Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1911-06-22
CHAPTER xvl.-continued.

.Hf .HH F#aHs .tNAH. f seS #HHNr.. aLRM UG. ".'
about, a~nd-Jeanne, 1t was no base
less terror, no product of the twilight
and the fact that you were far from
home. There was something there,
slipping along from the shelter of one
boulder to that of another. ] found
the tracks in the snow. They weren't
more than ten PAGES away from you
when 1 came down out of the sky"
Was it the bear?" she asked. THAT
was what you thought it might have
been, at the time" But he could e
In her eyes that this was not the an
swer she expected.
He shook his head; that told her
enough.
AS Roscoe fed along the beach on
the night Cayley descended upon him
through the fog, there was no doubt
In his mind that he had Ger the ghost
of the man he had murdered and
the shadow of a black avenging spirit
lowering over his head.
When he found that his boat had
gone. adrift and that his only mean
Of getting back to the Aurora had
gone with it. he dropped down upon
beach. crawled UP into the lee Of a
great rock and had spent the, night
there, his mind completely torpid with
fear.
When the numbness Of this terror
passed away, as gradually 1t did, he
bent all this thoughts upon the Aurora
and upon the possibility, not quite in
conceivable, that his crew had sue
ceeded in overpowering her people
and were now in possession Of the
yacht. He tried to persuade himself
that this was SO and that with the
coming Of the dawn they would send
a boat ashore for him.
OF the strange figure he had seen
there in the hut, SO like and yet so
terribly unlike the victim Of his muir
derous lust four years ago-of that,
and Of the more terrible apparition he
had seer coming down out of the sky,
he thought, or tried to think nothing
at all. 1t was only a nightmare, only
a delusion, natural enough when one
considered all the circumstances.
When the fog lifted with the ap
proach of dawn, he discovered what
Philip and Jeanne did not become
aware of until several hours later, that
the Aurora had drifted out to sea In
the gale. The clean line of the hori
zon was broken by nothing but the
plunging masses Of the ice. There was
just one chance, he thought, thar she
might still be comparatively near al
hand. Southwark and eastward the
horizon was unbroken, but the juttins
mass Of the promontory to the west
cut OFF his view in that direction. II
was possible that the gale which hat
destroyed the foe that formed the
harbor, had also broken up the pacl
ice at the other side Of the peninsula
the side from which Cayley, on the
wing, had first approached this un
known land. The yacht might b.
there, riding safely In practically oper
water.
He got up from the snow nest hi
had made for himself in the lee Of tn,
rock, and cautiously fexed his stiffen
ed muscles, with the idea of setting
out at once down the beach ant
around the headland to learn whethel
this last hope Of his was %groundless
Really, in his heart. he had no hope
at all, but that fact made it easy tt
postpone for a little longer the putting
Of this delusion Of q hope ne hac Il
the test Of reality.
The excuse he made to himself was
that he was rayenously hungry, ant
that his most sensible course would b.
to go up the glacier to the cave ant
cook himself a breakfast before he dit
Anything else.