The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1902-03-06

engineers camp, and there was to be
q stockholders special train from
Denver, and a barbecue, and after
ward q brass band auction sale Of
some Of the choicer tracts of the
company's land.
The morning of the last Sunday in
September dawned bright and clear.
A hunting party coming from North
Park. had stopped over night at the
settlement, and one of it's members,
young clergyman from the east,
held a religious service in the school
house. AS I learned afterward, the
young man had no lack of hearers.
Anything in the way, of religious
meeting was novelty in the seques-
tered valley, and the settlement
turned out almost, to a man. Wini-
fred went with Mrs. Setter; Angus
was there with his cowboys, and
there was even goodly sprinkling of
the workmen from the engineers
camp:
For reasons of my own which were
not grounded in any cynical preju-
dice, did not go. To tell the truth,
I was growing anxious about Setter.
There was a mystery connected with
his movements reaching back to a
certain evening when CHANGED to see
him coming down from the northern
gulch beyond the hog-back with a
burden which he carried as one car
ries sick child. The following
morning I had found a new-made
grave-or at least a place where
something had been freshly buried
in the embankment of the great
canal; and when my morning stroll
up the gorge beyond. the hog-back
ended at the door of Wykamp's pow
der magazine. I had warned Angus
to be prepared to prove an alibi at
any hour of the day or night. AS a
corollary to all this watched Setter
beagle-wise. "~
On the Sunday morning, therefore,
small thing kept me from going to
the schoolhouse with Winifred and
Mrs. Setter. It was a fact brought
out by my field glass. On the higher
slopes of the hog-back I had CHANGED
to descry a moving speck making it's
way westward toward the upper can
yon; in the object glass of the binoc-
ular it defined itself as a man zig
tagging across the ridge with heavy
burden of some kind on his back. It
was Setter, and the mystery might
then have pointed to it's own solution
if had not been so deeply engrossed
in Macpherson's affair. The time for
the trial was drawing near, and if I
watched Setter like a paid shadower
of men, it was chiefly because I
feared he might disappear before the
critical moment. This going afield
with a backload had the look of it..
Doubtless he was preparing a hiding
place somewhere in the mountains to
which he could retreat at need.
The schoolhouse meeting had be-
gun when I lost sight of the moving
speck and lighted my pipe to weigh
the promisings of an attempt to fol-
low Setter. From my chair on the
porch could hear the singing quite
distinctly above the murmur of the
river in it's bed across the road. The
autumn storms were delayed, and the
weather for fortnight had been
cool. In consequence the water was
low and it's thunder was softened I'M
til the cataract pouring over the
waste weir of the completed dam was
clearly audible. Up among the west
ern peaks the clouds were gather
ing; and I remember thinking that
Wykamp must be relieved to know
that the season for cloudbursts was
fairly over for the year.
The thought had scarcely taken
shape when the man himself came
riding by. AS once before, anxiety
was in his face, but this time his gaze
was not upon the river. It was fixed
upon the cloud wraiths hanging over
the western peaks, and he rode as one
who lets his horse find out the way.
The hither shoulder of the hog-back
had scarcely hidden him before I
heard stir in the house and the gen.
tie closing of a door. A moment
later I saw Nan making her way
across the upper field, and thought
I OWNED her purpose. She had seen
the engineer pass the house,; had
guessed that he was on his way, to
the dam, and had taken this chance,
! her last chance it might be, of find
ing him alone to plead once again for
| justice:
It seemed pity that the girl
should have to fight such hopeless
battle alone. I know not, nor shall
ever know, if she believed that he was
free to marry her. But such poor
amends as money may make should
at least be hers; and at the apex of
this thought determined to follow
her, and to do what a man and law
yer might do to help her.
When I came in sight of the high
wall of masonry cutting the upper
canyon across, the thunder was a-roll
in the upper air. I could hear the
mutter and growl of it, and the vivid
sun brightness of the day, and the
clear arch of the sky, with no
other hint of storm abroad, gave
it a weird effect. The water of the