Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1916-07-19

Ine sunset n tne twilight AOuF
made all the rest bearable. The little
hut on the rim Of the gorge seemed to
hold Jennie's presence. 1t was not as II
he felt her spirit. II it had been he
would have been sure OF her death. He
hoped Jennie had not survived her
second misfortune; and that intense
hope a burned into belief, if not
surety. Upon his return to that locality,
on the occasion of his first visit to he
hut, he had found things just as they
had left them, n a poor, faded piece
Of ribbon Jennie had used to tie around
her bright hair. No wandering outlaw
or traveller had happened upon the lone
ly spot, which further endeared it to
Duane.
A strange feature of this memory of
Jennie was the freshness of 1.-THE fail
ure of years. toll, strife. death-dealing
to dim ito deaden the thought OF
lat might have been. He lac a mar
Vicious gift of Installation. He could
shut his eyes and see Jennie before him
just as clearly as if she had stood there
in the flesh. For hours he did that,
dreaming, dreaming of life he had
never tasted and now never would
taste. He saw Jennie's slender. grace
fui figure. the old brown ragged dress;
in which he had seen her first at
BANDS, her little feet in Mexican SAN
dals. her fine hands coarsened by work,
her arms and swelling throat,
and her pale, sad, beautiful face with it's
staring dark eyes. He remembered
every look she had given him, every
word she had spoken to him,
every time she had touched him.
He though of her beauty and sweet
ness, of the few things which had come
to mean to him that she must have
loved him.; and he trained. himself to
hin of these in preference to her life
at BANDS. the escape with him, and
then tho 1.aplnf11rn hara1yCn cV1nh 1nnpo-
cries led to bitter. fruitless pain. He
had to fight suffering because it was
eating out his heart.
Sitting there, eyes wide open, he
dreamed OF the old homestead and his
white haired mother. He saw the old
home life, sweetened and filled by dear
new faces and added joys, go on before
his eyes with him a part of it.
Then in the inevitable reaction, in
the reflux of bitter reality. he would
send out a voiceless cry no less poig-
nant because it was silent: Poor fool!
No. l shall never see mother again
never go home-never have a home. 1
l wish it We're ever! These dreams tor
ture me! What have l to do with a
mother. a home. a wife? No bright
haired boy, no dark eyed girl will ever
love me. l am al outlaw, an outcast,
dead to the good and decent world. 1
ain dlCle-dlOu0. Better De q CdllOUS
brute or better dead! l shall go mad
thinking! Man, what is left to your A
hiding place like a wolf's-lonely silent
days. lonely night with phantoms! Or
the trail and the road with their bloody
tracks, and then the hard ride. the
sleepless. hungry ride to some role in
rocks Dr. brakes. What hellish thing
What is left? Only that damned I'M
q~uenchable spirit Of the gun fighter To
live-to hang on to miserable life-to
have no fear Of death. yet to cling like
a leach-to die as III fighters seldom
die. with boots off! Balm. you were
change with you And Sellers. you
We're last. and you're avenged. And
you o~ther-you're avenged. Lie quiet
in your graves n give me peace!"
But they did not lie quiet in their
graves and give him peace.
A group OF specters trooped out of
the shadows Of dusk and, gathering
round him, escorted him to his bed.
When Duane had been riding the
trails passion bent to escape pursuers,
or passion ent in his search, the con-
slant action and toll and exhaustion
made him sleep. But when in hiding.
as time passed. gradually he required
less rest and sleep, and his mind be-
came more active. Little by little his
phantoms gained hold on him. and at
length, but for the saving power OF his
dreams, they would nave claimed him
utterly.
How many times he had said to him
self: Il am an intelligent man. Tn
not crazy. I'm in full possession OF my
faculties. All this is fancy-imagina-
tion-conscience. I've no work. no duty,
no IDEAL, no hope-and my mind is OBJ
sessed. thronged with images. And
these images naturally are of the men
with whom have dealt. l can forget
them. They come back to me. hour
after hour; and when my tortured
mind grows weak, h maybe I'm not
just right till the mood wears out and
lets me Sleep"
So he reasoned as he lay down in
his comfortable camp. The night was
star bright above the canon walls.
The insects hummed n chirped and
thrummed IA continuous thick song, low
and m~onOtOnous. Slow running water
splashed softly over stones in the
stream bed. From far down the canon
came the mournful loot of an OWL. The
out action for the day. all these things
weighed upon him like a great heavy
mantle Of loneliness. In truth. they did
lot constitute loneliness.
And he could nc more have dispelled
thought than he could have reached
out 10 IOuCn q cold, bright star.
He wondered how many outcasts like
him lay under this star stubbed,
velvety sky across the fifteen hundred
miles of wild country between Ell Paso
n h mouth of the river. A vast
wild territory refuge for outlaws!
Somewhere he had heard or read that
the Texas Rangers kept a book with
names and records Of outlaws-three
thousand known outlaws! Yet these
could scarcely be half of that unior-
tunate horde which had been recruited
from all over the states. Duane had
travelled from camp to camp. den to
don hjdin0 r1oco RI h3dino pIoon orl