The Prescott daily news., 1908-09-04
The Stranger Girl.
loriginall

tOrsinall
 A young girl not over seventeen years old entered a Russian village and inquired for conveyance to the nearest railway station. There was in her face none of that free from care look natural to girls of her age. but serious. resolute expression as though she were intent upon some great purpose. She had no baggage except leather travelling bag, which was noticeable, for she was not of the peasant class, who are often too poor to have any clothes except those op their backs, but one of an intermediate people between peasant and noble.
 It happened that there had been wedding in the village, and the groom was about to take his bride to his farm some versts away. The journey lay i'll the direction of the railway. and it was agreed that the stranger girl should be permitted to accompany the bridal party and be driven on be yond the grOom's farm to the station Several friends of the young couple were going to see the bridal couple to their new home. Just as they were about to start a man entered the sledge without an invitation. The groom objected, whereupon the man showed the badge of a government of. hcial, which silenced any further re fusal.
 It was in the springtime, but the snow had not yet melted The air was | cold and penetrating, and the travel. CTS were all wrapped in fur robes But they were a gay party, cracking their jokes and chaffing the newly mar. ried couple. Only two persons sat mute-the government official and the stranger girl-though their rigid de. meanor had no effect in dampening the spirits of the others. But present. ly, on coming to wild tract that they were obliged to cross. they suddenly ceased their merriment. From the forest came sound untitled by dis. tance, but none the less terrible-a sound known only too well to the oc cupants of the sledge as the distant baying of wolves. The horses threw up their heads in fright, then set off at gallop. The groom reached down under the seat and, not finding what he looked for turned pale.
 "The armsv he exclaimed. "Where are they?"
 He looked at his young men friends successively. None had put in the weapons. Each had expected some one else to do so. They had been left behind.
 Presently from the right and rear a dark mass came through the trees like black water pouring in before a rising tide. There 1t joined on the road and became pack of wolves. There was but one weapon in the party. and that belonged to the government official It was a revolver with six shots in it's chambers. Its possession could not be considered chance-it was hardly even hope. Its owner drew it, cooked 1t and when the wolves came within range fired at the leader and rolled him over. A few of the pack bounced upon the dead wolf while the rest came on. The official fired the six shots at intervals, with each shot killing a wolf, and when he had done this he had finished his defense. The party were at the mercy of the wolves Though the horses were tearing along at frantic speed. the wolves were drawing nearer every moment When they had come to a distance of about fifty feet the stranger girl rose from her seat, opened her satchel, took out a steel ball the size of an orange and poising it in her right hand, said:
 ''I give my life to save yours. This man." referring to the government of fcial twill see that 1 disappear from the world. The stroke I intended for a tyrant heaven wills shall go only to a pack of wolves
 She threw the ball deliberately, and 1t came down near the center of the pack. There was flash an explosion, and where the wolves had been was vacant spot around which carcasses and bits of carcasses were spread on the snow as if buttered with a huge