Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1912-02-07
SYNOPSIS.

CHAPTER Edith Maitland, q frank.
free and UnspOiled young Philadelphia
girl is taken TO the Colorado mountains
by her uncle, Robert Maitland. James
Armstrong, MaitIands protege, falls in
love with her.
CHAPTER II-His persistent wooing
thrills the girl, but. she hesitates, and
armstrong goes east on business with
out a definite answer
CHAPTER III.-Enid hears the story
Of mining engineer, Newbold, whose
wife fell off cliff and was so seriously
nurt that he was compelled to shoot her
while he went for help.
CHAPTER Iv.-Kirkby, the old guide
who tells the story, gives Enid package
Of letters which he says were found on
the dead woman's body. She reads the
letters and at Kirkby's request keeps
them.
CHAPTER V-While Enid is bathing
In the river in fancied solitude a big
bear appears on the bank and is about
to plunge into the water to attack the
girl when a shot rings out and the ami
NAL is killed by strange man.
CHAPTER vT-Enid is caught in a
storm which wipes out her party's camp.
She is dashed upon the rocks and in
jured. The strange man who shot the
bear finds her unconscious and carries
her to shelter.
EIe cursed hlniseIt for his weakness
He shut his eyes and summoned othet
memories. How long he stood there
he could not have told. He was fight.
ing a battle and il seemed to him at
last that he triUnp1ed. Presently the
consciousness came to him that per.
haps he had no right to stand there
idle; it may be that the woman need
ed him; perhaps she had tainted in
the water; perhaps. He turned to-
ward the bend which concealed him
from her and then he stopped. Had
he any right to fEtrude upon her
privacy? He must OF necessity be an
unwelcome visitor to her; he had sur
prised her at a frightfCl disadvantage
he knew instinct1vely, although the
fault was none of his, although he
had saved her life thereby, that she
would hold him and him alone re-
spOnsible for the outrage to her mod
esty, and although he had seen little
at first glance and had resoluteIy kept
his eyes away, the mere conscious
ness of her absolute helplessness ap-
pealed to hirn-to what was best and
her; yet stay, she might not yet be
clothed, in which event. But no,
she must be dressed, or dead, by this
time, and in either case he would
have a duty to discharge.
It devolved upon him to maIa sure
of her safety; he was in certain
sense responsible for it, until she got
back to her friends, wherever they
might be; bVt he persuaded klTself
that otherw' Sc he did A:rt want to see
her again, tl4ets ne did not wish to
know anything about her future; that
he did not care whether it was we'll or
i'll with her; and it was only stern
obligation which drove him toward
her-oh, fond and foolish man!
He compromised with himself at
last by climbing the ridge that had
shut off a view Of the pool and look
ing down at the place SC honorable
to him. He was prepared 20 with
draw instantly should circumstances
warrant, and he was careful so to con
ceal himself as to give no possible op-
pOrtunity for her to discover his
scrutiny.
With a beating heart and eager
eyes he searched the spot. There lay
the bear and a little distance away
prone on the grass. clothed but wheth
er in her right mind or not he could
not tell, lay the woman. For moment
as he bent a concentrated, eager gaze
upon her he thought she might have
tainted or that she might have died.
In any event he reflected that she had
strength and nerve and will to have
dressed herself before either OF these
things happened. She lay motionless
under his gaze for so long that he
finally made up his mind that COM
mon humanity required him to go to
her assistance.
He rose to his feet on the instant
and saw the woman also lift herself
from the grass as if moved by SINH
lar impulse. In his intense preoccu-
patton he had forgot to observe the
signs Of the times. A sense of the
overcast sky came to him suddenly as
it did to her, but with a difference.
He knew what was about to happen,
his experience told him much more
as to the awful potentialities of the
tempest than she could possibly mag
inc. She must be warned at once,
she must leave the canon and get up
on the higher ground without delay.
His duty was plain and yet he did it
not. He could not. The pressure
upon him was not yet strong enough.
A half dozen times as he watched
her deliberately sitting there eating,
he opened his mouth to cry to her,
yet he could not bring himself to it.
A strange timidity oppressed him;
halted him, held him back. A man
cannot stay away five years from men
and women and be himself with them
in the twinkling of an eye. And when
to that instructive and acquired reluc-
lance against which he struggled in
vain, he added the assurance that
whatever his message he would be