The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1908-01-04

put up by this same secret tribunal.
watch. child, watch!" he said
again, without in the least shifting his
tense position.
"surely!" responded Mary, quite
steadily.
Now was her time come. Dark,
sinister figures fitted from tree to
tree. At first she could not be sure, it
was so heartlessly dark but there was
lnovement-it was different from that
terrible blank quiet which she had
hitherto been gazing upon till her eyes
burned and pricked as with needle
points, and visionary things swan be.
fore them. She winked rapidly to
dispe1 the unreal and floating things,
opened wide her long-lashed lids, fixed
them, and-fired. Then Williston
knew that his little GIRL" his one eve
lamb, all that was left to him of full
and gracious past, must so through
what he had gone through, all that
nameless horror and expectant dread,
and his heart cried out at the unholy
injustice of it all. He dared not go to
her, dared not desert his post for an
instant. If one got within the shadow
of the walls all was lost.
Mary's challenge was met with a
rather hot return fire. 1t was probably
given to inspire the besieged with
due respect for the attackers num-
bers. Bullets battered around the out
side walls like hailstones, one even
whizzed through the window perilous'
ly near the girls intent young face.
Silence came back to the night.
There was no more movement. Yet
down there at the spring something,
maybe one of those dark, gaunt cot
tonwoods, held death-death for her
and death for her father. A stream of
icy GOODNESS struck across her heart.
She found herself calculating in DELHI
GRAFTON which tree it was that held
this thing-death. The biggest one,
shadowing the spring, helping to keep
the pool sweet and cool where Paul
Langford had galloped his horse that
day when-ah! if Paul Langford
would only come now!
A wild, girlish hope flashed up in
her heart. Langford would come
Had he not given his hand as
pledge? 1t means something to shake
hands in the cattle country. He was
big and brave and true. When he
came these awful, creeping terrors
would disperse-grim shadows that
must steal away when morning comes.
When he came she could put her
rifle in his big, confident hands, lie
down on the floor and-cry. She
wanted to cry-oh, how she did want
to cry. Cold reason came back to her
aid and dissipated the weak and
womanish longing to give way to
tears. There was a pathetic droop to
her mouth. a long, quivering, Sob
bling sigh, and she buried her wom-
ans weakness right deeply and
stamped upon it. How utterly wild
and foolish her brief hope had been!
Langford and all his men We're sound
in sleep long ago. How could he
know? we're the rufians out there
men to tell? All, no! There was no
Ou0 W huo". IL "Oulu oil udppCu Ill
the dark-in awful loneliness, and
there would be no one to know until
it was all over-to-morrow, maybe. or
next week. who could tell? They
were off the main trail, few people
ever sought them out. There would
be no one to know.
AS her strained sight stared out in
to the darkness it was borne to her
intuitively, it may be, that something
was creeping up on her. She could
see nothing and yet knew it to be
true. Every fiber of her being tingled
with the certainty of it. 1t was COM
ing closer and closer. She felt it like
an actual presence. Her eyes shifted
here, there-swept her half-circle
earchingly-stared and stared. Still
nothing moved. And yet the nearness
of some unseen thing grew more and
more palpable. If she could not see
it soon she must scream aloud. She
breathed in little quickened gasps.
Soon, very soon, she would scream.
All! A shadow down by the biggest
cottonwood! 1t bodily sought nearer
and a smaller trunk. Another stink.
ing shadow glided behind the vacated
position. 1t was a CHASTITY presenta-
tion of pussy ants-acorner" played
in nightmare. But at last it was
something Notwithstanding to do
~-''ay with that frightful sensation OF
that crawling, creeping, twisting
worming, acknowledgements and
nearer, so near now that it beat upon
her-unseen presence. She pressed
her finger to the trigger to shoot at
the tangible shadows and dispel that
enveloping, choking. blanket horror
when God knows what stayed the
action of her fingers. Call it instinct
what you will. her hand was stayed
even before her physical eye was
caught and held by a blot darker still
than the night, over to her right, farth
est from the spring. 1t lay perfectly
still. 1t came to her, the willy plan
With startling c1earness The blot