Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-04-04
Our Friend Jennison
Continued from page s

sian living fiat on his back with arms extended,
1t seemed, as looked, that his lips moved, and
there came crazy fancy that he was calling to
to come down. All sorts of insane fantasies
chased one another through my topsyturvy
brain The stream brawling down below
seemed surgng up to tear me loose from my
hold. the FLASHING of the water seemed to
change to threatening voices, shouting com
mand to come down. And give you my word
| saw Bickerdyke as plain could be, crawling
behind me on the log, glbbering and his lips
working in that CHASTITY eyeless face! That
nearly shook me off the tree; and then that in
fernal bird fitted down into the rift, perched on
a bush above my head and sang and sang in the
gathering gloom, until lost all consciousness of
everything but the throb of its notes, clinging
there like some mere animal IN the bare brute
instinct to hold fast to life and to wait dumbly
and blindly for the end.
HOW long this lasted | can't say,-perhaps
half-hour.-but all sense of time was gone. A
shout from above reused me: the girl was
back again with some natives who let down
rope was really SO gone that could do
nothing but stare up Impotently. One of them
Slid down the rope, tied me fast, and they
hoisted me up. It's queer thing but the first
clear impression that filtered through my mud
died brain was story somebody told the last
time / was here,-Carrigan over there | think
1t hadn't much point when ! heard him tell it :,
but Just then the story came back to bit
Of frst-class humor, and fairly shouted with
laughter. The natives stared curiously, and the
girl drew herself up in some Indignation. She
never imagined i had been literally sick with
fright. l tell you it is a horrible thing to be 50
scared as that,-to be helpless in the grasp of
deadly fear" Jennison stopped; his cigar had
gone out and he nervously lighted fresh one
from the case Banning pushed across the
table.
Well, that's all Of the story We went back
a piece with the natives to their village, where
we got ponies and finally made the railroad and
caught train for Russia without more trouble
! went straight on to London laid up in a
hospital there for awhile,-brain fever and
when got out came on home" Jennison sat
in silence as if he had forgotten and was see
ing across the table the face of his dead friend
The poet broke the silence "Jennson, what
became of the girl, and who was she?"
II never knew She rarely spoke the
journey home. | could hardly question her
much you know, except to try to find out where
she wanted to go, but she evaded telling me
even that. When got to European Russia
she gave me the slip somewhere. ! never knew
what became of her.
YOUNG Herder had been staring fxedly at
Jennlson, sitting back IN his chair, his chin
up and smoking fercely The boy was labor
ing under some excitement. Herder too had
been out in ManChuria as war correspondent.
and was not long back home. He asked few
hurried questions of the elder man as to the To-
cality he had been describing; and then, with
curious break IN his young voice and with awe
in his eyes, said
Mr.. Jennison, l was with the party that
chased you. They were Cossack cavalry from
kirIn, sent out after a gang of Chinese bandits
that had slipped through the lines and were
raid,ng up Hardin way. We never caught them;
but coming up the main road we your party
ride off hard into the open country, and sup
posed of course you were part of the gang We
found your horses running loose in the timber,
and found the dead man by the ravine, all
alone. We did not see the bodies at the bottom
of the chasm. ! myself looked into it and saw
the treetrunk stuck across some feet down, with
hunch on it that must have been you, but it
was growing dark down there and never imag-
ined the lump on the log was living man. The
whole thing was a complete puzzle; nobody
could guess what it meant. What an awful
pity"
.Jennison glared at Herder, his face banched
white as his hair. So they were friends, he
muttered, and it was all a mistake! My Cod"
CHIRPS OF CHERUB
A NEWSPAPER woman is the 1uckiest on