News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1901-07-17
CHAPTER III.
HAD BEEN TAUGHT TO BE A MAN.

z l ~ l KIM the IHludluueI VI ludL
III day Craig Thompson Impress
k-S7z5S1=f ed everybody who knew him
Co., with the idea that he was on
the point of having one of his dreaded
fits" but if any one of them had stud
led him closely he would have known
better, for the expression of his face
was childlike in its gentleness. But his
! loQuacity was gone, for he was think
ing. He had volunteered and been &C
cepted as the Intermediary between son
and father, and his interview with
Richard Maxwell had left upon him an
impression which he was endeavoring,
without success, to define. Lisle had
objected to INTERPRETATION, believing
the direct way to be the best, but Craig
! convinced him that his own way was
preferable and had dispatched him on
! a supposedly important errand to a
herdsman who had charge of an outly-
ing bunch of cattle.
! Richard Maxwell was a natural mar
! tinet, Clockwork was not more exact
! than were the rules of his life. from
| which he never deviated His employ
! ees liked him, but at the same time
! they feared him. The slightest disobe-
dience was regarded as a resignation
from his employ, and Lisle was in this
respect as subservient to him as they
! were. Maxwell was a handsome man
| too. Although his hair and perfectly
! trained mustache were as white as
! snow, there was not a line upon his
perfect face. His eyes were his most
| remarkable features, for there was
| within their depths something so SOM
! Der, so threatening, so fierce and so re-
! pellent that strangers instinCtively
! avoided them and then looked again to
! discover the cause. But it was undis-
| coverable. The more one looked the
! more obscure seemed the reason for
! avoidance, for the surface glance upon
them, although searching and deep,
! had nothing in it of those qualities
which at first repealed. His eyes We're
undeniably large, and they described a
| perfect oval. If eyes can be intensely
! black his were so, and in hue the long
laShes which fringed them and the
| were blacker still.
You would not have said that Isles
eyes were like his fathers, but yoU
would have insisted that Richard Max
! wells eyes were like his sons, with the
difference that where the glance of the
elder man repealed that of the younger
! attracted
! Lisle MaXwelPs training had been all
! that the heart of a young man could
/ desire, and his father had been his tu-
tor in everything. Particularly had his
! instruction been thorough in every
branch of knowledge which properly
! should belong to young manhood, and
Lisle could not remember when any
| body save his father had waited upon
| his wishes-at least until he was old
enough to 90 abroad. After that the
| cowboys instructed him in riding and
lasso throwing. He could ride like an
Apache Indian. rope the widest steer
that ever trod the ranges of Nevada,
shoot from the back of his galloping
horse with revolver or rife infinitesi.
NAL articles thrown into the air by his
admiring instructors; he could lap
from his horse to the ground and
mount again while the creature was
upon mad run and could cast his
handkerchief or his hat upon the plain
and then, dashing past at the topmost
speed of his horse, pick it up again; he
could catch and mount and successful
ly ride the widest and most untamed
horse that ever belonged on Crescent
and Cross ranch. There was nothing
along those ranges that man could do
which he had not been taught to do and
to do well. better even than his in
structors, and as a proficient in every
manly spOrt-in craftsmanship, horse
manship and courage-he was known
and admired throughout that wide cir
Gle which had its yearly rendezvous in
the Smoky valley.
Richard Maxwell had lived up to the
statement he made to his lawyer II
years ago. Isle Maxwell was boy in
every generally accepted sense of the
word. He had grown up as a boy and
lived as 4 boy. He had studied as a
boy and thought as a boy, and he had
no conception of what girls and women
were other than that they were some
thing to be religiOusly avoided. Re
garding the question of sex, his father
had kept him as profoundly ignorant
as n babe and the words "girp and
woman" were to him only terms for
the expression of a thought. and that
thought he had been taught to regard
as repugnant. Indian wOmen-squaws
he had seen frequently, but he had
not observed much difference between
them and the men except that they
were uglier, more brutal and dirtier
Throughout all his studies, and they
were manifold and thorough books
calculated to direct his thoughts into
channels which might reveal to him his
real identity had been vigorously ex
cluded, and he had no more idea who
and what he really was than he pos
sessed II years ago when sleeping upor
his fathers arm he was stolen awaJ
from his mothers loving care. That /.
why the masculine pronoun is useC
now in referring to him.
One can understand how such a mar
as Richard Maxwell might accomplish
all l. Il NN. II