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

amazingly even. They had the hut.
the enemy the stores. They had Cap
tain Felding's journal. their enemy
the experience and practical knowl-
edge Of the country. They were two,
with but a single weapon between
them. Their enemy, for aught they
knew, might be n or a half g dozen;
and how armed, they. did not know.
Fortunately, no prophetic vision en-
abled them to anticipate, on that first
evening, the length of time that that
precarious life and death balance
would maintain itself. They had
agreed, Philip and Jeanne, that the
only thing to do was to wait and to
maintain an unwinking vigilance. But
both Of them thought of the duration
of this wait in terms of hours, or, at
most, days. Had they foreseen that
1t would stretch itself out into weeks
and months, they might well have des-
paired.
There were two things that kept
them from succumbing to despair.
The first was that they never really
permitted themselves to hope, to in
dulge in any thoughts of a summers
day when their horizon should be cut
by the spars and tunnels of a ship
bringing relief. They were simply
going to live one day at a time. For
every day that they could snatch out
Of the hand of death, they would give
thanks. 1t was the only attitude pos
sible for people in their condition.
And the thing that helped them to
maintain 1t was the abundance of nee
essary routine occupation. They d.
vided their day into watches. Cayley
slept from four o'clock in the after
noon until midnight and then kept
watch alone, as the girl had done, un-
til eight. During that period they re-
NAMED inside the hut. The day, from
eight until four, they spent out Of
doors, when the condition Of the
weather made this possible, either at
work or merely tramping up and down
for exercise.
At first there was a good deal Of
work to do. Tearing down the sheds
which clustered about the hut, and
reducing their frames and planking
to fire-wood was an arduous task, but
he worked at it until it was done,
Jeanne standing sentinel all the time.
When it was done, they were prac-
tically secure against surprise, for
from their windows, with the aid Of a
fleld-glass which Cayley had found
in the observatory, they were able to
sweep the whole beach absolutely
clean, in both directions.
And almost every day while the
light lasted, with Jeanne, armed with
the revolver, keeping watch before the
hut, Cayley took to his wings and
patrolled the beach, from the glacier
to the promontory, high up above the
level of the crest of the cliff. His
flight was always along the same
track. He never winged his way in,
land o out to sea.
There were two reasons for this
He dared not go so far away from
Jeanne that a flash and a swoop would
not bring him to her side. The Other
reason was, that If a superstitious feal
of this great man-bird were reall!
what deferred their enemy from at
lacking them, it was we'll to let hin
) believe that immunity from this por
tent could be secured by keeping
' away from this particular stretch o
beach.
!, AS the shortening days sped by an
began to get themselves reckoned int
, weeks, the conviction grew upol
, Philip and Jeanne that their secures
protection lay In his wings. in tn,
/ terrorizing effect upon their invisible
silent enemy of the majestic winge,
!, apparition which was sc often seel
soaring In midsky above the hut ant
; the little stretch of beach surrounding
: 1t. Something was protecting then
evidently. Almost every week brough
, some evidence, not only Of the exis
= tence but the nearness of their enemy
, They never actually caught sight o
I sound of him, but some times whe,
r the wind blew from the right quartz
, they could make out, with their fielC
glass, a wrack Of brownish smoke
such as would be given off by burnin
whale oil, drifting down from SOM
where along the glacier, and mad
visible by the dazzling wilderness c
that background.
And sometimes they saw track |
the newly fallen snow, Eve comm
very near the hut, but trespassing
little way, either down from tn
glacier or up from the headland, upo
the stretch of beach they were d.
Tending. They never found the track
Of more than a single man, and thes
were always the same. So that the
came to believe, although they coul
not know. that they had only one ma
to deal with.
They sometimes speculated on th
4 question whether he was Roscoe G
/ some other member Of the Walru
crew; really, in fact, they found
impossible to hope that 1t was an
other than he.
They got proof of his identity, {
what amounted to it, along toward th
end Of October. Cayley's keen eye
caught, n day, from up aloft wher
he was soaring, the CLINT of somethin
IN the beach near the foot of tn
headland. He circled down liz a Ion
swoop, caught 1t up without alightin
and mounted into the air, a trick
~aeronautics which made Jeanne, a
customed as she was by now to Sc
ing him in fight, catch her breath
little.
When he descended and alIghte
i hnrido har a fnut nonnannta Iatar b