The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1915-08-20

any nearer right than we had been
many times before; but for some rea.
son | found it harder to pardon him
For the first time in our long &C.
quaintance, l let Algernon Etheridge
leave me, without any attempt at con,
Citation
II only I had halted there! If, at
sight of my empty study, had not
conceived the mad notion of waylaying
him at the bridge for the hand-shake
I missed, might have been happy
man now, and Oliver-But why dwell
upon these might-have-beens! WHAT
happened was this:
Disturbed in mind, and finding my
self alone in the house, Oliver having
evidently gone out while we two we're
disputing, I decided to follow out the
impulse l have mentioned. Leaving
by the rear, | went down the Jane to
the path which serves as short cut
to the bridge.
That did this unseen by anybody
is not so strange when you consider
the hour, and how the only person
then living in the lane was, in all
probability. in her kitchen. 1t would
have been better for me, little as |
might have recognized 1t at the time,
had she been where she could have
witnessed both my going and coming
and faced me with the fact,
John Scoville, in his statement, says
that after giving up his search for his
little girl he wandered up the raVine
before taking the path back which led
him through Dark Hollow. This was
false, as we'll as the story he told OF
leaving his stick by the chestnut tree
in the gully at foot Of Ostrander lane.
For | was on the spot, and | know
the route by which he reached Dark
Hollow and also through whose agency
the stick came to be there.
Read and learn with what tricks the
devil beguiles us men.
was descending this path, heavily
Swallowed, as you know, by skirting
of closely growing trees and bushes,
when Just where it dips into the Hol-
low. heard the sound Of hasty foot
come crashing up through the under
brush from the ravine and cross the
path ahead of me. A turn in the path
prevented me from seeing the man
| himself but as you will perceive and
as l perceived later when circum'
stances recalled it to my mind, | had
no need to see him to know who II
was or with what intent he took this
method of escape from the ravine into
the fields leading to the highway. SEQ
ville's stick spoke for him. the stick
which | presently tripped over aud
, mechanically picked up, without
, thought of the desperate use to which
> was destined to put it.
Etheridge was coming. / could hear
t his whistle on Factory road. There
Y was no mistaking it. It was unusually
! shrill one and had always been
cause of irritation to me, but at this
moment it was more; 1t reused every
/. antagonistic impulse within me. He
n whistling like a galliard, after a part
q ing which had dissatisfied me to suct
9 an extent that had come all this dis
lance to ask his pardon and see hi
o old smile again! Afterward, long aft
erward, | was able to give another
- Interpretation to his show of apparen
dissatisfaction, but then saw moth
i. ing but the contrast it offered to M
y own tender regrets, and my blood be
. gan to boil and my temper rise to sucl
a point that recrimination took tn
place of apology when in another mo
g ment we came together in the opel
Il space between the end OF the bridg
u and Dark Hollow.
(TO BE CONTINUED)