Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1899-01-07

Fiercely and angrily, in Ter grief aud
bewilderment, she caught Winnie's arm,
md ut reckless speed hurried her down
the steep path to the strip of beach md
the excited Grove below. Respectfully,
and with muttored EXPLANATIONS of SYM
pathy, the people fell back rs she APP
preached, and two Cornish miners held up
TO the cold morning light n dripping piece
of wood, the stern md name-board of a
ship, with lengths of splintered timbers
attached.
What is the name? Can you read it,
Winnie? 1t is all scratched and battered
II one can make it OUT" Lady Mildred
cried, in desperation, against the evidence
of her senses.
BY Winnie Caerlyon, looking with tear
less eyes on those large white and gildcd
letters on n dark painted background,
they could be deciphered as easily rs the
letters of n child's alphabet, as easily rs a
message in a wcll-known writing, as sure
ly, rs accurately as the dread words of q
death-warrant. She did not doubt or dis
believe; it was death-Stephen Treden-
hicks death that she was looking on-that
stormy sea his grave, that black disman-
tied hulk lying on Tregarthen's Reef his
only coffin, if indeed his dead body was
not the sport of those fierce leaping seeth-
ing pillows.
Perhaps he had been drowned early in
the night, and those fierce waves had been
beating n hat dear, noble, kindly face,
80 fixed and white, and on the broad,
strong breast whose kindly heart was
stilled forever, all through the dreadful
hours of darkness? Perhaps that was
why she had felt that unearthly terror of
the cruel storm? Perhaps that was why
her blood had run cold at each crash of
the breakers, each Shrek of the tempests
Because they had been numbering Stephen
T~redennick!
Death had been abroad in the wild night
death within and without! Death-dirges
were ringing through the air-death-cries
coming on each sweeping blast of the
storm! Had not someone else died! AL
bert Gardiner was dead, and Stephen
Tredennick was dead; how many had dieds
Wa everybody dyingf How many more
were to die?
In a kind of delirious trance she had
sunk on her knees on the wet sand, star
ing vacantly ut the name lettered so clear
ly that II seemed to burn through her sight
and write its fatal message on her brain,
thinking of the cruel, tossing waves-toss-
Ing, tossing, all through the long, dark,
pitiless hours-tosSing Something which
had become their ~pray-while the-oh,
merciful Heaven!--sat sheltered from the
storm, warmly wrapped, on q couch by a
bright fire! The horror of the thought
seemed to benumb her faculties, as she ut
tered slowly, as If her lips refused to pro-
nounce the words
"ChittoOr'-the Chtttoor,-Lady Mil
dredlr
THE Chtttoor! Is it the Chtttoor that Is
lying over thereP Winnie, is it?" LADY,
Mildred cried. But they ~escaped-some
escaped--Stephen may have escapedl
Some were saved--Stephen may be among
them! Perhaps he may: don't you think
Stephen escaped, Winnie9" she reiterated,
piteously.
II don't know" Winnie replied, in a
stunned, dreary way; "we must ask the
survivors-we must reach them first"
"Yes-yes, at once!' Lady Mildred cried.
eagerly. II will give a hundred guineas
TO the first man who will reach them by
the %cliffs!'
There was eager ~disputing, clamoring,
pe~rsuading, d~issuading, women crying,
men vociferating, amongst the group for
several minutes, and at the height of the
discussion Winnie C~aerlyon put her hand
on John Richards arm again and drew
him aside.
II required repeated directions to reach
willing Johns dull understandings but he