The Jasper news. [volume] (Jasper, Missouri) 1898-1924, 1917-04-05
CHAPTER XVI.
Her Bad Penny.

tuinS, Tire WOIlu, anu TeSentluliy light
ing the pillow on which she cried her
self to sleep.
In the morning every nerve was on
edge. When her Uncle Duke, with his
chopping utterance, said something
short to her at their very early break
fast he was surprised by an answer
equally short. Her uncle retorted
sharply. A second curt answer greet
ed his rebuff and while he stared at
her. Nan left the table and the room.
Duke, taking two of the men, start
ed that morning for Sleepy Cat with
n bunch Of cattle. He rode fractions
horse, infuriated, as his horses fire.
quently were, by his brutal treatment
bolted in a moment unguarded by his
master, and flung Duke on his back In
strip Of laya rocks.
The old man-in the mountains
man Is called old after he passes
forty-was heavy, and the fall seri-
Gus one. He picked himself up while
the men were recovering his horse,
knocked the horse over the head with
a piece Of jagged rock when the fright
ened beast was brought back, climbed
into the saddle again, and rode all the
way into town.
But when his business was done,
Duke, too, was done. He could neither
sit horse, nor sit in wagon. Sleepy
Cat was stirred at the news, and that
the man who had defied everybody in
the mountains for twenty years should
have been laid low and sent to the
| hncntfnl h,,
topic of many comments. De Spain,
who was at Caabasas, knew Nan
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
q 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.
dltlons of the family ns 1t had once
flourished in Kentucky. Nan took the
saddle for Sleepy Cat in haste and
alarm. When she reached her uncles
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 1t. Occasional
trips to the gap were necessary as the
y. weeks passed and her uncle could not
be moved. These Nan had feared ms
threatening an encounter either by ac-
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 curiously
brief period, dissolved into q conf
dence in her ability to withstand fur
. ther 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
ly duel between her truculent gap ad-
! mirer and her persistent town courtier
who was more considerate and bet.
, ter hammered, bIt TO less dogged, 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 detestation Of him. She
, denied and defied him as openly as q
girl could, and heard 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 n marked man. None sought
to cross his path or his purposes, and
neither the town haunts of Calabasas
men nor those of their Morgan Gar
? sympathlzers had any champion dis
posed to follow too closely the alert
i Medicine Bend railroader.
In and about the hospital, and in the
0 town itself, Nan found the chief OBJ
stacle to her peace of mind in the tall
. she could not always avoid hearing
d about De Spain. Convalescents In tn,
= corridors, practically all of them men
e never gathered in sunny corners or N
r the tables In the dining room -withou
: De Spain's name coming In some way
g into the talk, to be followed with vary
ing circumstantial accounts of wha
n | really had hammered that dnv Mt Cain