Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1905-05-26
WICKLYS WOODS
BY II. w. TAYLOR

manner of sounds, to be taken to mean
that man is a night prowler out of that
animal instinct that survives the long
past progression beyond the four feet
armed with claws, and the elongated pu-
pill and erectile ears?
Not at all. 1t only means that night,
being the time of rest, is best suited to
amusement and relaxation. And there
fore people avail themselves of their only
opportunity.
The two women having satisfied their
censclences upon the question of the
rlght OF going upon such an expedition,
drew themselves more closely into the
shelter of their ample shawls and so, like
cowled devotees of these Druid temples
or the primeval woods, went hurrying on
III the growing wind and the declining
rain.
So long as they could follow the broad
ana generally unfenced course of the
Overcoat road there was little or no diff
Guilty IN picking their way in reasonable
security from little stumps of black jacks
that had been cut down in some emer-
gency OF transferring the roadbed a few
rods to this side or to that, to avoid a
newly formed mud hole, or a fallen tree,
or some other of the numerous obsta cles
that beset new roads in new country.
Nor did the long, arching black rasp-
berry vines and blackberry stems, with
sharp and tenacious thorns, lay hold up
on the Woolen liDers OF the shawls, and
insist upon a tariff levied upon the spot,
and only to be measured by 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 unhestatingly 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 un-
hesitatingly, felt the way
Llzzy 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
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 a 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 low hum of
voices could be distinctly heard only a
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
Redden" said Mrs. Redden, raising her
voice SO as to be distinctly heard above
the wind, and all its 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, centered upon them, and in
cluded him within it's 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 a 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-6tting and broad -belted
blouse.
Long leather boots covered his legs
above the knees, giving him 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 astonishment and
growing woRder.
The metallic CLEAN of weapons in tn.
broad leather belt, and the glistening bar
rel of one of those wonderful, new, many
shotted carbines protruding from under
the cloak and lying easily across his righ
forearm, brought her back to look NOR,
closely at his face AZ he came rapidly
forward.
Then she saw that his long and some
what faded brown hair had disappeared
and a rather close cropped coat of bacl
hair came down to his temples under tn,
cap; and she remembered like a flasl
what Coonrod Redden had said about it
Yes, he had worn wig! Beyond
doubt he had worn wig! He hac
played part! He had been cunnin,
and skilled dissmuator.
His bold, jaunty manner, his changed
dress, his easy and assured smile, an,
above all, the youthfulness of his Away
fresh, ruddy face, now framed in tn
close black hair and the bripa ndish On r