Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1917-01-11

4 lOr Il score Oh DAYS III lIc
tNTMsNI hill country. The valley road
- that wound upward and Still
upward from the town Of Morrison
ran a ribbon of puffy yellow dust be
tween sun baked, brown soddel dunes;
ran north and north, tOrtuous series
Of loops on loops, to lose itself at last
in the cooler promise Of the first bull
Wark of the mountains.
Since early afternoon Caleb Hunter
had been sitting almost imm0bilc in
the shade of the trellis which tlankci
the deep vcrandas of his huge white,
thick Dillared house on the hill above
the river 1t was reminiscent Of an
other lOcality-the old Hunter place
on the valley road.
Morrison had changed since Caleb
Hunters father topped with the white
columncd house that hill above the
river In those days it had been lit
tie more than a sleepy if conservative
ly prosperous and self sufficient com
n1unity, without industry Of any sort,
or, it might be added, ambition or
seeming need of one.
From the Hunter veran0aS g half
dozen red rooted, brown shingled
bungalows, half camps and half cas-
Ties, were visible across the Land
stretches whore the cattle had graZed
before And Just beyond Caleb Hun
ter's own high box hedge Dexter Al
IisOn'S enormous stncco and timber
''sumMcr lodge" sprawleG amid a
round, dozen acres of green lawn and
landscape gardening. its front to the
river
The fishing was still FAR above re-
prOach a little farther back country,
and Dexter Allison owned the saw
mills that droncl in the valley. His
men drove his timber down from the
hills lii the north: his men piled the
yellow planks upon his fiat cars which
ran in over his spur line that had crept
up from the south His hundreds and
hundreds of rivc}lNPn already tod the
sawduSt padded streets of the newer
Morrison that had sprung into being
beyond the bend; they SWarmCd in on
the drives, a hard faced. hard shout
dGIrd horde. picturesque, proficient and
Drofanc. They brought with them col
or and care free proli@ality and ca
pacitv for Abandonment TO pleasure
that ran the whole %amut Of emotions,
from raucouS rOarcd chanticS 10 sud
ir1N Il
silent as they were deadly. And they
spent their money without stopping TO
count it.
The younger generation of the older
Morrison WAS quick 10 point out the
virtues Of this vice. .<nd after time,
when the older generation found that
the rivermcn preferred their own see
ton Of the town, ignoring as though
they had never existed the staid and
sleepy residential streets above, th"y
heaved a sigh Of partial relief and tried
to forget their proximity.
1t was the hottest day of the hottest
fortnight that the hill country had
known in years. The very tempera-
ture gave color to AlliSon's statement
that the heat had driven them north
from the shore-him and his wife and
Barbara. their daughter Of ten, and
the half dozen or more guests whose
trunks, coming on the next day, made
an even more imposing sight than had
AlliSon's own. And yet rs he sat
there in the shadow. Mechanically pull
ing upon his pipe, Caleb Hunter smiled
from time to time reminis"ently.
He was nodding his head drowsily
when haze Of dust to the north
caught his yagrant attention. Quite
apparently it was raised by a foot
traveller, and the latter were not fire.
quent upon that road, especially foot
travellers who came from that direc-
tion. Trivial as it was it piqued his
interest, and he lay back and followed
1t from lazily half closed eyes. II
topped a rise and disappeared, the dust
cloud, and reappeared in turn, but not