The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-03-23

He rose to his feet on the instant
and saw the woman also lift herself
from the grass as il moved by a sim.-
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
IL did TO her, but with dill renee.
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 1t
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 twinkhng 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
unwelcome on account of what had
gone before; he could not force him.
self to go to her or even to call to
her, not yet. He would keep her I'M
der surveillance, however, and If the
worst came he could intervene In time
to rescue her. He counted without
his cost, his usual Judgment Devil
dered. So he followed her through
the trees and down the bank.
Now he was so engrossed in her
and so agitated that his caution slept,
his experience was forgotten. The
storm in his own breast was so great
that it overshadowed the storm brew
ing above. Her way was easier than
his and he had fallen some distance
behind when suddenly there rushed
upon him the fact that frightful and
unlocked for cloudburst was about to
occur above their heads. A lightning
flash and a thunder clap at last ar
rested his attention. Then, but not
until then, he flung everything to the
winds and amid the sullen and almost
continuous peals of thunder he sent
cry after cry toward her which were
lost in the tremendous diapason of
sound that echoed and re-echoed
through the riffs of the mountains.
WATT" he cried again and again.
Come up higher. Get out Of the
canon. You'll be drowned"
But he had waited too long The
storm had developed too rapidly; she
was too far ahead Of and beneath him.
She heard nothing but the sound Of a
voice, shrilf, menacing, fraught with
terror for her, not a word distinguish
able; scarcely to her disturbed soul
even a human voice, 1t seemed like
the wierd cry Of some wild spirit OF
the STORM 1t sounded to her over.
wrought nerves SO utterly inhuman
that she only ran the faster.
The canon swerved and then dou.
bled back. but he knew its direction.
Losing sight Of her for the moment he
plunged straight ahead through the
trees, cutting of the bend, leaping
with superhuman agility and strength
over rocks and logs until he reached
a point where the rift narrowed be
tween two walls and ran deeply. There
and then the heavens opened and the
floods came and beat into the open
NAV of that vast crevice and filled II
in an instant.
= As the. deluge came roaring down
hovo - ri qYa1
scourings Of the mountains, he caught
| a glimpse of her white desperate face
| rising, falling, now disappearing, now
coming into view again, In the foamy
midst of the torrent He ran to the
cliff bank and throwing aside his CUR
| he scrambled down the wall to q Ger
| tain shelf of the rock over which the
| rising water broke thinly. Ordinarily
| It was twenty feet above the creek
| bed. Bracing himself against Jagged
projection he waited praying. The
| canon was here SO narrow that he
could have leaped to the other side
| and yet it was too narrow for him tt
| reach her II the water did not sweeI
her toward his feet. It was all done II
| q second. Fortunately projection or
| the other side threw the force of the
torrent toward him and with 1t came
| the woman.
| She was almost spent She hat
been struck by a log upheaved by
some mighty wave, her hands were
moving feebly, her eyes were closed
| she was drowning, dying, but indomit
| ably battling on. He stopped dowr
and as a surge lifted her, he threw
his arm around her waist and then he
braced himself against the rock tt
sustain the full thrust Of the mighty
| food. AS he seized her she gave way
| suddenly, as II after having done al
| that she could there was now nothing
| left but to trust herself to his hant
| and Gods. She hung dead weigh
on his arm in the ravening watel
which dragged and tore at her madly
Henwasb a man of giant strength
but the struggle babe fair to be tot
! much even for him. It seemed as /
| the mountain behind him was givint
way. He set his teeth, he tried des
perately to hold on, he thrust out hf
! right hand, holding her with the 9th
er .one, and clawed at the drippin;
rock in vain. In a moment the tor
rent mastered him and when it did 81
| it seized him with fury and threw hin
| like a stone from sling into tn,
seething vortex of the mid-stream
But in all this he did not, or woul,
not. release her.
Such was the swfftness OF the mo