Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1911-07-21

amazingly even. They had the nut
the enemy the stores. They had Cap
tain Ffelding'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 one or a half a 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 n 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
it 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
,,o{+,;D ~ u,,s fhn abundance Nf nee
essary routine occupation. They d.
vided their day n watches. Cayley
slept from four o'clock in the after
noon until midnight and then kept
watch alone, as the girl had done, I'M
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
feld-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
1;-ht JoefaI with Toonna 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
fight was always along the same
track. He never winged his way in
land nor 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 fear
of his great man-bird were really
what deferred their enemy from at
lacking them, it was well to let him
believe that immunity from this por-
tent could be secured by keeping
away from LulS particular SIieIch VI
beach.
AS the shortening days sped by and
began to get themselves reckoned into
weeks, the conviction grew upon
Philip and Jeanne that their %securest
protection lay in his wings, in the
%terrorizing effect upon their invisible,
silent enemy of the majestic winged
apparition which was so often seen
soaring in midsky above b hut and
the little stretch of beach surrounding
1t. Something vas protecting them
evidently. Almost every week brought
some evidence, not only of the exis-
tence out the nearness of their enemy.
They never actually caught sight or
sound of him, but some times when
the wind blew from the right quarter
they could make out, with their field
glass, a wrack of brownish smoke,
such as would be given OF by burning
whale oil. drifting down from some
where along the glacier, and made
visible by the dazzling whiteness of
that background.
And sometimes they saw track in
the newly fallen snow, never coming
very near the hut, but trespassing a
little way, either down from the
glacier or up from the h%eadland, upon
the stretch of beach they were de-
tending. They never found the tracks
Of more than a single man, and these
were always the same. So that they
came to believe, although they could
not know. that they had only one man
to deal with.
They sometimes speculated on the
question whether he was Roscoe or
some other member of the Walrus
crew; really, in fact, they found it
impossible to hope that it was any
other thar he.
They got proof of his identity, or
what amounted to it, along toward the
end Of October. Cayley's keen eyes
caught, one day, from up aloft where
he was soaring, the CLINT of something
on the beach near the foot of the
headland. He circled down in a long
swoop. caught it up without alighting
and mounted into the air, a trick of
aeronautics which made Jeanne, ac-
customed as she was by now to see
ing him in flight, catch her breath a
little.
When he descended and alighted
beside her a few moments later, he
showed her a sheath knife, the haft OF