Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1915-06-10
Sephedtown jefferson County, Thursday June TO- 1915


came that yowling fiend of brute, wo-o-
DOW, so Sacre | ran-behind me the
dog, before me my cabin. | reach the
cabin, | slam the door, with my rifle in
hand open the window-he is gone.
Always he is gone when there is gun
therefore he is demon dog, else he
would be shot,"
Gordon Low flared up angrily. "Yes,
it's mighty glad I'd be TO own that
hound p he repeated. There's no such
other dog in all the countryl"
Thanks be for that p cried another
speaker. If there was such another dog,
if would be no place for men p
A woman was hurrYing up the road.
Gordon Low watched her quick steps,
saw her blue apron blown back by the
wind, her brown hair tossed in wiSpS
about her face, and recognized his sons
wife. She was coming 10 the store.
As she stood on the threshold the men
turned, and Low felt himself unaccounta-
bly, frightened by the unnatural pallor in
the woman's face. She looked quickly
round the little group, into the shadows
behind the meal sacks, and cried,
"Where's my little Ned ?"
Gordon's heart thumped, and he rose
slowly TO his feet, but Austin, the store
keeper, stepped forward. "Ned'S all
right; he rode up TO the camps with Bill
Nichols early this afternoon-Bill'S toting
in Johnston's supplies"
"Bill Nichols, that rattle Drained
scamp p the mother exclaimed. Here
I've hunted the house over for the boy p
"WeH, here's Bill. He can speak for
himself" Austin said, and pointed at
jolting wagon sled that was coming down
from the woods. The driver sat, calm
as Buddha, in flour-barre chair, with
the reins over his knees; he was sound
asleep.
Bill Nichols woke from his dream TO
find Mrs. Low shaking his arm.
"Neddy ?" he said, with gasp, and
stared at the empty sled. "Neddy !?
Why-why-he must have fell off |"
Night was approaching. The sun barely
peered over the top of Russell Mountain.
Johnston's camps were ten miles away 4,
in the Caucomgomoc country, and eight
year-old Ned Low was alone in the
wilderness. They told his mother that
he could not be lost on the road. They
told her that child of his age could not
travel far enough from the road TO escape
a searching party, if he tried. They told
her that the boy would find his way home
unaided, and they almost calmed her
fears. But Gordon Low knew. better
than anyone else, the devious windings
OF the tote road through grassy meadows
and thick alder growths, the painless
wastes OF marsh, and bog, and beaver
dam that lay through all the Caucomgo-
moe country. And he knew his little
grandson's determined spirit, the dogged
will, so like his own, that had led the
boy, young as he was, TO roam over hills
and valleys round the village. The old
mans cheeks were gray, and his brows
were knotted in dark frown.
Assuring the woman that the child was
probably not mile from the village and
would soon be found. twenty men, armed
with guns, horns, and lanterns, set out
on the long road under the darkening
pines; but ahead OF them all, at the swift
stride for which he was famous, marched
Gordon Low. Two hours later, the grand
father, trai-worn and weary, stumbled
into Johnston's camps. But not person
in Johnston'S camps had seen Ned Low.
What Bill Nichols had been too much
afraid or too much bewildered 10 con-
fess, was revealed now-Ned had been
lost on the outward trip.
AT that moment, although the grand
father did not know it, the boys father
had just reached home, and, frightened
by the news that met him at his door,
was starting, supperless, on the winding
trail. When the other men, with swing
ing lanterns and cleaning gun barrels,
came up through the alders into the camp
yard, Gordon Low was turning back on
the road.
The searching parties gathered in the
moonlight, which was just beginning TO
sift through the pines, and looked across
the dark waste OF evergreen, over the
swampy, marshy lowlands through which
they had passed. The boy had been
lost, Bill Nichols admitted in fearful con-
triton, before the team had reached
Johnston's camps. For at least five hours
Ned had been wandering in the maze OF
Slashings and roads, and streams, and
bogs. As they stared into the night,
despair settled over the group, for there
seemed to be very little that they could
do. They turned back, calling. calling,
calling; they wound in and out OF old
clearings and forgotten roads, plunged
into swamps, and spread into great net
of swinging lanterns and shouting men.
Slowly the hunt wound toward the town,
hopelessIy. doggedly persevering. An
hour passed, an hour and half. The
father came up into the circle OF swinging
lanterns, and knew, without asking, the
sad truth. The net grew wider and wider.
1t spread into marsh and bog hole. cedar
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