Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1911-07-06
PROLOGUE
a QUARTER OF A CENTURY Be
FORE
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 luIIs.
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 cold! 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-
town woman waited alone A com
mon kerosene lamp stood on a table
before the window, set there as if in
signal ..,..s,~=ss~s1-, .sa-sas-s-,-
4 The house, q mere shack which
shook and quiyered under the ire
mendous assaults of the storm, and
might have been blown down if it had
1F
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,
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, a pickax and shovel, a
heavy quirt, and rifle hanging from
pegs beneath a 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 a
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
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
redeemed by toll, but they were shape
ly nevertheless. But there was Meth
er refinement nor goodness in her
face. There were great possibilities
of evil which experience could have
detected. Hers had been a hard life,
and 1t had made her 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 1t, 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 rerseus about to no.
lease another bound and helpless An
dromeda from a devouring monster.
Whether the man who fatuously
he had not reached mans years or
estate-would arrive before her hus-
band, was the problem that filed the
woman's mind. In view of the biz
zard raging, she might have wondered
whether. in case either of them
sought the house, they could find it or
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
after. For while the woman loathed
and hated her drunken brute of kus-
band, yet she had no affection for the
foolish young tenderfoot who had wan
dered out west to spend a summer
holiday and had fingered on through
the winter, fascinated by her exuber-
ant ettractiveneSs, and fiattered by
her bold and artful pursuit of him.
She had thought to amuse herself in
her dreary, wretched, sordid life by
his fresh. frank, open admiration. The
woman's drunken husband had cared
little at first; but lately, under the
-jibes. sneers, and innuendos of his
companions, he had become f1erceIy
jealous. Then in maudlin fury he had
forbidden the boy the house, and had
sworn that he would kill him on
sight
The woman thereupon swiftly made
up her mind to break the thraldom of