Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1908-10-08

SE ing out OF the window
N @~ across the dim summer
haze of heat, negligent
I Nv smoking. He could see the long
\ white mari road bending in a broad
Il curve between clover stippled mead
I ows, to skirt the willow green bluff
Il above the river. There, miles away,
I on the high bank he could distinguish
the railroad bridge, a long black skel-
81 eton spanning "the hole" u deep, fish
haunted pool, the deepest spot in the
river for fifty miles.
Since that moonlighted evening Of
y the will making Harry had learned
that the long lane had had no true
turning for Hugh. He had sifted him
through and through. At college he
n had put him down for q weakling-
81 UNPUBLISHED, misdemeanant. Now he
knew him for what he really was-a
moral mollusk, a scamp in embryo, a
d%ecadent, realizing an ugly propensity
III to a deplorable finale. A consistent
career of loose living had carried
81 Hugh far since those college days
A. when he had been dubbed "Satan's
"a shadow" While to Harry %Santerson
St the eccentric and agnostical had then
been, rs it were, the mask through
(which his temperament looked at life,
8 to Hugh it had spelled shipwreck.
Harry Sanderson had done broadly as
he pleased. He had entertained whom
he listed, had gone Summing" had
once boxed to a finish for a wager a
Is local pugilist whose acquaintance he
affected, known as Gentleman jim"
& He had been both the hardest hitter
AZ and the hardest drinker in his class,
yet withal its most brilliant student.
Native character had enabled him to
4 persist, as the e%xasperating function
of success which dissipation declined
to eliminate. But the same natural
g%ravitation which in spite of all aber-
y ration had given Harry Sanderson
classical honors had brought Hugh
y Stires to the imminent brink of expul-
#sion. And since that time, without
the character which belonged to Har-
ry as a possession, Hugh had contin-
& ued to drift aimlessly on down the
broad lax way of profigacy.
n The conditions he found upon his re-
turn, however, had opened Hugh's
II eyes to the perilous strait in which he
stood. He was a materialist, and the
taste he had had of deprivation had
n sickened him. In the first revulsion,
4 when the contrast between recent
famine and present plenty was strong
upon him, he had been at anxious
@pains to make himself secure with his
f~ather-and with Jessica Holme. Har-
Mry's mental sight-keen as the hunters
sight on the rifle barrel-was sharpen
e by his knowledge of the old Hugh.
an intuitive knowledge gained in a
significant formative period he saw
5#more clearly than the townfolk who
SF in a general way had known Hugh
Stires all their lives. Week by week
Harry had seen him regain lost
d ground in his fathers esteem. Day
NJ by day he had seen him making studi-
~ Gus appeal to all that was romantic in
Jessica. climbing to the favor of each
NJ on the ladder of the others regard.
d Hugh was naturally a poseur. with q
N keen sense Of effect He could be
81 brilliant at will. could play a little on
Mpiano, banjo and violin. could sing a
Slittle and had himself we'll in hand.
&And. feeling the unconscious chord of
n romance vibrate to his touch, he had
Mplayed upon it with no unskillful fin
gers.
Jesslca was comparatively free from
That coquetry by means of which a wo-
mans instinct experiments in emotion.
S#Although she had been artist enough
the clustered years of her blind
to know that she was comely. she
ssnad never employed that beauty in the
Establishments Of girlish fas-
s%Sclnation. But steadily and unconscious
ely she had turned in her darkness
more and more to the bright and ten
der air with which Hugh clothed all
SSthelr intercourse. Her blindness had
III Deen of too short duration to have de
|#SVeloped that fine sense-perception with
q@Whlch nature seeks to supplement the
S~&darkened vision. The ineradicable
#narks which ill governed living had
set in Hugh's face. the self indulgence
egotism. she could not see. She
impulse for instinct She read
by the untrustworthy light of a
z$colorful Imagination. She deemed him
I ~: ~