Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1904-08-10

THE WOODS.
ed you that your plot did not so far
succeed as to enable you to burn
alive in our beds my guests and my
self, yet if you could have heard the
means and seen the wounds of the
half score poor soldiers whom L had
carried into my house and could have
viewed the destruction wrought to
my fathers property. methinks you
might have felt that you had just
cause for citation and that you still
merited the appellation of spy, ban
dit and midnight assassin in which
l understand you and your henchmen
take such well-earned pride"
Young Worthington's expression,
at first astonished and then fecked
with amusement, had famed into an
ger as she proceeded.
Madam, l congratulate you upon
being so apt pupil of Col. Besse-
mer. The terms which you have just
used are few of the milC.er epithets
which, I understand, he applies to
myself and that band of brave pat
riots with whom / have the honor to
fight for my country. Had / known
that Col. Bessemer was an honored
and welcome guest instead of being.
as | presumed he was, an intruder
upon your hospitality, L would have
been more loath than / was to make
the attack which I felt my duty to
make. While | feared that some de-
struction of your fathers property
might ensue, | f1attered myself that
by relieving you of the presence of
Bessemer's firebrands and looters-
appellations which. l assure you,
they have earned quite as indus
triously as we have our pseudo
nymes--we might be doing you a serv-
ice that would in measure recon-
pense for the loss; but it seems |
was mistaken, and that Col. Besse-
| mer is justified in the boasts he has
made of the handsome entertainment
| he received at the home of his
! betrothed, the beautiful Jane FL
lery,' to whom his troth was plighted,
so he says, in Philadelphia town these
| three years past"
James treacherous color fled at
/ these last astounding words. and
| then came back with brave rush.
'''Tis easy" she remarked disdain-
| fully, Ito place false speech upon the
tongue of the absent. I congratu
| late you upon the facility with which
you have placed it upon Col. Besse-
mer's," and with that she drew down
the curtain to the window on the side
next Capt. Worthington, thus shut
ting out that wrathy warrior.
| The soldier reared his horse back
upon his launches while his breath
came hard and the healthy ruddiness
of his skin gave place to an angry
pallor. An insult, such an insult.
and from Jane! Had it been from a
man, he would have dragged him
from the carriage and wiped up the
/ earth with him, but To first doubt
his word and then drop the curtain,
as though she had slammed a door
in his face. Really. it was too much!
He dug his spurs into his horse
that pampered animal that seldom
knew a touch which was not gentle
and dashed recklessly through the
was as good forester as he, else
they must have come to grief.
As for Jane. she drove on with her
| brain in whirl. What had Godfrey
meant by attributing such speech to
Col. Bessemer? Pah, it was but some
idle gossip which those bandits with
whom he associated had picked up
| at soTue wayside inn.
She was TOO experienced in such
matters not to have read the SINGER
ity of Col. Bessemer's admiration fol-
herself underneath his ornate
speeches and too ardent chances
That he thought her beautiful she
could not doubt. Most men did, Even
when she was but raw schoolgirl
of is in Philadelphia he had singled
her out for marked attention during
his stay in the city.
| True, he had brought letters of In
PRODUCTION to her stepmother's