Middletown transcript., 1911-09-23

a stray flame and betray its spite.
A cry that was more like a wall,
almost at her elbow, arrested
her The young wife made a
clucking sound and brushed by.
She returned cooling to the
bundle, and sat down near the
fire.
Still on her knees, Romance
balanced herself against the
wind. She watched the other
woman, whose back afforded a
shield against the biting sand,
unwrap the bundle and draw
forth baby. She pressed it to
her breast, and the wailing
stopped instantly. Karrick,
sheltering the pan of bacon and
the coffee with his leather coat,
served his companion.
Won't you have bite? he
shouted into the darkness, be-
tween gusts of wind.
Romance bad shrunk into al
most nothingness at sight of the
baby, and gave no answer. She
was thinking.
You'd better get round to the
other side of that juniper, or
you'll never reach Rawhide, be
shouted again. The Windll
carry you up the draw. It's
going to raise hell before morn
ing By this time he was bend
ing over her. You're going to
Rawhide amt you? We are.
Here, take this cup of coffee, any
how!
She reached out her hand and
dashed the cup to the ground.
Well, I'm damned! he grunted.
At last she knew. She knew
what she had been robbed Of; she
knew what the dumb ache of her
life meant; home, Preside, the
smuggling of tired baby heads
against the breast, friends,
respectabili5y-that last, the
cement of society which wins its
need from every woman at one
time or another. With the
recognition of the force behind
the purpose, came resolve to go
through to the end. Life was
not going to cheat her without
giving something in return.
Through the night she sat, her
arms around the juniper, her
eyes glued to the dim ghostly
outline of the tarpaulin under
which slept the two she claimed
as her sacrifice to a wronged and
gnarled existence. The wind
beat in fierce, silent waves up
the draw, whirling the sand in
eddies against everything that
projected above the fat surface
of the desert. AS the gray
dawn began to steal on the world
she discerned the mountain. It
had been formed in the night. 1t
seemed to sway, to twist and
turn, to make and unmake itself
under the battering of the wind
waves. She had often heard
from old prospectors of these
sand mountains that grow in an
hour; and of the hopelessness of
human resistance, if caught in
the II vortex during tt process
of becoming.
There was movement under
the tarpauliu. The sand had
piled up on one side of it, and
apparently Karrick was having
a struggle to free himself. This
was what she wanted. While he
was engrossed with some trife,
she would shoot; then cover the
other before she had time for
defense. If she could have been
certain which side of the canvas
was his, she would have ended it
during the night. Her anxiety
to get both, Ringing as it did on
his going out first, had made her
She crept closer, her finger on
the trigger, the primitive lust
for revenge making her nerves
steady. Then she stopped.
There was a momentary Iull in
the storm. The face of the in.
FAINT appeared above the canvas.
He cooed and held out a pair of
chubby hands. Unnoticed, the
revolver fell to the desert. Tears
welled in her eyes as the boy
crawled toward her. She reach
ed out to grasp him, but the
wind was quicker. With re-.
doubled fury, it fell upon
everything it could master and
swept up the gulch in a cloud.
A fraction of q second passed
before she realized that he was
gone. Agony rang in her
incohnrnnt crv. AZ she tore at the