The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1905-07-06

insist upon tariff levied upon the spot,
and only to be measured BIZ the points of
contact
But when, after awhile, Mrs. Redden,
coming upon a plain wagon road that
came into the highway of Overcoat road
out OF an unpromising shadow Of the
great forest, turned unhesitatingly into it
and to the northward, all the circum-
stances seemed to be suddenly changed
| for the worse
| 1t was no longer possible to see one
yard of the suddenly narrowed road, and
| they were compelled to concentrate all
their senses of alertness in their feet,
that now cautiously, but quickly and I'M
hesitatingly, felt the way.
| Lizzy here implicitly followed her agile
and fearless leader, lodging with her
| head this way and that, throwing her
left arm up here and her right arm up
there, In anticipation of some imaginary
slender and dropping branch.
Turning one of the many short and
almost semi-circular curves in this un-
trammeled woods-road, they came sud-
denly within the broad glare of q light
which they had seen for brief moments,
and at irregular intervals during the lat
ter portion of their long and rapid walk.
The light appearing to come out of
small round rent in the very curtain
Of the night itself, moved and oscillated
| across their path, while a low hum of
voices could be distinctly heard only q
little way from them.
The two women continued to advance
slowly and wonderingly, hearing the hum
of voices interrupted by a short laugh,
and then totally suppressed by a per-
emptory ejaculation in voice that one
of the adventurous Hoosier women was
| familiar with.
"Coonrod! Is that you? Coonrod
Redeem" said Mrs Redden, raising her
| the wind, and all it's woodland reso-
nances.
One man stepped out of the black
shadow and came forward. Lizzy had
ample time to observe him narrowly, and
to see him perfectly. For the strong cone
of yellow light. wavering a little from
side to side, conferred upon them, and in
cluded him within its glow.
From the first step that he took for
ward out of the darkness, Lizzy Wickly,
with sudden leap of her heart, recog
nized him. 1t was Mr.. Mason, certain
| ly. But what change in him! And to
what was due the change?
His ordinary dark, plain and unpreten-
tious dress had become totally supplant-
ed. He wore high, black, rimless cap
such as men of that day sometimes wore
| in the later autumn. A short, black,
gum-enameled cloak was fastened about
his shoulders and thrown slightly back
| from the close-ftting and broad belted
| blouse.
Long leather boots covered his legs
above the knees, giving him a jaunty,
dashing, cavalier air so totally new and
strange and foreign to him, as she had
heretofore known him, that she was I'm
movable from sheer establishment and
growing wonder.
The metallic CLEAN of weapons in the
broad leather belt, and { = glistening bar
rel of one of those wonderful, new, many
shotted carbines protrading from under
the cloak and lying easily across his right
forearm, brought her back to look more
closely at his face as he came rapidly
| forward.
Then she saw that his long and some
what faded brown hair had disappeared.
and rather close cropped coat of black
i udI Cdut uONu W Ills ltllpleS uQQer the
caps and she remembered like a flash
what Coonrod Redden had said about it.
Yes, he had worn a wig! Beyond a
doubt he had worn a wig! He had
played a part! He had been cunning
and a skilled dissimulator.
| His bold, jaunty manner, his changed
dress, his easy and assured smile, and
above all, tie youthfulness of his always
fresh, rudy face, now framed in the
close black hair aud the brigandish cap.
were in their totality as well as In their
particularly, irrefragible proof of the
fact that he was a skilled dissimulator,
Along with this sudden conclusion, ar
rived at within three ample seconds of
time, covering perhaps, ten thousand evo-
lutions of thought, memory and COM
parison, there was sharply define. re-
| currence Of that sense of loss that she
| had felt when she had looked at this
man and perceived some alteration in him
while he had driven past her on yester-
day in the streets of Sandtown.
He is about to speak. And she feels
that she must not lose his smallest word
his least gesture; his most feeting glance.
For upon these depend something. Some
thing of greatly supreme moment to her.
She feels and knows.