Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1905-12-08

necessary wolf had been coy. and they perforce had to compromise with his poor relation. the coyote-a poor rela ton. indeed. whose shabby coat thinned by the process of summer shedding. made it an unworthy souvenir to Miss Colebrooke. But it was not the lack of q wolf that robbed the hunting party of its zest for Kitty She could not tell what it was, but something seemed to have gone wrong with the day from the beginning She rode beside her cavalier in habit the like of which the country had never before seen. and Peter. usually the most observant of men, had no word for it's multitude of perfections. In the first realization of disappointment with the day. the hunt the hardShipS of the long ride. her per. turbed consciousness took up the prob lem of this missing element and tried to adjust itself to the irritating ab sence. Kitty wondered if it were something she had forgotten No, there were her two little cambric pocket handkerchiefs, remotely suggestive of orrs and bearing her monogram deli cately wrought and characteristic. It WIS rot her watch. the ribbon fob of which futtered now and then in the EleeZe. It was not veil or scarfpin or ahy of the paraphernalia of the proper ly garbcd horsewoman. And yet there was something missing. something she should have had With her, something the absence of which was taking the savor from the days hunting
 It must be the very bigness of this great. splendid world that gave her the sense of being alone at sea. h. tuitively sle turned and looked at Peter riding beside her. There was something in his face that made her look again before accepting the realiza- ton, at first ncredIlously, then with frank amusement Peter had scarcely spoken since they left the ranch She had come down to breakfast so sure of her new riding habit. The Wetmore girls bad been moved to hyperboleS about it's cut and fit and the trim short ness of the skiit-short riding skirts Were something of q novelty then. The fine gold Es,ir twisted tight at the back of the shapely head. was like d coiled mass of furnished metal. some safe keeping device of mint or gold worker till the season of coining or fashioning should come round. The delicate firm Dess of profile gave to the face the ar titicial perfection of au old lnin iature rather than of q flesh and blood coun- tenance, aiid all these Were there as of yore, but the marvel ot tlletu failed of the customary tribute.
 Kitty, on scanty reflection. was at no loss to translate Peters reserve into a language at once fiattering and retrib- utive. In her scheme of life he was always to be her devoted cavalier, as indeed he had been from the beginning. She loved her own small emnence too we'll to ilnperil her tenure of it by sharing it's pretty view of men and things with any one. She loved the star part. and next to playing it she enjoyed wrestling it from other women or ecipsing them completely in some conspicuously minor role. while. in the matter of dress. Miss Colebrooke went beyond the point decreed by the most exigeut mandates of fashion. She danced with the same facility with which she rode, swan and played ten his. In doing these things supremely well she felt that she vindicated the position of the woman of letters. Why should one be a Trump because one wrote?
 Her friendship with Peter was to endure to greenest old age. more pla tonlc perhaps. than that of Mme. Recamier and Chatea ubriand 1t was to be fruitful in letters that would compare favorably with the best of the seventeenth century series Even now her own letters to Peter were no sprightly scrawl of passing events, bu5 efforts whose seriousness suggested, at least in their carefully elabo:atp,i stages Of structure. the letters of the ladies of Cranford
 But in the course of these western wanderngs. undertaken not wholly without consideration of Peter. there had appeared ill the mapiike eXactres> of her plans un indefinite territory thar threatened uusi?aamed of proportions The unknown quantity was none other than the frequent ana irritating men, tion of one Judith Rodney. who. from all accounts appeared half breed Her name, her beauty. some intrinsic charm of person&.ty. made her an all too freGurrt topic, except ill the case of Peter He had been singularly keen a scenting any interrogatory venue that led to the mysterious half breed , when questioned he consistently re- fused to exhibit her as type.
 Kitty knew that she had treated her long suffering cavalier with scant con- sideration the day he had spurred across the desert to see her. True. she had written him on her arrival. but with feminine perversity of logic thought it trfe inconsiderate of him to come so soon after that trying rail road journey. She intended to salve