The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1916-07-20
CHAPTER X.

hundred miles from the haunts
most familiar with Duane's needs, far
up where the Nueces ran a trickling
clear stream between yellow cliffs,
stood small deserted shack Of covered
mequite poles. 1t had been made long
ago, but was well preserved. A door
faced the overgrown trail. and another
faced down into a gorge of dense thick
cts. On the border fugitives from law
and men who hid in fear Of some one
they had wronged never lived in houses
with only one door.
II was wild spot, lonely, not fit for
human habitation except for the out
cast. He, perhaps, might have found II
hard to leave for most of the other
wild nOolIs in that barren country.
Down in the gorge there was never
falling sweet water, grass all the year
round, cool, shady retreats, deer, rab-
bits. turkeys fruit, and miles and miles
Of narrow-twisting. deep canon full Of
broken rocks and impenetrable thickets.
The scream of the panther was heard
there, the squat of the wildcat, the
cough of the jaguar. 1nnumerable bees
buZZed in the spring blossoms, and ii
seemed, scattered honey to the winds.
All day there was continuous song OF
birds that Of the hooking bird loud and
sweet and hooking above the rest.
On clear dayS-,and rare indeed were
cloudy days-with the subsiding OF the
wind at sunset n hush seemed to fall
around the little hut. Far-distant dim
gradually to fade with the shading Of
light.
At this quiet hour a man climbed up
out of the gorge and sat in the west
ward door of the hut. This lonely
watcher Of the west and listener to the
silence was Duane. And this hut was
the one where. three years before, Jen-
nfa hod hn RI
The killing of a man, named Sellers,
and the combination of circumstances
that had made the tragedy a memorable
regret, had marked, If not q change, at
least a cessation in Duane's activities.
He had trailed Sellers to kill him for
the supposed abduction OF Jennie. He
had trailed him long after he had
learned Sellers travelled alone. Duane
wanted absolute assurance Of Jennie's
death. Vague rumors, a few words here
and there, unarthenticated stories, were
all Duane had gathered in years to sub
stantiate his belief-that Jennie died
shortly after the beginning of her sec
ond captivity. Bat Duane did not know
surely. Sellers might have told him.
Duane expected, IL not to force It from
him at the end, to read 1t in his eyes.
But the bullet went too unerringly; 1t
locked his lips and fixed his eyes.
After that meeting Duane lay long at
he recovered from the wound Sellers
had given him he started with two
horses and q pack for the lonely gorge
on the Nueces. There he had been hid
den for months, a prey to remorse, a
dreamer, victim Of phantoms.
1t took work for him to find subsis
tence in that rocky fastness. And work,
action, helped to pass the hours. But he
could not work all the time, even IL he
had found 1t to do. Then in his idle
moments and at night his task was to
live with the hell in his mind.
The sunset and the twilight hour
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 IL had been he
would have been sure Of her death. He
hoped Jennie had not survived her
second misfortune; and that intense
hope had burned into belief, IL not
surety. Upon his return to that locality.
on the occasion Of his first visit to the
hut, he had found things just az they
had left them. and 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 X 10
Duane. r.. - .H ....
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 or
what might have been. He had a mar
yelous gift Of naturalization. He could
shut his eyes and see Jennie before him
Just as clearly as IL 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
full 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.