The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1902-02-27

not appear, and her prolonged alb
sence, and the stolid indifference of
her father and mother to it, puzzled
me not a little. would have given
much to know what had happened:
in the family councils in those early
hours of the morning when I had
slept the sleep of the unsuspecting.
By nightfall the indefinable dread
had grown until it had become an
agony of apprehension. For two
days Macpherson had intermitted his.
evening visits to the farm at Valley
Head; and after supper I watched
and waited in the hope that he would
come. It had been no part of nv
plan to make him a confidant in the
results of the Grantley investigation,
but under the changed conditions it
now seemed to be the wisest courses
and I was half daft at the thought
that the story might reach him
through another channel. So I kept
my post in the hammock until nine
o'clock, and then went to my room
to stay only till I could be sure that
the family had gone to bed. When.
the farmhouse was still and dark.
I found my overcoat and crept down.
stairs with my shoes in my hand. q
So The moon was well above the up
lifted eastern horizon when I put on
my: shoes and propped myself in 1.-The
hammock to continue the pointless
vigil. There was not the vaguest
promise that anything could come of
it. At the most could only make
sure that Nan did ordid not come
home. And yet, if life itself had been
at stake, I could scarcely have gone
back to my room and to bed.
The night was as perfect as night
can be in, a region where both night
and day are beyond the imaginings
of the jewellers in lower attitudes.
The hazeless air was tremulous with
the murmurings of natures silences.
It seemed that I had never before
realized how white the moonlight
could be, nor how black the shadows.
The wind, what zephyr's breath there
was of it, was up the valley; and
on it's wings came the scents of SUM-
cured grasses and the distance
softened notes of an accordion
played by one of the workmen in the
engineers camp The very atmos-
phere was eloquent of peace, and the
restless urgency of the latter-day
struggle for existence seemed far
removed. After a time the moon
rode higher, and the hammock I'M
der the porch-roof swung in the
blacklist of the shadows. The night
air began to grow cooler, and I but
toned my overcoat and filled and
lighted my pipe. J.
1t must have been nearly ten
o'clock when Nan returned. I heard
her step in the road and extinguished
my pipe. She came up the walk with
footsteps tagging, as one who fights
with fatigue; and she let herself into
the house silently and without look
ing to right or left. One thing, and
one thing only, had I learned by be-
ing a silent witness Of her home
coming F.. She had come from some
where down the valley; otherwise
the wind would not have brought
me the warning of her approach.
It was fully half an hour later be-
fore I could make up my mind to go
to bed. There was less than nothing
to watch for now, and, despite the
overcoat, the chill of the night struck
deep. climbed out of the hammock
stiffly and took turn in the door
yard to start the blood little. From
the gate I could see the foaming tor
rent of the Torolito rushing past on
the opposite side of the road in it's
final plungings to the level of the
lower valley: I had long since re-
marked that the river was always
much higher at night, and been puz-
zled to account for it until Macpher-
son had explained that the night
food-tide in ssnow-fed stream is
proportional to the heat of the pre-
ceding day.
The: August day had been unusual
ly hot, and the river was in full flood.
It's thunder filled the silence of the
night made it, I had almost said
but not to the exclusion of other
sounds. While fingered at the gate
the click of a horses hoofs came
wind-borne from the direction of the
engineers camp. There was a low
cottonwood growing on the embank-
ment of the ditch just outside the
gate, and I crawled between the
wires of the fence and crouched in
the shadow of the tree.
The horseman was the engineer.
He was riding slowly, and his face
was turned from me as if he were
inspecting the turbulent stream as he
followed it's coursein reverse toward
the upper canyon. OWNED his pur-
pose. Some one-Selter, I think it
was-had commented upon the un-
safety of the timber coffer-dam
which Wykamp hadr,put in to divert
the course of the stream while the
workmen were making the excava-
ton for the foundations of the per-
manent structure; and the engineer
was on his way to see how the
temporary barrier~was standing the