The Ordway new era., 1916-12-22
CHAPTER ~.

Physical exhaustion will finally tell.
even over such handicaps as a noun
t.ln feather bed and the fumes OF
backvoods cabin.
I, JuauIta Holland did not at last
actually fall asleep. she drifted into
sort o, nightmare coma from which
size awoke with a start
Finally she fell again into that half
sleep which dreams OF wakefulness
L nay have lastld minutes Or hours.
b-t suddenly she reused again with n
start from new nightmare and lay
trembling under the oppression OF a
poignant foreboding What was 1t that
she had subconsciously heard or imag-
inet' She was painfully wide awake
in the slumber!ng cabin. At last she
Vas sure Of sound. low but instinct
Nth warning
Beardog was growing just outside
the door
Then. violently and without the pref
a,e Of gradual approach-precisely as
though horsemen had sprung from the
es-th-there clattered and beat past
tie front Of the cabin a staccato thun-
C, Of Wildly galloping hoofs and a
-s,tls Of scattered rocks. She felt an
uncanry freezing OF her marrow
Horses travel perilous and broken
roads IN that fashion only when their
riders are in Wild haste.
As abruptly as the drumbeat had
come It died again into silence. and
there was no diminuendo of hoofbeats
receding into distance. The thing was
weird and ghostly. She had not no.
ticed in the weariness OF her arrival at
the cabin that the road ran deep In
sand to the corner of the fence and
that after fifty yards of rough and
broken rock it fell away again into an
other sound.mufIling stretch. She
knew only that she was thoroughly
frightened. and that whatever the
noise was, 1t proclaimed hot and des-
perate haste.
moved only to turn her head and had
opened her eyes cautiously and mar.
rowly.
There was no sound In the cabin
now; not even the stertorous breath OF
snore. The fire f1ickered family and
| occasionally sent up from its white
bed OF ashes a dying spurt. before
which the darkness fell back a little
/ for the moment.
She could see that Fletch McNasb
had half risen in his bed. His head
was partly turned in an attitude O,
intent listening. and his pose was as
rigid as that OF a bird-dog frozen on a
point. 1t had all been momentary. and
as Juanita gazed she saw other fig
ures stir uneasily. though no one
spoke. The missionary lay still. bu,
the woman's figure moved restlessly
beneath the heaped-up comforter.
So. for few moments, the strange
and tense tableau held, and the girl
watching the householder's alert We,
motionless pose, remembered him as
he had hunched drunkenly over his
plate a few hours ago. The two mic
lures were hard to reconcile.
Then, at some warning which he,
less acute ears failed to register. sbe
saw Fletch McNashs right hand swee,
outward toward the wall and come M
gripping the ride.
Still there was no word, but the eld
est boys head had risen from tn,
pallet.
| Keyed now to concert pitch, the cir
held her body rigid. and through haif
closed lids looked across the AIN
room. While she was 10 staring ant
pretending to sleep, there drifted from
long way on an insiftent, animal
IKE yell with peculiar quaver IN Il,
nnai note. She did not know that 4
was - fasscus McBriar ralaytur crv
teea ~ troshls insvitably Soiiovel