The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1917-04-07

would not be alarmed should her uncle
not return that night. But early in the
morning messenger from McAlpin
rode to her with note telling her of
the accident.
Whatever his vices, Duke had been
good protector to his dead brothers
child. He had sent her to good schools
and tried to revive in her, despite her
untoward surroundings, the better ira
ditions of the family as it had once
fourished in Kentucky. Nan took the
saddle for Sleepy Cat in haste and
alarm. When she reached her uncle's
bedside she understood how seriously
he had been hurt, and the doctors
warnings were not needed to convince
her he must have care.
Duke refused to let her leave him,
in any case, and Nan relieved the
nurse, and, what was of equal moment,
made herself custodian of the cash
In hand before Dukes town compan-
ions could get hold of it. Occasional
trips to the gap were necessary as the
weeks passed and her uncle could not
be moved. These Nan had feared as
threatening an encounter either by &C.
cident, or on his part designed, with
De Spain. But the impending encoun-
ter never took place. De Spain, at
tending closely to his own business,
managed to keep accurate track of her
whereabouts without getting in her
way. She had come to Sleepy Cat
dreading to meet him and fearing his
influence over her, but this apprehen-
sion, with the passing of a curiously
brief period. dissolved into a conf.
dence in her ability to withstand fur.
thel interference, on anyone's part,
with her feelings.
Gale Morgan rode into town fire.
quently. and Nan at first painfully ap-
pretended hearing sometime of dead
~ duel between her truculent gap adj
lsfrer and her persistent town courtier
who was more considerable and bet
ter hammered, but no less logged, and,
in fact, good deal more difficult to
handle.
AS to the bOisterous mountain man,
his resolute little cousin made no Sc
cret of her detestanon of him. She
denied and defed him as openly as a
girl could, and beard his threats with
continued Indifference She was quite
alone, too, in her fear of any fatal
meeting between the two men who
seemed determined to pursue her.
The truth was that after Calabasas,
De Spain, from Thief river to Sleepy
Cat, was a marked man None sought
to cross his path or his purposes, and
neither the town haunts of Calabas:ls
men nor those of their Morgan GAP
sympathizers had any champion dis
posed to follow too closely the alert
Medicine Bend railroader
In and about the hospital, and in the
town itself, Nan found the chief OBJ
stacle to her peace Of mind in the talk
she could not always avoid hearing
about De Spain Convalescents in the
corridors, practically all of them men,
never gathered in sunny corners or at
the tables in the dining room without
De Spain's name coming in some way
into the talk, to be followed with vary.
ing circumstantial accounts of what
really had happened that day at Gala
basas.
And with all the known escapades
iii which ne had figured, exhausted Us
topics, by long-winded commentators,
more or less hazy stories of his earlier
experiences at Medicine Bend in the
company of Whispering Smith were
dragged into the talk. One GONZALES
cent stage; guard at the hospital told
story one night at supper about him
that chilled Nan again with strange
fears, for she knew it to be true. He
had had it from McAlpin himself, so
the guard said, that De SPANS father
had long ago been shot down from am
bush by cattleman and that Henry
de Spain had sworn to find that man
and kill him. And it was limited pref
ty strongly that De Spain had informa-
ton when he consented to come to
Sleepy Cat that the assassin still lived,
and lived somewhere around the head
Of the sinks.
On that very evening it CHANGED the
doctor came late. When he walked in
he asked her If she knew it was From
tier day, and reminded her that just
a year ago she had shot against Henry
de Spain and beaten the most danger
GUS man and the deadliest shot on the
mountain divide in her rifle match.
How he had grown in the imagina-
ton of Sleepy Cat and Music noun
tain, she said to herself-while the
doctor talked to her uncle-since that
day year ago! Then he was no more
than an unknown and discounted
marksman from Medicine Bend, beaten
by a mountain girl-now the most
talked-of man in the high country. And
the suspicion would sometimes obtrude
itself with pride into her mind, that
she who never mentioned his name
when it was discussed before her,
really knew and understood him bet
ter than any Of those that talked so