Martinsburg statesman-democrat. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1906-1921, 1907-09-27
" BY .GANN- Ec5 CLARK hM1IWX
,0ONRcAT 1905, 5XLoHzQoP, LEE 8 CHER4RD co.

into the old tote road. Up this they
had brought her, eight years before.
Never since had she trayersed 1t: and
yet, as she looked at it now, an in
SEPARATION born of her fathers sneer
came to her
1t was a desperate chance a fool
hardy step-a journey so appalling. so
almost hopeless, she might well hest
tate; and yet, escape that way was
her one chance. Only moment longer
she waited, then gathering her few be-
longings-a pair of old shoes, the moe
casins Old Tomah had given her, a
skirt and jacket fashioned from Tins
CASTOR garments, fur cap, and soft
felt hat--she thrust them into a soiled
plllow-case and crept down the stairs.
Once out, she looked about, listened,
then darted up the hillside, straight
for the tote road entrance. Here she
paused. put on her moccasins and
looked back.
The moon. now above the tree-tops,
shone full upon Tins Place. softening
and silyering all its ugliness and all
its squalor Away to the left stood
Tonah's hut, across the river, a shin
ing path bright and rippled.
In spite of the awful dread of her
situation and the years OF her hard,
unpaid, and ofttimes cursed toll, a
pang of regret now came to her. This
was her home, wretched as it was.
Here she had at least been fed and
warmed in winters, and here Old To
nah had shown her kindness. Oh, if
he were only In his hut now. that she
might go and waken him SOFTLY and
beg him to take her in his canoe and
speed down the riveri
But no. only her own desperate
courage would now avail, and realizing
that this look upon Tins Place was
the last one, she turned and fed down
the path. Sixty miles of stony, bush
encountered, brier-grown, seldom-trav-
eled road lay ahead of her Sixty
miles through the somber silence and
persistent menace of a wilderness,
peopled only by notwithstanding crea-
lures, yelloweyed and sharp-fanged!
With only q sickening, soul-nause-
at,ng fate awaiting her at Tins Place,
and her sole escape this almost insane
flight she sped on. The faint, spectral
riffs of moonlight through interlaced
fir and spruce as often deceived as aid
ed her; bending boughs whipped her,
bushes and logs tripped her, sharp
stones and pointed sticks bit her;
she hurried over hillockss wallowed
through sloughs and dashed into tan
giles of briers, needless of all except
her one mad impulse to escape.
Soon the ever present menace of
wilderness assailed her,-the yowl of
wildcat close ar hand; in a swamp.
the sharp bark of wolf; on a hillside
above her, the shoot of an owl: and
when after two hours of this desper-
ate fight had exhausted her and she
was forced to halt. strange creeping,
crawling things seemed all about
And now the erratic, fantastic belief
of Old Tomah returned to her. With
him the forest was people by weird,
.uncanny race, sometimes visible and
! sometimes not--"spites," he called
them, and they were the souls of both
! man and beast: sometimes good, some
times evil, according as they had been
/ in life, and all good or III luck was due
! to their ghostly influences. They fol
| lowed the hunter and trapper day and
night, lurins him into safety or danger,
as they chose. They were everywhere.
and in countless numbers, ready and
sure to avenge all wrongs and reward
all virtues, They had 2 Chieftain also,
1 a great white spectre who came forth