Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1911-06-10
PROLOGUE
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY BE
FORE.
The Storm Within.


which were only comparatively such,
it blew perhaps 20 miles an hour. The
fierce blasts were laden with fine
snow-frozen spindrift from a white
ocean of coldi 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
Just 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
town woman waited alone. A COM
mon kerosene lamp stood on a 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 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, pickax and shovel, a
heavy quirt, and a rife hanging from
pegs beneath shelf sufficiently
pointed out the avocations of the
owner
Yet she was a woman who, what
ever her outward circumstances,
showed no poverty of spirit She
ragged up and down the room as
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 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
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
fon
cheeks were full of color, her hair
Her hands, which she clasped and un-
ciasped nervously. were large and
Redeemed by toll, but they were shape
| ly nevertheless. But there was neith-
: -r 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. 1t 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
! ly, longed for that, was quite evident.
| Great is the power of love. Even
| its counterfeit-that which passes for
| it in the eyes of the ignorant and in
! experienced-may stir 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
| dromeda from q devouring monster.
Whether the man who fatuously
filled 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 flied the
! woman's mind. In view of the bliz-
gard raging, she might have wondered
whether. in case either of them
sought the house, they could find it OF
reach it alive If she had stopped to
consider that phase of the possibili
ties, 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
poor fellow was found frozen there
and hated her drunken brute of a hus
band, yet she had no affection for the
foolish young tenderfoot who had wan
| dered out west to spend a summer