Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1911-04-13

When, after a period Of tantalizina
twilight, the sun again came fairly
over the horizon, they besought their
commander, with a savage sort OF
eagerness from which he might have
augured i'll, that he take them at
nee to the ledge. They had caught
sight of it from a distance, even az
Cayley had done, hung in the air
above the valley, and had run reck-
lessly on ahead of their leader. When
he came up to them, he found them
dangerously excited, the man Roscoe
fairly dazed and drunken with It,
Finally Fielding had left them 70
their own devices, and came away
with hio two companions. And until
the light of that short day had begun
to fail, they-the Walrus people
stayed, gloating owe this strangely
useless treasure.
For three days after that the man
Roscoe never spoke a word. On the
fourth day, when the little party as
sembled for their midday meal, the IL
men Of the Walrus were the only
ones to answer the summons. Cap
tain Fielding and his two companions
had disappeared.
Captain Planck could not recall THAI
meal now without %shuddering, for
there at the foot of the table, oppo-
site to him, had sat the mar Roscoe,
with murder written plain in every
line Of his face. He had looked q
beast, rather than a man, that day.
The stated blood lust in his eyes made
them positively terrifying, so that the
others shrank away from him. He
had seemed not to notice It, at least
not to take offense at 1t. He was in
hilarious spirits for the first time
since they had known him; seemed
really to try to be a good companion.
Captain Planck abdlcated his lead
ership that day, He was perfectly
conscious Of the fact. He had known
that to retain the leadership he must
take that murderer out and execute
him. He knew that If he did not do
this, the murderer, not he, would here
after command the party, and that
unless he himself yielded the prompt
est obedience Of any, he would follow
the luckless trio whom they we're
never to see again.
From that day to this there had
been no more murders. Roscoe had
ruled them with a decision and a
turbulence which put anything like
| INSTRUMENTATION out Of the question.
He had been obeyed better than Cap
tain Planck ever had been. He had
| worked them fiercely all those four
years, cutting, everlastingly, at that
wonderful, e%xhautless golden ledge,
t beating the friable ore out of 1t with
I heavy mauls, then, laboriously, CON
[ veying the great rude slabs of pure
metal on rough sledges over the per-
petual ice Of the glacier to a cave
: near the shore, where they had de-
posted it. There were literally tons
of it hidden there when the smoke
Q from the yachts funnel was first seer
0 on the horizon.
r The moment the news of the ap-
preaching steamer was reported to
Roscoe, he had entered upon what
q seemed to his followers a thoroughly
irrational and inexplicable line of 40
c ton. He had ordered them, first, to
remove all signs Of recent habitatio1
from the hut to the cave where theil
d gold was concealed; then, to cover the
1t cave mouth with a heap of boulders
s to secure it against discovery.
l. Long before the strongest glass OF
II the ship could have made out theil
n moving figures, he took the who'll
party back to the hills in hiding. HI
1t had kept them from answering thu
ID halls and the g%un-ire from the zach
E. by the sheer weight Of his authority
without vouchsafing a word Of expla
Iy nation.
The next day they had seen tn
searching party come ashore, and witt
y their knowledge of the lay Of tn
a. land found 1t perfectly easy to evad
TX observation, though nothing but tn
" strong habit of obedience kept then
d, from counting 1t.
Then, along in the afternoon, ha,
happened what seemed to them tn
10 strangest thing of all. They had see,
I'd a solitary ~straggler from the search
&c ing party coming along across tn
m ice. He could not see them. 1t woul
II, have been perfectly easy to evad
he him, but Roscoe now ordered theI
to go down to him and tell him VIII
as they we're, and to offer to escort hir
i'd along the trail down the glacier. An
at a certain point they were to la
ed behind and let him go on alone. Tho
ct was all any of them knew Of tAe'
he leaders plans, till they saw the hyin
ut dart and the smudge of crimson O
the snow.
mt Now, at last, came Planck to tn
in leader, asking the reason why. 81
cd his mission, as it appeared, had NJ
,e- p%rospered.
IS (To BE CoNTINUED)