Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1904-08-15

uuarreled as boy, anected MIN more
deeply than even he was aware. There
in the silent room in the inn, he re-
called all the old mans good qualities.
all the little kindnesses he had done
him. Jack. and more than all, the few
last solemn and quite "lexpectedly
affectionate words which had dropped
! from his dying lips.
Jack, putting at his pipe and rubbing
/ his short hair with a puzzled frown,
went over the scene again and again,
and with no mercenary thoughts of the
old mans declaration that he had re-
membered Jack in his will, but with
reference to the mysterious illusions
in the disposal of the large part of
the property; then Jacks mind would
fly off to the fearful scene at the actual
death.
The wild cry, the white and horri-
fed face of Stephen, the puzzled and
sternly questioning one of the old
lawyer What did it mean?
And still more mysterious, what was
the meaning of stephens conduct on
the lawn? What was he hunting for
with such intense eagerness as to make
him fly at Jack like mailman?
Jack-as no doubt the reader will
have surmised-was not clever.
He could not piece this and that to-
gether, and from disjointed incidents
form an intelligent whole, as a child
does with a box of puzzles.
/ The whole thing was a mystery to
him, and grew more confusing and be-
wildering the more he thought of it.
! 1t takes a villain thoroughly to ap-
preciate a villain, thief to understand
and catch a thief; and Jack, being
neither one nor the other, utterly fail
ed to understand Stephen.
That he disliked him, with a feeling
more like contempt than hatred, was a
matter of course, but if any one had
told Jack straight out that Stephen had
distracted the will, Jack would in all
probability have refused to credit It.
Will stealing and all such meanness
was so thoroughly out of his line that
he would not have understood how
Stephen, led on step by step, could
have possibly been guilty of it.
Then again, something else came
forcing itself on these thoughts con-
corning the strange events at the
Hurst For the life of him he could
not forget the Forest of Warden and
all that had happened to him within its
leafy shades.
At one moment it seemed as If years
must have elapsed since he lost his way
and forced an entrance at the wood
mans hut. at another he was half in
clined to believe that he had dined
rather heavily at the club and dreamed
il all. Like Una, he could not realize
that they had met, touched hands and
exchanged speech.
Jack could not get the beautiful face
out of his mental vision; it mingled
with the wan face of the dying man,
with Stephens pale, distorted counter
ance; it seemed to beam and shine upon
him from the dark corners of the room
with the same frank, pure, innocent
smile with which it had shone down up
on him as he lay at her feet in the
woods.
And then the girls surroundings
/ The extraordinary father, with his la
borer's dress and his refined group OF
/ persons buried in the depths of wood,
living apart from the world?
/ Jack rumpled his hair and drew
\ long breath eloquent of confusion and
7 bewilderment.
1t was certainly extraordinary! Three
days ago he had left London, prosaic
London, and was now plunged to the
meek in a sea of romance and secrecy.
/ On one thing he was, however, re-
solved. He would keep his threat or
promise. He would go to Warden For
est and see that beautiful face again.
| though he had to brave the anger of
twenty mysterious woodmen. He
thought at first that he would start on
the morrow, but some feeling-perhaps
some reverence and respect for the
dead man-made him change his mind.
NO" he said to himself, as he knock
ed the ashes out of his pipe and pre-
pared for bed; '1'll stay here over the
funeral, and then"
But. though he felt tired and worn
out, it was hours before he could
sleep, and when he did, his spirit fed
lack to Warden Forest, and the face
that had haunted him waking lowered
about him in dreams.
Was it love; love at first sight? Jack
would have been first to laugh at the
idea; but it is worthy of note that all
the loves which had occurred in his
wild, reckless life had never, in their
warmest epochs, moved him as the re-
membrance of Una had done; not one
had had the power TO disturb his sleep
or TO bring him dreams.
Jack kept to his resolution. Five
days passed, and he stuck to the
Bush" manfully. They were, perhaps,
the dreariest days he ever spent in his
life. and he never thought of them af-
terward without a shudder.