The Kenna record. (Kenna, Roosevelt County, N.M.) 190?-1924, 1913-08-01

uN6. having money ne 0du time. ne
knew how to make love. And he
really wanted Nora-probably because
she was sincerely Indifferent to him.
Mrs. Stanton was looking favorably
on Preston, the while saying that she
wanted her Nora to marry for love,
and was not in haste to lose her.
Preston understood her perfectly, but
was willing to play blind. If he got
Nora he was willing to pay her moth
er's way to the ends of the earth for
which she longed.
Meanwhile Maxwell Dunn stood
firmly In the exact center of the
friendship garden where Nora had
planted him, while she shifted every
thing and everybody around him at
her own sweet will.
Besides Preston and Max there was
the college boy, Perry Poindexter,
who had haunted Nora all summer
and whom she had played as an angler
plays a gamey fish. He was hand
some and dangerous enough to worry
Thomas Preston, which, so far as
Nora was concerned, was his only rea-
son for being! Finally she refused
him to the indignation of Sam and to
the great gratitude of Perrys mamma
who had other plans for her son but
was glad to have him waste his sum-
mer on a girl who would not marry
him. Marriage was all she feared for
Perry.
The storm came. A trivial enough
matter precipitated it. 1t was merely
a silly picnic on the other side of the
lake. They all went in motors and
nobody truly enjoyed it. The elabor-
ate lunch was a nuisance, and the
heat was intense.
Nora. with her gypsy brown of eyes
and hair and skin, her boyish length
and slimness, and her fair-haired
friend, Elma Horton, from the city for
the weekend. She asked Max to look
after Elma-and he did it with a ven
geance. Everybody felt cross and
nervous, and the air was electric with
feeling.
Then came the storm-a literal one.
The heat had been great all day, and
as evening closed a storm sprang up
so suddenly that the party was in a
sort of dismay. The stragglers came
hurrying back under a sky fast grow
ing purplish dark, and a cold wind
came from the lake. The men got
things into shape with the greatest
alacrity-Man, an old hand at the
game, leading. There was no shelter
In sight, and the only thing possible
seemed to be to get the curtains and
chains on the machines and make the
four miles to the nearest village.
They gathered everything hastily
together and got safely started just as
the rain came down in a sheet with a
wind that lashed 1t into every fold of
the curtains behind which the women
sat huddled and afraid. Some one
had to ride in front seat and Elma
had elected to sit beside Maxwell
Dunn, who drove the first motor.
Preston managed the other. The
chauffeurs had been left at home.
The roads were full of twists and
turns and not too good and, with the
lightning and thunder, the way
through the woods was full of danger.
Max saw this, and decided to get into
the open at the first chance and wait
until the wind was down, even If
everyone were soaked. Signaling
danger with the horn, he succeeded in
stopping the car behind and his own
car just in time for a rotten trunk to
fall full across the path, catching the
front end of his machine and pinning
him down.
He had instinctively stopped the car
dead. Elma gave a scream and every
body began calling out. Preston and
Perry and Sam were down in a mo-
ment, but Max seemed stunned. A
branch had struck his head, blood
flowed over his face. and his legs were
held fast. Elma was wiping of the
blood with her white cloak and say
g not a word. She put, her arms
around him while the men freed him.
At this point Nora came on the scene.
Preston ordered her back, but she
stood in the rain, her eyes on Elma.
and did not move.
The trunk, small one, was lifted
off in moment, and Max sat up and
felt his face and tried to get out
and fell fainting.
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