The Irish standard., 1904-01-30

AND SN Ell PASI ELL In n IEAR-
ING RACE TOWARD BEARDsTOWN.
oars into rowlocls, and pull with the
racing force which spun him along.
Branches and logs menaced his dim
course.
The shores were black. Froth spots
like white money appeared and disap-
peared around him with phosphoric
swftness. And underneath rose and
fell the bullfrogs' diapason.
Not many miles down was the fork
Of the Sangamon, where the stream
turned toward the Illinois. Boards
town, by prairie and river-bluff route,
was nearly 40 miles from New Salem.
Frost was out of the ground, and
bottomless trail would delay the most
hurried rider The scalloped bal Il.
ascending and descending in sera ed
cliff and hollow, seeming to swim past
Antywine, finally curved away from
wider current; and he made for shore
through drift. He drew the boat out
and left it beached above the rising
water.
There was no sound abroad in all
that void darkness except the Sanga-
mons low note and the Intermittent
cry of frogs. He thought Of sloughs
, on the Beardstown road and of hun
cry wolves infesting the night. Star
light had become lost in thickening
| mist, and as Antywine pushed on he
! felt the sting of rain in the face. He
| tried to distinguish track which
ought to darken the pallid turf near
this place, and set out in the direc-
(! ton of Beardstown.
! He heard at his left the suction Of
! horse feet in mud. 1t came nearer,
! and he braced himself to spring at the
bride, if he had been SO fortunate as
thus to intercept Peggy's captor. But
! two horses, instead of one, plunged
up from a slough, and swept past him
in a tearing race toward Beardstown.
"Shickshack and Sieur Abe" thought
Antywine. He shouted after them
but they did not hear him. There was
SO little travel at that season he felt
sure these riders were in pursuit OF
F: Peggy, and comforted, he followed
lightly on, keeping to the spongy dead
grass by the roadside.
The humid forest stretching from the
bank of the sangamon still darkened
his way with skeleton trees. He
passed an empty cabin which he had
seen once before when hunting
deer. The rain now began to pelt.
Though he had lived so long among
English-speaking people at Belleville
that their language had become in 8
measure his own, Antywine never
found himself able to part with buck
skins. The hunting shirt was some
times exchanged for one of linsey, bu
bucllskin breaches, molding his supple
limbs down to his moccasins, he al
ways wore, making them himself, a:
his father had done before him. In
different to weather, he stepped OF
through darkness and was within
hands reach Of an unsteady objec
before he saw it.
Antywine gave laughing shout t,
scare a wolf and followed it by an ex
clamation. He lifted the topping fig
ure in his arms and ran back with /
to the empty cabin.
Peggy had a blanket around her, bu
she was wet and cold and SCENE,
partially stunned. The puncheons o
split logs which fioored the cabil
sagged inward as if sill had rotte
at the farther side, and the Gimme
was ruin upon its own hearth. Per
haps wolves or wild hogs made thi
place lair. Antywine had not hi
tinder box with him. 1t was impossi
BILE to get a light. The fallen door h
dragged aside from it's opening an
made seat for Peggy.
"Stay here, sweetheart" spoke Anty
wine. using an English word whic