Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-08-09

of the seat she occupied was an aus
tere maiden of middle age. one of
the passengers who had come on by
the Union Pacific from Omaha. Di-
rectly opposite sat two men whom
Stuyvesant had held in but scant
esteem up to the time they left the
valley of Salt Lake. Now, because
their sections stood over against
hers, his manner relaxed with his
mood. Circumstances had brought
the elderly maid and himself to the
same table on two occasions in the
dining-car, but he had hitherto felt
no desire to press the acquaintance.
This afternoon he minded him of
a new book he had in his bag, for
literature, he judged. might be her
hobby, and had engaged her in con-
versation, of which his share was
meant to impress the tiny, translu-
brown coils and waves of the. pretty
head in front of him.
When, however, it became patent
that his companion desired to form
her own impressions of the pages I'M
Influenced by his well-delivered COM
ments. Mr.. Stuyvesant had bethought
him of the semisomnolent occupants
of the opposite section, and some
cabalistic signs he ventured with a
little silver cup summoned them in
pleased surprise to the water-cooler
at the rear end, where he RECALLED
them with a good story and the best
of v. o. p. Scotch, and accepted their
lavish bid to sit with them awhile.
From this coign of vantage he had
studied her sweet, serious, oval face
as she sat placidly reading a little
volume in her lap, only once in awhile
raising pair of very dark, very
beautiful, very heavily browed and
dashed brown eyes for brief survey of
the forbidding landscape; then, with
never an instant's peep at him,
dropping their gaze again upon the
book
Not once in the long, hot afternoon
had she vouchsafed him the mini
mum of show of interest, curiosity,
or even consciousness of his pres
ence. Then the train made it's Sec
ond stop on account of the fires,
and Bre'r Rabbit his luckless break
Ginning day.
Tentative spikes, clods and empty
TASKS having failed to find him, the
beaters had essayed a skirmish line,
and with instant result. Like
meteoric puff of gray and white, to
chorus of yells and the accompani-
ment of volley of missiles, Jack
shot into space from behind his
shelter and darted zigzagging
through the brush. A whizzing
spike, a chance shot that nearly
grazed his nose, so dazzled his brain
let that the terrified creature dou-
bled on his trail and came bounding
back towards the train.
Close to the track-side ran a mar
row ditch. In this ditch at the in
slant crouched the tall lieutenant.
Into this ditch 1eaped Bunny, and
the next second had whizzed past
the STOPPING form and bored straight
into little wooden drain. There
some unseen, unlooked-for object
blocked him.
Desperately the hind-legs kicked
passage, and with a shout of tri-
umph the tall soldier swooped upon
the prize, seized the struggling legs,
swung the wretched creature aloft,
and for the first time in six mortal
hours met full in his own the gaze
of the deep, beautiful brown eyes he
had SO striven to attract, and they
were half pleading, half command
ing for Bunny. The next instant, I'M
injured, but leaping madly for life,
Bre'r Rabbit was streal1ing eastward
out of harms way, liberated victim
whose first huge leap owed much of
its length to the impetus of Stuyve-
SAINTS long, lean, sinewy arm.
This time when he looked up and
raised his cap, and stood there with
his blonde hair blowing down over
the broad white forehead, although
the soft curves of the ripe red lips
at the window above him changed
not, there was something in the
dark-brown eyes that seemed to say:
"Thank you'll"
Yet when he would have met those
eyes again that evening, when Last
call for dinner in the dining-car''
was sounding through the train, he
could not. Neither were they among
those that peered from between
parted curtains in the dim light of
VIC SiecPcr' many III IF1Snt, all IN
anxiety, when somewhere in the dead
of the summer night long after all
occupants of the rearmost cars were
wrapped in slumber, the long train
bumped to a sudden Earring stand
still, and up ahead there arose sound
of rush, of excitement and alarm,
CHAPTER III.
1t was just after sunset, when, for