Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-06-21
CHAPTER Xii.
A. Retrieve.

Smiths blood ran cold and there was
| a mOmentary attack of shocked con-
sternatiOn, comparable to nothing that
| any past experience had to offer. But
there was no time to waste in curious
speculatiOns as to the why and where
fOreS. Present safety was the prime
consideration. With Josiah Richland-
er and his daughter in Brewster and
guests under the same roof with him,
discovery, Identification, disgrace were
knocking at the door. He could har-
Dor no doubt as to what Josiah Rich
lander would do if discovery came. For
so long a time as should be consumed
in telegraphing between Brewster and
Lawrenceville, Smith might venture to
call himself a free man. But that was
the limit.
One minute later he had hailed
passing autOcab at the hotel entrance,
and the four miles between the city
and Colonel Baldwin's ranch had been
tossed to the rear before he remem-
bered that he had expressly declined
a dinner invitation for that same eve.
ming at Htllcrest, pleading business to
Mrs. Baldwin in person when she had
called at the Office with her daughter.
Happily, the small social offense
went unremarked, or at least unre-
buked. Smith found his welcome at
the ranch that Of a man who has the
privilege Of dropping in unannOunced.
The colonel was loosely hospitabIe, as
he always was; Mrs. Baldwin was gra-
ciously lenient-Was good enough, in
deed, to thank the eleventh-hour guest
for recOnsidering at the last moment;
and Corona
Notwithstanding all that had come
to pass; notwithstanding, also, that his
footing in the Baldwin household had
come to be that of a family friend.
Smith could never be quite sure Of the
beWitchingly winsome young woman
who called her father "coIOneI-daddy."
Her pose, if it We're a pose, was the at
titude of the entirely unspoiled child of
nature and the wide horizons. When
he was with her she made him think
Of all the words expressive of trans
parency and absolute and utter uncOn-
cealment. Yet there were moments
when he fancied he could get passing
glimpses of a subtler personality at the
back of the wide-Open, frankly ques-
tioning eyes; a wise little soul lying in
wait behind its defenses; prudent, all
knowing, deceived neither by it's own
prepOssessiOns or prejudices, nor by
any of the masqueradings of other
souls.
Smith, especially in this later incar-
nation which had so radically changed
him, believed as little in the psychic as
any hardheaded young business icOno-
clast of an agnostic century could. But
on this particular evening when he
was smoking his after-dinner pipe on
the fagstoned porch with Corona for
his companion, there were phenomena
apparently unexplainable on any pure
~ material hypothesis.
ST am sure l have much less than
half Of the curiosity that women are
said to have, but, really, do want to |
know what dreadful thing has hap
pened to you since we met you in the |
High Line Offices this morning
mamma and l." was the way in which |
one Of the phenomena was made to oc-
cur; and Smith started so nervously
that he dropped his pipe.
''You can be the most unexpected |
person. when you try he laughed. but