The Parma herald. (Parma, Idaho) 1903-1917, 1917-05-17


way into town.
But when his business was done,
Duke, too, was done. be could neither
sit horse. nor sit in a 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 tow and sent to the
hospital by mere bronchO was the
topic of many comments. De Spain,
who was at Calabasas, 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 a note telling her of
the accident.
Whatever his vices, Duke had been
a 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
hourished in Kentucky. Nan took the
saddle for Sleepy Cat in haste and
alarm. When she reached her uncIe'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 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 a curiousIy
brief period, dissolved into a conf
dence in her ability to withstand fur
Their interference, on anyone's part,
with her feelings.
Gale Morgan rode into town fire.
quently, and Nan at first painfully APP
pretended hearing sometime of a dead
ly duel between her truculent gap adj
mirer and her persistent town courtier
who was more considerable and bet
ter hammered, but no less logged. and.
in fact, a good deal more difficult to
handle.
As to the boisterous mountain man,
cret of her detestation of him. She
denied and defied him as openly as a
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 10 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 Calabasas
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 I
the tables in the dining room without .
De SPANS 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
in which he had figured. exhausted as
topics, by long-winded commentators,
more or less haZy stories of his earlier
experiences at Medicine Bend in the
of Whispering Smith were
dragged into the talk. One GONZALES
cent stage-guard at the hospital told
1 story one night at supper about him
hat chilled Nan again with strange
,ears. for she knew 1t TO be true. He
lad had it from McAlpIn himself. so
he guard said, that De SPANS father
lad long ago been shot down from am
,ush by q cattleman and that Henry :
lie Spain had sworn to find that man I
md kill him. And it was limited pref
V strongly that De Spain had infOrma- {
ion when he consented to come to /
Sleepy Cat that the assassin still lived. {
nd lived somewhere around the head {
# the sinks. "a
On that very evening IL CHANGED the q
.OctOr came late. When he walked in 1
e asked her If she knew II was From {
Ter day, and reminded her that Just d
year ago she had shot against Henry
e Spain and beaten the most danger il
US man and the deadliest shot on the ii
divide in her rifle match. h
How he had grown in the magma K
ion Of Sleepy Cat and Music noun 5
ain. she said to herself-while the {,
octor talked to her uncle-since that
ay year ago Then he was nc more u
nan an unknown and discounted S
larksman from Medicine Bend. beaten Ii
: mountain girl-nOw the most n
llked-of man in the high country. And
lie suspicion would sometimes Obtrude 81
self with pride into her mind. that
ne who never mentioned his name W
hen IL was discussed before her.
ally knew and understood him bet 81