Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-11-16

-- Cne --
! PIOW Woman !
By ELEANOR GATES.
Author of THE Biography of Prairie Girl"
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY
By ELIZA NOR GATES,

Author of 1.-THE Biography of Prairie Girl"

simultaneously he was torturing him.
self. Had the section boss left home
with no danger threatening? But-the
green pung was undoubtedly bound
for Bismarck. What was it that had
suddenly made him see the necessity
of attending to the claim? Along with
this came self arraignment. After all,
he should have told Lancaster that a
man who claimed the quarter section
on the peninsula had been called from
Dodge City. LounsbuTy had been GER
tain that Matthews could not reach
Fort Brannon before the spring. But
it had never occurred to him that the
section boss would leave his girls
alone! Now, he vowed that if any
harm befell Dallas and Marylyn he
had only himself to blame.
He bucllled on his pistol belt and
padlocked the door, II don't care
whether the old man likes 1t or not"
he declared aloud, I'm going down
there"
AS he swung through the camp on
his way to; the corral he saw one of
old Michael's helpers coming toward
him. picking his steps in the slush.
The man motioned and held out out
white something. 1t was an envelope,
grimy and unaddressed.
: Lounsbury ripped it open and pulled
of written sheet.
der mr. lunsbery iran. the motel mathuse
com las mite in quere outfit with a
krazy preecher the preecher think is at
the landcasters but the other sunuvagun
is der hav 1 on him prity kold wether
river solid
1t was partly through the generous
employment of his imagination that
the storekeeper was able to make out
the scrawl, which, though not signed.
he knew to be the pilots. That same
Imagination enabled him to bring up
numberless disturbing-almost terri
ble-pictures.
The astonished helper gazed after
him as he went tearing away in the
direction of the horse herd by jim
GO" he grumbled Twenty miles,
and he didn't even say treatr'
Soon Lounsbury's favorite saddler,
urged on by n quirt, was kicking up 4
path across the erusted drifts that
Slladrach had so recently surmoanted
AS the storekeeper cantered swiftly
forward new question presented
itself TO him. Was the preacher In
league with Matthews, and so was
carrying the section boss out of the
way? He decided negatively. He had
given only Il glance to Lancaster's
companion. but that, together with the
passing glimpse from the store. had
shown him a venerable man whose
piercing eyes held a pious light. He
was no scoundrel confederate. He
was plainly but a brave, perhaps ia.
natic ana fooIhardy, apostle in the
/ wilderness, and his calling had kept
Matthews from confiding in him.
While Lounsbury thus alternately
tortured and eased his mind he had
passed the somber clump Of cotton
woods where the Indian dead We're
! dashed and was fast covering the miles
that lay between the burial boughs
and Fort Brannon.
When the ten minutes he had allot-
| ted We're past Matthews made great
show of putting away his watch and
took last pull at the whisky flask
The bottle disposed Of he walked
down the drift to the warped door and
raped Il staccatO. No answer was re-
turned. Again he raped and more
imperatively than before. Again no
answer. He pushed back his hat and
applied an ear to the hole through
which had hung the lifting string of
| the latch. Then he heard long, infre-
quent sobs, like those of a child who,
though almost asleep, is yet SORROW
| ing. Between the sobs, punctuating
them fiercely, sounded the prolonged
sucking in of breath.
might as well stop y bawlin' an
squallin'," he called through the latch
hole. Times upT"
Getting no reply, as before, he alter
ed his tactics. First, shading his face
with his slim fingers, he looked in.
| He could not see the girls. Dallas was
close to the door and beyond the limit
of his vision. So was Marylyn, who,
| helpless with fright half knelt, half
| lay, against her sister. What he could
see was, from the south window, the
! gaudy Navajo blankets forming two
| partitions of Lancasters bedroom and
nearer two partly filed sacks, some
| harnesses and the seat of a wagon
The other windosI afforded better
view. Looks mighty comfortable"
he said as he contemplated it, There
was a hearth with its dying fire. In
front of it were circling benches and a
thick buffalo skin rug. Above was a
mantel, piled with calico covered
! books "A freshly scrubbed table stood