The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1905-09-21
1.-THE MASTER OF ApPLEBY:
@- BY Francis Lynde. ----
BY Francis Lynde.

had led the captured horses in the
dusk.
This route promised all the perils of
a gantlet-running. since by il We must
take the risk OF meeting the fleeing
f~ugitives from the convoy camp, If the
explosion had spared any fl 10 lift
and carry the vengeance cry. But here
again there was no alternative, and we
set US in order for the descent, with
Yeates and the Catawba ahead, the
women and Dick in the midst. and her
Apostolic Majesty's late captain Of hus-
sars. masqueradtng as a British troop
er, TO bring on the rear.
Once in motion beneath the blue
black shadows of the pines, l quickly
lost all sense of direction. After we
had ridden in wordless silence a short
half hour or less. and I supposed we
should be nearing the head of Jul de-
acending ravine. our little cavalcade
was halted suddenly in a thlckset
grove OF the pines, and Ephraim Yeates
appeared d; ny stirrup 70 say
Hist ye of your nag. Cap'n John.
and let's take a far'well squinch at the
inimy whilst we can"
Where? what enemy" I would ask,
slipping from the saddle at his word.
Why, the ~hoss-captain's varmints,
to be sure: or what-all the amobination
o desolation has left OF en-. We amt
more than a cats jump from the edge
o the big rock where we first sot eyes
on EN- this morning."
| saw not what was to be gained by
any such long-range espial in the dark
ness. None the less, I followed the old
man to the cliffs edge. He was wiser
in his ~forecastings than I was in mine.
There was a thing TO look at, and light
enough TO see it by. One of the missile
stones, 1t seems, a crashed into the
great fire, scattering the brands in al.
directions. The pine-bough troop shell
tiers We're ablaze, and creeping serpents
Of fire We're Worming their way hither
and yon over the yea--old leaf beds In
the wood. Ever and amor some pine
sapling in the path of these fiery SER
penis would go up in a torch-light
flare; and SO, as | say there was light
enough.
What we looked down upon was not
inaptly pictured out by Ephraim
Ieates's Scripture phrase, the abom-
ination of desolation. Every vestige of
the camp a " the glowing skeletons
OF the troop shelters had disappeared,
and the swarded savanna was become
a ~blackened chaos-blot on the fair
woodland scene I have aid that the
Notwithstanding boulder was a cliff
for size; the mighty upheaval of the
explosion had toppled it in ruins into
the stream, and huge fragments the
bigness of a wine-butt had been hurled
with the storm of lighter debris broad
cast upon the camp.
AT first we saw no sign OF life in all
the firelit space. But a smoment la
ter, when three or four of the sapling
torches blaZed VI together, we made
out some half dozen figures of human
beings-whether red or white we could
not tell-stumbling and reeling about
among the rocks like blind men
drunken.
At sight of these the old hunter
DOTTED his. hat and fell upon his knees
with hands uplifted to pour out his
zealot's soul in the awful sentences of
the Psalmist's inprecation.
Let God rise, and let His inimies
be scattered; let them also that hate
Him flee before Him. Like as the
smoke vanisheth, so shalt thou drive
them away; Il like as the wax melt
eth at the fire, SO let the ungodly per-
ish at the presence Of God.