Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1911-06-22
PROLOGUE
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY BE-
FORE.
The Storm Within.

that had eve burst from the noun
ttains and swept across the plains.
The wind came in wild bursts Of ire
mendous speed. Even in the lulls,
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
JUS where the foothills lose them
selves 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
toWA d OAAoA "o4tOu d1OAS. "A GULL.
mon kerosene lamp stood on q table
before the window, set there as If in
signal.
The house, a mere shack which
shook and Quivered under the ire
mendous assaults of the storm, and
might have been blown down If it had
not been buttressed and protected by
heaps of snow yet threatening to over
whelm It, contained but one room. In
the corner farthest from the door
stood a tumbled, frowzy bed. A rick
ETY. chest of drawers, a kitchen table, a
rusty cook stove, a few uncertain
chairs Of the plainest and cheapest
quality, were all the rest Of the fur
niture. A few clothes hung from pegs
driven in the boarded wall. A saddle
in one corner, a pickax and shovel, a
heavy Quirt. and a rifle hanging from
pegs beneath a shelf sufficiently
pointed out the a~vocations of the
owner.
Vet she was a 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 IN
the sash and peer eagerly, passion
ately, out into the falling snow. She
could see nothing, and after having
stared with increased disappointment
and further mutterings of angry
words, she would resume her rest
less backward and forward march.
Had there been any spectator when
she assumed that picturesque position
at the window, where the light, how
ever it failed to illuminate the snow,
threw her own face and person in high
relief, the observer would have been
surprised at the coarse and yet not
unattractive beauty of her face and
figure. She was full Tipped and deep
bosomed, tall, 1.-THE, strong. Her
cheeks were full of color, her hair
black and coarsely crisp and curly.
Her hands, which she clasped and IN
aclasped n%ervously, were large and
REDEEMED by toll, but they were shape
~ nevertheless. But there was Meth.
ler refinement nor goodness in her
face. There were great possibilities
of evil which experience could have
detected. Hers had been a hard life,
and it had made her a hard woman.
She was perhaps twenty-five years
old, but looked older.
For hours the woman had waited in
that hut alone. It 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. Ever
dts counterfeit-that which passes fol
1t in the eyes of the ignorant and in
'experienced-may stir men and won
zen to mighty deeds. This woman
waited the arrival of one who fanciel
himself a modern Perseus about to re
lease another bound and helpless An
dromeda from a devour1ng monster.
Whether the man who fatuously
filled that role-or the boy, rather, fol
The had not reached mans years O,
sestate-would arrive before her hus
band, was the problem that filled tn,
wOman's mind. In view of the biz
rzard raging, she might have wondered
whether, in case either of then
sought the house, they could find it O
reach it alive. If she had stopped t,
consider that phase Of the possibili
tiles, she would have been Profound,
glad had both ventured and had bot
wandered on in the night until heater
down and mastered by the spirit O
THE storm, SO that the searchers, afte
Its violence had abated, might fin
them frozen to death as many anothe
poor fellow was found frozen there
I latter. For while the woman loathe
land hated her drunken brute of a hus
Fband, yet she had no affection for tn
foolish young tenderfoot who had war
dered out west to spend a summe
L