Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1911-01-13

ANY LONGER"
because she's keeping boarders: it's
something else" At this point her
voice failed her.
Let us go out into the air suggest
ed the ranger presently. THE noun
tain wind will do you good"
She followed him trustfully. and as
she stepped from the squalor Of the
hotel into the splendor of the morning
her head lifted. She drank the clear.
crisp wind as one takes water in the
desert.
The air Is clean. anyway" she said.
Cavanagh to divert her pointed away
to the mountains There is my do
minion. Up there | am sole ruler. No
one can litter the earth with corrup-
ton or poison the streams"
She did not speak. but as she stud
led the ranger her face cleared. at is
beautiful up there"
He went on. II hate all this scrap
heap quite as heartily as you do, but
up there are sweetness and sanity. The
streams are germless, and the forest
cannot be devastated That is why
am a ranger. / could not endure life
in a town like this
He turned up the street toward the
high hill to the south. and she kept
step with him. As she did not speak.
he asked, What did you expect to do
out here?"
II hoped to teach" she replied, her
voice still choked with her emotion.
81 expected to find the country much
improved"
And so 1t is. but it is still long
way from an eastern state. Perhaps
,ou' will find the people less savage
than they appear at first glance"
ut isn't the town or the people: it is
my mother" she burst forth again.
Tell me. A woman in the car yester-
day accused my mother Of selling
whisky unlawfully. Is this so? Tell
me!'
She faced him resolutely, and per-
ceiving that she could not be evaded,
he made slow answer II don't know
That she does, but I've heard 1t charged
against her"
who made the charger"
Zone Of the clergymen, and then it's
common talk among the rough men of
the town."
But she's my mother." walled the
girl. coming back to the central fact.
"She has sent me money-she has been
kind to me. What am to do? She
needs me, and yet the thought of stay
ing here and facing her life frightens
me-"
The rotten board walks. the low
rookeries, the unshaven. blear eyed
lien sitting on the thresholds of the
saloons. the slattern squaws wander
ing abroad like bedraggled hens. made
the girl stare with wonder and dis
may. She had remembered the town
street as highway filled with splen-
did cavaliers, list wherein heroic
deeds were done with horse and pistol.
ShS pNtNSlNNb TIC
of the new order, and with this in her
mind she said: You don't belong here ?
You're not western MANI"
Not in the sense of having been
born here" he replied. Il am. in fact.
native of England. though I've lived
nearly twenty years of my life in the
States"
She glanced at his badge. How did
you come to be a ranger-what does it
mean? It's all new to me-"
1T Is new to the west" he answered
smilingly. glad of a chance to turn her
thought from her own personal griefs
1T has all come about since you went
east. Uncle Sam has at last become
provident and is now conserving his
resources | am one of his represent.
atives, with stewardship over some
10000 acres of territory. mostly for
est"
She looked at him with eyes OF
changing light. "You don't talk like
! an Englishman, and yet you are moi