Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1904-03-17
CHAPTER II.
The Prayer of Enoch Flame.

The Prayer Of Enoch Flame.
While poor Grace Yarwood lay fight
| ing that grim battle with King Death,
her father dreamed his dreams and
was glad, perhaps, that the opium
| fumes in his muddled brain enabled
him to forget. There was such lot
/ to forget-so many years he would
have been glad to wipe off the slate
| of life altogether.
The girl who lay dying had never
known any other companion but her
father. Her mothers marriage had
/ been runaway one-the mad fasci-
nation of an hour, to be repented and
wept over for year or two. In those
days David Yarwood had been hand,
| some man-with the road stretching
! out firm and straight before him; now
he was at the far end of it, and all the
past lay in shadows behind him.
| The Grace Yarwood who was dead
| the mother of the Grace Yarwood who
was dying-had given. up the struggle
! when her child avs year old Her
marriage had cut her off from her own
family, and she had only her husband
to depend upon. and he was broken
reed at best. After her mothers
! death the child had wandered about
from one country to another with her
father, living in some precaurious
fashion and seeing much of shady,
down-at-hees kind of life. Wherever
men Hooked in the hope to get money
/ with little or no eXertion, Mr.. David
Yarwood was to be found-whether in
| gambling rooms or in new rush for
/ gold. He had led forlorn hopes over
and over again, sinking lower WIN
each new venture.
Grace was woman grown by the
| time they came to that mushroom-like
| town in Nevada. She was the one
| woman in the place, but she was used
4 to that, and thought there was moth.
! ing strange in it. She had long ago
4 heard with curious sort of sorrow
! full pride. of the great place in England
1 from which her mother had fed; she
1 thought of it Observation-Disclosures
about it, In the sqnalid surroundings of
| the place in which she lived. 1t was
only to be precious dream after all;
/ yet IT was something she could hug
to herself on lonely, sleepless nights
and in the midst of coarse scenes by
day. She loved her father and pitied
his weaknesses; yet he was good to
| think that her mother had been some
thing greater, and had stopped to this
/ man for loves sake. So far as her
father was concerned, she could al
| ways excuse that awful habit Of his
because he had dared SO much, and
1 failed SO splendidly as she thought:
he had not been like other men who
dWelt in cities and in safety. If now
he tried to purchase forgetfulness at
bitter price, she was not the one to
blame him. Like her mother before
heT.aall that he did was right in her
eyes.
She had even seen the papers that
I, told OF what she was 'and what her
mother had been; had looked with
pride at old photographs and old mini.
atures, and had dreamed new dreams
about the story that could never con
Germ her. Then there came one night
when her father had shown her an Old
newspaper that some man had given
MN down In the little ruined town.
the night when he would have been
| content to take the ESQ reward. If he
| could nave got it, and asked nothing
more. Following that had come let
ter from far-off England. a letter that
asked FOR her and put fortune withi,r
her grasp. And heaven knows some
1 fortune was needed then, for they
We're In desperate straits. III ore
seemed to be no prospect OF getting
away from the place that held them
1 no chance to make fresh start any
| where. The poor old creature, who
had never changed in her constant
| eyes. babbled only lof what he might
90 TO get his dreams if he had little
money the girl thought of that for
tune In far-away England and beat her
breast 1iercely against the bars az the
cage that held her. s.,i35 80
That was the beginning Of the fever
| that, and HSant OF good food. and
some hope Ia lifes. for hope is q yery
necessary food vi hen one s. .younr. E,n I.
1 the first time she gave up: for the flrst
time ~ all the brave struggle she had
made since her childhood she looked
round on the wilderness into which
she had been brought and gave way
to despair.
There WAS: no one to trouble very
much n that place ]; others were DYING.
\ too cipally because there was
/ nothing very much To 1--we for. The
doctor wastrel like every one else
there look ed upon her case as quite
of the ord mary type, and was sober
enough 70 say pretty accurately when
she would die: that was All. Her
1 father tore his hair ana bewailed his
sllh1happ fates and then new Tor c0nso.