Martinsburg statesman-democrat. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1906-1921, 1910-09-09
PROLOGUE
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY BE-
FORE.
The Storm Within.

tains and swept across the plains.
The wind came in wild bursts of ire
Mendous speed Even in the luIls,
which were only comparatively such,
1t blew perhaps 20 miles an hour. The
fierce blasts were laden with fine
snow--frozen spindrift from a white
ocean Of cold! Needles of ice sharp
er than their prototypes OF steel cut
the bare flesh of those whom evil for
tune kept abroad on such a night,
bringing the blood to the freezing
skin. The onslaught of the scream
Ing tempest drove the hapless cattle
mad with pain and terror The thick
snow compelled them to huddle to-
gether at last, and shelterless to suf-
fer, freeze, and die In the pitiless hur-
ricane.
Just where the foothills lose them
sslves in the prairie lay huddled a lit
tie town or camp Every door and win.
dow was shut and barricaded against
the searching storm.
In one Of the poorest and most mis-
cradle shanties on the outskirts of the
sown woman waited alone A COM
mon kerosene lamp stood on a table
3efore the window, set there as If in
signal.
The house, a mere shack which
shook and quivered under the tire.
mendous assaults of the storm, and
might have been blown down II 1t had
not been buttressed and protected by
heaps of snow yet threatening to over.
whelm 1t, contained but one room. In
the corner farthest from the door
stood tumbled frowzy bed. A rick
ETY. chest OF drawers, a kitchen table,
rusty cook stove, few uncertain
chairs of the plainest and cheapest
quality, were all the rest OF the fur
niture. few clothes hung from pegs
driven in the boarded wall A saddle
IN one corner pickax and shovel, a
heavy quirt, and rife hanging from
pegs beneath a shelf sufficiently
pointed out the avocations of the
owner.
Yet she was woman who, what
ever her outward circumstances,
showed no poverty of spirit. She
ragged up and down the room as a
prisoned tiger PAGES the narrow CON
fines Of his cage. Sometimes she
paused and stopped by the window. to
rest her head beneath her hand on
the sash and peer eagerly, passion
Rtely, out into the falling snow. She
could see nothing, and after having
stared with increased disappointment
and further mutterings of angry
hn hat,
less backward and forward march
Had there been any spectator when
she assumed that picturesque position
at the window, where the light, how
ever 1t failed to illuminate the snow,
threw her own face and person in high
xelief, the observer would have been
surprised at the coarse and yet not
nnattractive beauty of her face and
hgure. She was full Tipped and deep
besomed, tall, 1.-THE, strong. Her
cheeks were full of color, her hair
black and coarsely crisp and curly.
E{er hands, which she clasped and I'M
elasped neryously, were large and
Redeemed by toll, but they were shape
~ nevertheless. But there was Meth
ar refinement nor goodness in her
nee. There We're great possibilities
0, evil which experience could have
selected Hers had been a hard life.
snd it had made her hard woman
She was perhaps twenty-five years
old, but looked older
For hours the woman had waited in
mat hut alone. 1t had been storming
badly when she began her vigil. and
the violence of the tempest had in
creased until she feared that no hui
man soul could brave it. That she
very much wanted some one to at
tempt It, that she very keenly, ardent
~, longed for that, was quite evident.
Great is the power of love. Even
ITS counterfeit-that which passes for
It in the eyes Of the ignorant and in
sxperienced-may stir men and WON
en- TO mighty deeds. This woman
waited the arrival of one who fancied
Almseh a modern Perseus about to re-
lease another bound and helpless An
iFomeda from a devouring monster.
Whether the man who fatuously
1iled that role-or the boy. rather for
re had not reached mans years or
t-Late-WOuld arrive before her hus-
band, was the problem that filed the
Eoman's mind. In view of the biz
z2rd raging she might have wondered
whether, IN case either Of them
sought the house, they could find it or
mach il alive. If she had stopped to
consider that phase of the posslbili-
ties. she would have been profoundly
Elat aad hurh verturod and had both
wandered on in the night until beaten
down and mastered by the spirit of
the storm so that the searcters, after
its violence had abated. might find
them frozen to death as many another
,7t follow was found frozen there.
z;izr For while the woman loathed
aad hated her drunken brute os a hus.
Band. yet size had nc affection for the
Scottish young teuderfo0t who had wan.