The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-09-09
VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS.

/ OF their residence on Capistrano. Caps
tranv is a mountain in Arizona CrameT
and his friend Thcradyse had chosen Cap
istrano Tor their home because they had
set out from The East FOR the mount
ans. Arizona IS not ali mountains
/ Some OF il is dead level deserts Of sand
or alkal wastes where the sun glares
upon the ground and the ground flazes
/ Ike white light. Most of the small towns
I in Arizona are desperately rude. tempo
rsiry, lonesome places Besides. Cramer
and Thorndyke had come from a town.
/ from city, and they meant 70 rough IL
So they had cut and hauled some pinon
! logs from up the canyon and built shack
upon the south brow OF Capistrano by the
bed Of the Pinon river. and where they
could see the village Of FL Baccue, brown.
drowsy and almost silent upon the un-
! cicuded plains below You can buy bacon
I il. FL Bacque, and the east-bound trains
stop there for water because there is an
! upgrade eighteen miles long toward the
/ east, but the west-bound trains never
stop. because there is a telegraph station
twenty miles west where water is easier
TO get.
Cramer was a consumptive and Thorn
| dyke was victim of pnthisis, whatever
that means, but they were close frienos,
schoolmates. neighbors. boys and men to-
/ gether back East. They had come brave
/ TO sustain and cheer one another. 10 get
well. They had been disappointed in the
! face of nature there. 1t was too brown
and gray. too dry, too desolate, too life
! less. They had known the life of cities,
! the verdure of valleys the gentle. musical
voices of women-sisters. mothers and
others. But neither had admitted disap
pointment to the other Each fancied
| that his friend was worse afflicted than
himself; that what the o.ner chiefly need
/ ed was courage. and so they kept their
disappointment secret and laughed with
! feiGned delight.
! For a while the building of their
camp" occupied them. and it was zest to
/ their minds and weak bodies TO hew and
carry and build. Sometimes there was
/ enough water in the Pinion for a bath.
/ Sometimes they walked four miles to Ell
Bacque for bacon or -four or the mail
/ They tackled photographs OF their folks
! on the rude walls of log in their shack
! and made believe that they were. con-
tent. Having one rifle between them,
! they often went hunting in the sage brush
4 for quail, and bagSed very few, because
/ they were nervous. weak fellows, and IL
isn't easy TO bring down such birds with
the rifle. For while they played check
! ers. whist. casino ard even chess to-
] gether, but they wearied Of such pastimes
at last. They became too familiar with
! their own voices. it is wondrously silent
every day in the mountains. At night
/ there is never a sound but the whisper Of
| the wind slipping across the shale or
among the shrub timber. except when
coyote bowls, and that is more omin0us.
more lonely, more horrible than utter ST.
! lence. Each morning was like yesterday.
! The sun always doomed at the same place,
| uniformly brazen, swung across the
climbing zenith at the same lazy pace,
/ cast the same short shadows all day
long dropped behind the same butte in
! the evening and left the desolation Of
! the brown earth to span the blue empti-
ness of the sky Even the horned toads.
/ the noiseless. fitting lizards. the thirsty
/ chipmunks lost interest for Cramer and
/ his friend
They yearned for thunder. lightning
rain, snow-anything to relieve the mon
strous monotony of their lives, but they
| concealed their vain desires from each
/ other In two months they had told every
story they ever knew; every joke was
stale, every song was tiresome, every
J moment was challenge to their pa
j tience to their nerves. And now, after
three months of almost heroic stoicism,
/ they had quarreled for the first time.
| About what? Cramer had killed a prairie
4 dog, a worthless homeiy rodent of the
plains. But he insisted that it was a
] n. /
i a WOodchuck; that a woOdchuck was a
wholly different creature. The lie had
been passed, harsh, bitirg words had
! been banded. and so they had come home
weak. exhausted, yenomous. unforgivins.
Across the dry bed of the Pinon against
| 4 bare, rust-cOvered rock they had built
( a lean-to for final shelter against the
storms which never came. Thither now
went Cramer. sullen. silent, glowering.
! hit ,-f1 in, - Ipl 0f n Ind
I Thorndyke cursing him, sat alone at the
door of the shack while the sun was
! quenChed beyond the changeless hills. and
I the stars. each in it's old place. like
studded nails in the roof of a Jail. ogIed
him. As the darkness deepened not even
q breeze nor the wall Of a wolf offered
sympathy with his isolation. and Cramer
made no light in the lean-to- but went
stoidly into the blaclSness
I'm so home" said 1'horndyke TO him
self I'D rather I.e in the states than live
/ here" And memories of old days and OF
green fields came back to him, and the
I perfume OF 'old-fashiOned garden flowers
was in his nostrils. and in his ear the
tinking of the river where he and his
friend had wallowed in forbidden costa
sizes And so he sat there in the plight till
I he felt an odd. weak hope that Cramer
would come back and say something. any
[ thing. 1t would oe fine. he thought. TO
hear his friends say. Gimme o match
4 Tom. or What time is H. Tom Cra-
mer had gone to bed supperless. unrelent-
( ing depressed. He had taken nothing
/ from the shack not even a drink from the
water jar buried in --.e floor. The rifle
Perhaps it would be better il he hadn't
the rife. thought Tom. FrsiI men, tired
. Of the struggle with disease. sometimes
wish 70 end the d-eary business. Thorn
/ dyke got up sud edged across the sand.
raped at the door and said;
"Cramer. Harry, let me have the rife.
will you, please2
Take It, It's there beside the door ~
growIed a coarse voice. And Tom took
/ II and. hesitating a moment skunk back
{ 70 the cabin and went 70 bed
But in the morning. when the sun wok
him. Harry Cramer was asleep RI his old
place IN the corner. but the rife was
gone from the pegs whore Thorndyke had
hung It.
Where's the rife. Harry" he asked.
Il hid It. Tom. said Cramer.
WHY"
They stared at one another moment
then Cramer erlnned-tfe old crin-and
said. L was afraid Won might
so was T. Harry. laughed Torn. and
their voices sounded IKE music All that
Gay.-John II. Raftery.
Newspaper Waits.
Very ely.-Sharpe- Here IS rail-
road pamphlet entitled What Fills the
Eye OF the TRAVELLING Pubic. wheaton
HIN, Il must ailuds 70 cinders. Chi
cage News.
And Il Worried Him Son-s.What.s the
matter. dad? You look worried Father
Gust retired from husioeSsl-.yVell. you
~.-r- 81