
Injured to the fckleness IT the great element
which is at once threat and a mainstay,
and the rack of uncertainty on which they
are stretched for most of their lives makes
wild demonstration impossible, be their joys
might: or their griefs deep.
And 81, when l appeared before my moth
er, who, as 1 feared, had given me over as
dead, there was no violence of emotion;
only stunned, ghost-seeing look on her
white face as I entered her presence and
opened my arms to her, and the single ar
ticulate cry of "My son! my son!" as she fell
into them. It was but little more from my
sister, who had been brought up in the
same stoical school, and by the time my long
story had been told, much as am telling it
here, the quiet round of daily life had been
reganed, the sick and wounded transferred
to the small house overlooking the sound,
and the doctor, full of protestations as to his
good intentions, and yet surly withal, in
stalled medical attendant.
After my arrival my earliest business was
to clear up my mind of two responsibilities
weighing thereon: the first to get word to
Gen. Sullivan of the intended move of Sir
Henry Clinton, as feared that by some
slip my first message through the Jenny's
captain might have miscarried; the second,
to have the Phantom's cargo delivered at
New London.
The news of the arrival of Howe and the
departure from Newport of the French to
fight him had already reached the Vine
yard but | was not deceived by this into
thinking that Clinton had worked ahead of
his expressed intention of relieving Pigot in
the course of two weeks. 1t would be too
unlike the man to act with such promptness,
and there had been no force landed to sue
cor the beleaguered royalists. Lord Howe
maneuver had been a move to open the
gates for Reinforcement, and it had been
successful. The doughty British general to
whom had offered personal violence would
hardly have altered his plans because they
had been breathed into the ear of one who,
according to report, had never escaped to
transmit a warning, and who now presum.
ably lay dead at the bottom of the ocean.
With his mistress he doubtless felt vii
famous satisfaction on hearing that the
Phantom, with Beverly Ames on board, had
not followed the Sprite into New York,
but had foundered in the great storm.
to this day wonder as to their thoughts re-
garding Gertrude King (who to them had
entirely disappeared). To the man she
must have been sword of Damocles, which
dropped at time when he had gotten to
live in the fancied security of believing it
would never fall.
If my conjectures regarding Clinton's
movements were right, l had something
like week in which to act, and, as luck
would have it, there staggered into the
harbor a ,privateer sloop-of-war, storm
scared, under jury mast and in sinking
condition, with half her men lost in the
tempest. And hardly had her anchor reached
bottom when she suddenly tilted and fol-
lowed it, taking with her most Of her re-
naming crew, and to-day her oaken ribs lie
petrifying in the salt sands just east of West
Chop, from whose bluff the red eye of the
lighthouse now winks its warning.
Her captain, whom / well knew, was a
Providence man, though his ship hailed from
New London las did most of the privateers
cruising to the east), so to him committed
the Phantom and my message to Sullivan,
and within three days, from the pine heights
abreast of the house, saw my schooner dis
appear west of Naushon, and felt that my
duty had been done.