Martinsburg statesman-democrat. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1906-1921, 1911-07-14

90 long, almost led him to attempt to
break into the hut then and there, and
settle matters: but his saner common
sense told him that the settlement
would almost inevitably be against
him should he attempt it.
He was still entertaining this no
ton however, when a luminous idea
side of the hut, the west side, which
looked toward the headlands, was a
good-sized heap of firewood, which
Philip had not been able to find
room for inside the hut. Roscoe had
with him a flint and steel and a
quantity OF tow. He never Travelled
without them
With infinite precaution against
noise he began laying a fire against
the windward wall of the hut. Squat
ting with his rife across his knees
ready to use in case of an emergency,
ne methodically whitfield quantity OF
dry splinters of few of the sticks,
bghited them and carefully nursed the
blaze, until, under the rising wind. it
grew to the beginning Of fair-sized
tonfagratfon. Then, catching up his
rife, he slipped around the other side
of the hut, crouching down not more
|ahan 20 PAGES away, and waited
Already the fire was burning finely
and the silhouetted outline of the hut
was plain against the glow of it.
His plan was good one. The peo-
pie inside the hut would have no
choice and, probably, no thought, but
OF escape. When they rushed out, as
they almost certainly would. bewild-
cred and confused, and plainly visible
to him against the glow of the fire be
mind them, it would be easy. from the
safe shelter of the darkness, to shoot
the man.
II was only, indeed, by the merest
hairs breadth that Roscoe's plain
tailed to work. The instinct of es-
cape by the nearest way from a burn
ing building is almost irresistible, and
II led Philip and Jeanne to the very
edge OF the destruction, which Roscoe
had planned for them.
Cayley had his hand upon the bolt
Of the great door, whittier he had
sprung when Jeanne's cry had awak-
ened him, before the saving second
thought stayed him and held him
frozen where he was. For perhaps
I'VE seconds he stood there, while the
memory of the unexplained bullet hole
ne had found in the body of the great
year, and the belated observation that
'ne hre, which was destroying the hut,
must have been started outside of it,
afuculated themselves into a perfect
" clear perception of Roscoe's plan.
The other way. The other way"
ue cried, motioning Jeanne back
through the storeroom. Into the
cave He is waiting for us outside.
mats why he fred the hut. Quick.
we must save all we can"
And so 1t happened that Roscoe
"dI'eo IN vain. He saw the blaze he
Iau klndled reach its fiery climax,
ana then in spite of the Icy gale which
was tanning it, die down into an
angry sullen, smouldering glow. But
~ man appeared to furnish a mark
'u MS waiting rifle, and no woman
HsS delivered defenseless, shelterless,
ulo his british hands.
Inc failure of his plan brought
''N moment or two of the old sup
's''t'ous horror, but his mind was
.aVed against it now and did not
'e'dily give way. Somehow, the fail
'7 must be ountable-humanly ac-
eo1ntable.
AT last he solved this mystery, too,
10y a'''s solved it, at least, for he re-
q" eDIOered the ice cave back of tho
NV his first impulse, when he
a'o1sa' Of 1t, was to attack them
Wv. .Ssfe and now, to charge in over the
~ not Goals of the hut and settle
a.'efs once and for all.
me was sane enough to see that the
Nv '"uIage would be all against him.
,-,. C''se quarters he could not do
Cd with rife; and he remember
hal we deadly revolver shooting he
Any,. seen upon the body of the bear.
ss-, Ae would have to go into the
v, g. with the freight behind him.
wouldn't do He must wait.