Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1901-06-27
A YEAR AND "A DAY

Like Wnlte tnreau CaFeleSSly caught
on the dark skirts of an untidy wo-
man lay the dusty road across the
dun brown earth. One solitary trav-
eler alone gave a touch of life TO the
deadly mouOtony of a landscape made
up of low sky and high hills, continual
ly meeting and falling apart in endless
undulations. From the earth itself
arose the soft, shining simmer of in
tense heat, and through it, with a sort
of automatic unconSciOusness, plunged
the figure whose gun and game bag be
spoke the huntCr-a hunter and a
mighty man as we'll whose broad
shoulders, 1.-THE limbs and lean, uu-
handsome face bore the unmistakable
stamp of breeding and refinement.
For hours this man had tramped, ut
terly lost to the discomforts of the
present, in the intense pain of vivid
retrospection, a retrOspection suddenly
interrupted by spectacle of human
misery as grewsome as it was pathetic.
Quite alone, yet within the shadow
of a hastily improvised shelter of bend
ing boughs, lay the worn and wasted
figure of a man, a man upon whose
brow lay damp and cold CHASTITY dew,
whose limbs had already fallen into
the absolute immobility of coming dis
solution and whose passing life seemed
caught and focused In wide opened,
anguiShed eyes.
Startled out of his long day dream,
Serge Vernon knelt beside the sufferer,
pressing his brandy flask to his lips.
stranger" said he. God sent you.
am dying dying with my work un-
done. Out yonder I've a daughter look
ing for water, a pretty girl and good
one, raised a lady with her mothers
people but she left them all for me. l
didn't ask it. At first | even tried to
send her back. Ranch life Is hard on
some women, but she loved it-lOved
everything dogs, the horses, the
wild, free life that was glad and beau
tiful to us both-until he came, a man,
rich, handsome and educated like her
self, a man whose speech was the
speech of her own people and who
brought to his wOOing all the subtle
arts of civilization. | never thought of
danger never dreamed of treachery,
until the black hearted scoundrel had
gone-gone denying the private mar
riage into which he had entrapped her
and flinging her shame in her face.
What could | do but follow and wipe
out that shame in his hearts blood:
Murder they called it; just judgment |
knew 1t, but for her sake guarded well
the secret that she has never guessed
that she must never know. But trou
bic came of 1t and loss until now, when
l must leave my poor girl penniless and
alone in a strange land. They have of
fered reward for the murderer
81 900 for him alive or dead. The
proofs are all here" laying a purple
hand across his laboring breast
stranger, she needs 1t. VIII you get
the money for my girl? When the end
comes, she has promised to go home
Then find the murderer of Jim Ran
mas and send the blood money to the
woman who, before God is his widow"
Jim Rannis! Serge Vernon lived in
that moment year Of misery-the long
year since Stella Marsden had chosen
between his love and his cousins for
tune, the cousin who cared so little for
the treasure won that he soon left it
for q taste of pleasure and adventure
in the new world. All that he had
found and deserved death as we'll Lit
tie liking the task, Serge had crossed
the water, had learned the evil story
of a wasted life, lived under false
name, ended In disguise and disgrace,
had offered a reward for the apprehen-
sion of the murderer and had found
him.
There was rustllng among the wild
rose bushes, and, looking up, Serge
saw them part above the head of a
girl, tall, fair and like rose herself.
Their perfume caught in her wind
blown hair, their bloom on perfect lip
and cheek, lip and cheek that paled at
sight of the dying man as, with low
cry, she dropped beside him.
In the pocket of Serge's hunting shirt
lay a letter, a sweet and gracious ap-
peal for forgiveness, written by his
cousins widow The letter, that morn
ing received, had been less a surprise
than his own reception of the fact that
she was no longer incOnsolable. Know
ing the heights of sacrifice to which
this guilty wayfarer had attained, see
ing his paternal passion returned with
absorbing filial affection, he realized
that the English girl, willing to sell her
sOrdid soul for the Vernon title, was no
longer his ideal of perfect womanhoOd.
Suddenly, loud and clear, from the
dying lips came the eager question,
Stranger, will you get that money for
my girl" Serge Vernon barred his
head and lifted his hand. ''As God is
my Witness" said he, Il will"
Before Serge Vernon and his wife
were married she told him the story Of
her sinless shame, but he gave her no
answering confidence. Today her IA
ther sleeps in an honored grave, and
she in her happy English home has
won all hearts save that of the wild
owed Lady Vernon. Serge himself dis
courages any intimacy between the
two, feeling it to be unnatural and un-
wise.
Loreto's Industries.