The Tupelo journal., 1912-08-09

until ne q proDed Tor the cause
source and solved the mystery Of that
wild cry in the night Just gone.
Moreover. he felt in a q re
sponsible for Appleyard. Surely there
n'ust be some strange reason for his
protracted absence.
Abandoning himself, deaf to the
counssls of prudence, Coast rose and
stripped off his clothing.
He let himself gently into the water
fearing to dive because he did not
know its depth) and found 1t warm
warmer than the air. He struck out
cautiously, using the slow, old-fash-
toned but silent breast stroke. In two
minutes, however, he was wading up
to the beach.
There was no sign Of Appleyard:
only the tender. Upon that stone
strewn shore the feet of the run away
had left no trail. Though Coast cast
about In a wide radius, he found no
sign of the missing man. The peb-
bles scratched and bruised his un-
protected feet, and he bega1 to shiver
with cold. He gave 1t up, presently,
returned to the tender, pushed of
and sculled out to the Echo.
Then. having rubbed his flesh to a
blush with a coarse towel, he dressed.
took the small boat back to the beach,
drew it up and, now fully committed
to an enterprise the folly of which he
stubbornly refused to debate, set OF
to reconnoiter along the waters edge,
feeling his way.
After a time the beach grew more
sandy, and emboldened by the knowl-
edge that he would have his foot
prints to guide him back, he left the
water and struck inland-but only to
find his progress in that direction
checked by a steep wall of earth, q
cliF-ike bluff of height indetermfn-
able, its tanks waveeaten and deeply
scanned by rain.
At random, with no design, he
turned again to his left and proceeded
as before, but now along the foot OF
the bluff, trudging heavily through
damp. yielding sand.
Still no sign of ~Appleyard.
He must have tramped, at a rude
guess, several hundred yards before
he discovered either q break in the
bluff or any change In the general
configuration Of the shore. Ultimate
ly, however, the one fell away In
land and the other widened.
A moment later he came upon a
small catboat careened above high
tide mark, with p gaping wound in its
starboard side, forward and below the
water-line.
She lay stern to the water. Taking
the point of her stem as his guide.
Coast turned inland again, on. a line
as straight as possible considering
the slanting lay of the land and the
impossibility of seeing anything be-
yond a radius of a few feet.
He had not gone far upon this
tack before he stumbled upon a path
of hardpacked earth, obviously made
by human feet. Then he found him.
self mounting a rather steep grade,
and in another moment was face to
face with a plain weather-boarded wall
of a wooden building.
There were no windows that he
could discover on this side, and
though he listened keenly he heard no
sounds from within.
Other buildings presented them
selves successfully, as like as peas
to one another and to the first he had
encountered: all peopled exclusively
by the seven bowling devils of desc
lation and their attendant court OF
rats-or so he surmised from sundry
sounds of scurryings and squeaks.
He gathered that he was threading
q rude sort of street, fringed on n
side-to seaward-with the abandoned
dwellings of what had apparently been
a small fishing community.
mo Mans Land indeed" he COM
mented. Certainly lives up to the
name, even if it's some place else. 1t
begins to look as If I'd drawn a blank.
But Appleyard 2"
He was moved vaguely to liken the
place to the Cold Liars of the Jungle
Books. "Only infinitely sordid,' he
unused, at pause: lacking the mai
esty and the horror ono
had | better go back?"
AS he hung in the wind, debating
what to do, whether to press on or
to be sensible, swayed this way and
that by doubts and half-formed I'M
pulses, somewhere near, seemingly at
his very elbow. certainly not twenty
feet away, suddenly a dog howled.
Long drawn. %lugubrious with a note OF
lamentation, the sound struck discor-
dant upon his overhaul senses, shock
ing him (before he knew it, to out
spoken protest.
Good God" he cried aloud
what"
His voice must have carried to the
animal; he heard a whine. the quick
padding of paws, and a huge Scotch
collie bounded clumsily out Of the
mists, passed him within an arms
length, vanished and returned, whin-
ing and circling, nose to ground, as II
confused and unable to locate him. He
watched the animal, half-stupefed
~rlkl -,--Jo. - IT, orrckio cations.