The Mena weekly star., 1909-07-01
'u[lo' and loft on the stone bench.

Ferhaps he had not found inc daq. ger, but had his own means to make an end of his enemy and his own ter. ror' Blrdsall believed that he had ac. comphces, or at least one accomplice "lth him. He conceived that they had lain in ambush watching until they saw kito go away. Then an entry had been made. Most lilso n blrdsall concluded. he jest flung that dagger away for you folks to find and suspect the domestics, say Kito. cause ne was away" But this was not all that Birdsall had to report. He had traced Atkins to the haunts of certain uhsavory Italians; he had struck the irall, Tn line. To be sure, it ran under ground and was lost in the brick walled and slimy-timbered cellars of Chinatown which harbored every sin and crime known to civilization or to sayagery What matter? By grace of ms aunt's powerful friend they could track the wolves even through those noisome burrows
 fes,' sighed the colonel stretching out his arms, with a resonant breath Of relief, we're out of the maze. all We have to do now Is to keep from be. Ing killed. Which isn't such a plain proposition in Frisco as in Massa- chusetts! But l reckon we can tackle 1t! And then-then. my darling. I shall dare be happy!"
 He found h{D,eolf laou;r. ,s windowsill and staring like a boy on the landscape, lost in the lovely hal fluctuations of moonlight It was no scene that he knew. it was a vision of old Srain; and by and by from wonder turret the princess, with violets in her loosened hair and her soft cheek like satin and snow. would lean and look. si te meuve a lastima mi eterno pa-
 decer,
 Como te amo. amame bellissima nu,ert
 "Ah, no, little girl" he muttered with a shake of the head, q like it better to have you a plain, American gentlewoman, as Aunt Becky would say, who could send mo 10 battle with a nice little quivery smne-sweet-
 
 you, my dear, my dear" He felt an immense humility as he contrasted his own lot with the loneliness of Keatcham and Mercer and the multi tude of solitaries in the world. who had lest, or sadder still, had never oosseS sed, the divine dream that is he only reality of the soul. As such thoughts moved his heart, suddenly in the full tide of hope and thankfulness, 1t stood still, chilled, as if by the glimpse of an iceberg in summer seas. Yet how absurd; it was only that he had recalled his stoical aunts most unexpected touch of superstition. Quite in jest he had asked her if she felt any presentiments or queer things in her bones tonight He expected to be answered that Janet had driven every other anxiety out of her mind; and how was she to break it to Milli- cent?-or with some such caustic re- partee. Instead, she had replied test fly: Yes, l do, Bertie. feel-hor- rid! l feel as if something out of the common awful were going to happen. It isn't exactly Atkins. either Do you reckon it could be the I Suey When, that bamboo-shoots mess we had for dinner?'
 Although they spent a good 20 min utes after that, joking over super stitions, and he had repeated to her some of Tracy's and Arnold's most in- genious "spooky stunts" to make the neighborhood keep it's distance from Casa Fuerte, and they had laughed freely, she as heartily as he, never theless he divined that her smile was pretense. Suddenly, an unruly tremor shook his own firm spirits. Looking out on the stepped and lanterned arches of the wing, he was conscious of the same tragic endowment of the darkened pile. which had oppressed him that night, weeks before, when he had stood outside on the crest of the hill; and the would-be murderers might have been skulking in the shadows of the pepper trees. He tried vainly to shake off this distempered mood. Although he might succeed for a moment in a lovers absorption, it would come again, insidiously, seep- Ing through his happiness like a fume After futile attempts to sleep he rose, and still at the bidding of his uncanny and tormenting impulse he took his bath and dressed himself for the day By this time the ashen tints of dawn were in his chamber and on the fields outside. He stood looking at the unloveliest aspect of nature, d land scape on the sunless side, before the east is red. The air felt lifeless; there were no depths in the pale sky; the azure was a fiat tint, opaque and thin, like a poor water-color. While he gazed the motionless trees, live oaks and olives and palms, were shaken by mighty wind; the pepper pIumes tossed and streamed and tangled like a banner; the great elms along the avenue bent over in break ing strain. Yet the silken cord of the Holland window shade did not so much as swing. There was not a wings breath of air. But gradually the earth and cloud vibrated with a strange grinding noise which has been described a hundred times but never adequately; a sickening crepitation, as of the rocks in the hills scraping and splintering. Before the mind could question the sound. there succeeded an anarchy of uproar. In it was jumbled the crash of trees and build ings, the splintering crackle of glass, .h. hrnr,n nf hnvn chinnnYs fnlling and