The Rice belt journal., 1908-03-20
CHAPTER III.
Louise,

IL Was raining wien SQe le1C WlnQ
City, but the rain had soon been dis
tanced Perhaps the Judge was right
when he said it never rained north
or west Of Wind City. But the Judge
had not wanted her to go. Neither
had the Judges wife.
Full 20 minutes, only day before
yesterday, the judge had delayed his
days outing at the mill where the
Jim river doubles right around on its
tracks, in order to make it perfectly
clear to her that it was absolutely
outside the bounds Of her duty, that
1t was altogether an affair on the side,
that she could not be expected to 60,
and that the prosecuting attorney up
there had merely asked her out of
courtesy, in Difference to her position.
Of course he would be glad enough to
get her, but let him get some one
nearer home, or do without. 1t wasn't
at all necessary for the court report
er to hold herself in readiness to an
sWer the call Of anything outside her
prescribed circuit duties. To be sure
she would earn trifle, but it was
hard trip, a hard country, and she
had much better postpone her initial
journey into the unknown until the
regular term of court, when he could
be with her. He had then thrown his
minnoW seine over his shoulders,
taken his minnow pail in one hand
and his reel case and lunch box in
the other, and walked out to the road
wagon awaiting him at the gate, and
30 OH to his frolic, leaving her to
night 1t out for herself.
The judges wife had not been so
diplomatic, not by any means. She
nad dwelt long and earnestly and no
doubt to a large extent truly. on the
unciVhized condition of their neigh
Dors up the line; the roughness of
accommodations, the boldness and
license Of the cowboys, the daring
and 1nsolence of cattle thieves, and
cunning and dishonesty Of the Indians
and the uncouthness and viciousness
OF the half-breeds. She had ended nv
declarlng eloquently that Louise would
Gle OF lonesomeness if, by Gods good
providence, she escaped a worse fate
az the hands of one or all of the many
evils she had enumerated. Yes. it
was very evident Aunt Helen had not
wanted her to 60. But Aunt Helen's
real reason had been that she held
II SO dizzily unconventional fo5 her
niece to go to that v;i31 and unbo,v
land alone. Sic did not actually fear
Tor her nieCe's personal safety and
Louise nIore than half suspected the
truth
'sshe had heard all the arguments
before. They had little or no terrors
for her now. They were the argu.
ments used by the people back in her
eastern home, those dear, dear peo-
pie, her people-how far away she
Vas!-When they had schemed and
plotted so pathetically to keep her
with them, the second one to break
away from the slow, safe, and calm
traditions of her kin in the place
where generation after generation of
her people had lived and died, and
now lay waiting the great Judgment
in the peaceful country burying.
ground
She had listened to them dutifully
half believing, swallowed hard and
followed her uncle, her fathers
youngest brother, to the Land of the
Dakotahs."
Now, that same dear uncle was
man OF power and position in the new
land. Only last November he had
been reelected to his third term on
the bench of his circuit with a big
heart-stirring majority. In the day
OF his prosperity he had not forgot.
ten the little, tangle.haired girl who
had cried so inconsolably when he
went away, and the unaccountable hor
ror In whose eyes he had tried to
laugh away on that never-to-be-forgot.
ten day when he had wrenched his
heartstrings from their safe abiding.
place and gone forth in quest of the
pot of gold at the rainbow's end