Dewey County advocate. [volume] (Timber Lake, S.D.) 1910-1913, 1911-07-28
PROLOGUE
n QUARTER OF A CENTURY Be
FORE.
Tho Storm within.

fOHE.
The Storm Within.
The storm was one of the worst
That had ever burst from the noun
tains and swept across the plains.
The wind came In wild bursts Of ire
mendous speed Even in the lulls,
which were only comparatively such.
blew perhaps 20 miles an hour. The
merce blasts were laden with fne
know-frozen spindrift from white
ocean of cold! Needles Of ice sharp
Or than their prototypes Of steel cut
The bare flesh Of those whom evil for
tune kept abroad on such q night
bringing the blood to the freezing
skin. The onslaught Of the scream.
Ing tempest drove tho hapless cattle
mad with pain ana terror The thick
snow compelled them to huddle to,
Eether 1t last, and shelterless to SUI
Ter. freeze. and die In the pitiless hus-
ktcane
Just where the foothills lose them
selves in the prairie lay huddled q lit
lie town or camp Every door and win.
dow was shut and barricaded against
the searching storm.
In one Of the poorest and most mig
srable shanties on the outskirts Of thu
town . woman waited alone A com
mon kerosene lamp stood on q table
before the window. set there as II in
Bignal
Thu house, q mere shack which
bhook and Quivered under tho ire
mendous assaults Of the storm, and
might have been blown down II It had
not been buttressed and protected by
heaps Of snow yet threatening to over
whelm 1t. contained but one room. In
the corner farthest from the door
stood q tumbled. frowzy bed. A rick
oty chest Of drawers. q kitchen table, a
rusty cook stove, q few uncertain
cears of the plainest and cheapest
qaAlity. were all the rest OF tho fur
niture. A few clothes hung from pegs
driven in the boarded wall. A saddle
In one corner. a piclkax and shovel. a
heavy quirt, and q rife hanging from
pegs beneath a shelf sufficiently
pointed out the avocations of the
Dwner.
Yet she was a woman who. what
over her outward circumstances,
showed no poverty Of spirit She
ragged up and down the room as q
prisoned tiger PAGES the narrow con-
lines Of his cage. Sometimes she
paused and stopped by the window, to
rest her head beneath her hand on
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
Ghe assumed that picturesque position
at the window. where the light, how
ever 1t 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 I'M
clasped nervously, were large and
feddened by toll. but they were shape
~ nevertheless. But there was Meth
Ter refinement nor goodness in her
face. There were great possibilities
of evil which experience could have
hetected. Hers had been a hard life.
and It had made her hard woman.
Ghe 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. Even
It, counterfeit-that which passes for
1t IN the eyes Of the ignorant and in
experienced-may etir men and wom-
en- to mighty deeds. This woman
waited the arrival Of one who fancied
himself a modern Perseus about to re-
lease another bound and helpless An
Hromeda from q devouring monster.
Whether the man who fatuously
nlled that role-or the boy, rather. for
he had not reached mans years or
estate-would arrive before her hus-
band. was the problem that filled the
woman's mind. In view of the bliz-
card raging. she might have wondered
whether, in case either Of them
sought the house, they could and It or
reach it alive. II she had stopped to
consider that phase Of the possibili-
tiles, she would have been profoundly
glad had both ventured and had both
wandered on in the night until beaten
down and mastered by the spirit Of
the storm, SO that the searchers. after
Its violence had abated, might find
them frozen to death as many another