The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-19
A JEALOUS MAN IN A HOLE.

A JEALOUS MAN IN A HOLE.
 Jasper Stark, being the sheriff of which placed his farm in the center of 1 the iron ore lands, and above all being J the guardian of Jennie Murray, the prettiest girl in the township, was quite | a parsonage in the community. Gossip
 accused him of a deep-rooted. long l cherished determination to marry his ward. Her farm, adjoining his. would l enhance his wealth a hundredfold; he was a. childless widow, a giant physi- cally, not unsightly, and young with a sufficiency of manly conceit which fifty years of life had not diminished or sub dued. The practical women of the | neiehborhood said it would be good catch" for Jennie, who was inclined to be f1irty;" the men of poise and ex-
 perience thought that Jasper's wedding with his ward would be a pity" and the marriage beaux of Maekinao swore that it would be "a. scandalous
 shame
 And vet Jasper had things pretty
 much his own way till Dexter Mason,
 a young mining superintendent, came
 into the diggings with gang of men
 to develop the iron prospects. He
 e Apr r.
 pose of effecting working lease on the
 farm, fell in love with Jennie and, in
 spite of the sheriff ffowns, snubs and
 implacabe hostility, loitered in the VI
 cinity of his inamorata with such sue
 cess that Stark was consumed with
 jealous hatred, made powerless by ms
 fear of finally offending Jennie, who was drawing dangerously near to that
 age when she must become mistress of
 her own hand and fortunes. Thus during months of clandestine love making young Masons suit prospered, and Sheriff Stark lost sleep and avoir- dupois in vain scheming to outwit the handsome stranger.
 Dexter Mason did not neglect his bus mess of exploring for iron even for the more delightful duty of searching for the pure gold of Jennies virgin love, but in spite of his wary efforts to make no mistakes either in mining or lovemaking he unconsciously laid himself open to the malicious power of Jasper Stark. It was in the days before the invention of the diamond drill or other modern contrivances Tor developing mines and Mason's chief work was the sinking of prospect holes, most of which proved valueless and had to be abandoned The law required that such excavations must be refilled or covered over pending final equipment as mine openings, but though the su- perintendent had warned his men against disregarding this law they were neither cautious nor thorough in obey ing it. Some of these holes, we'll like | shafts as deep as sixty feet had been but partly filled, few had been board ed over, but two had been overlooked | altogether, and Sheriff Stark knew it. | He might have warned Mason, but | deep in his envious heart lurked the | hope that some fatal accident to beast | or even to man might give him the whip-hand of his rival
 Finally one of Ray Brooks cows broke her back in one of the pitfalls, and the wrathy owner, himself one of Jennie's suitors, got out warrant for Mason. As soon as he saw it Stark, whose prudence had been impaired by desperate drinking, got Brooks into q dark corner of the saloon and begged that the warrant be left at his dscre- ton for a few days.
 "Somethin' bettern a COW is going to drop into one O them holes some night and then we kin go after that dude miner with a different kind of a war rant'' whispered the leering sheriff You watch him and I'll watch him, an between us we'll git him See?"
 Brooks saw" and set himself up at once for a spy. The following night, pitch dark and raining, there came word for Stark that a prisoner in the county bastile had broken jail and that le must come at once. He was sit ing in his home glowering at the fire when the summons came, but he dal- jed for nothing but to saddle his horse md put flask of whiskey into his pocket He had galloped mile trough the wet darkness when Ray Brooks met him by the roadside and aid:
 Don't go, sheriff. It's sell. That