The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1917-01-18

| uSu upon It's great CLASSY shoulder.
They fought madly to retain that place,
and to such purpose that they rode 1t
over dozen yards before it crashed
upon the beach, annihilating itself In
a furious welter OF creaming waters.
whitaker felt land beneath his feet.
The rest was like the crisis of a
nightmare drawn out to the limit of
human endurance. The undertow tore
ut Whitaker's legs as with a hundred
murderous hands. He came out of II
eventually to find himself well up on
the beach leaning against the careened
nulk of dismantled catboat with q
gaping rent In Its side. At little dis
tance the woman was sitting In the
sands, bosom and shoulders heaving
convulsively, damp, matted hair yelling
her like curtain of sunlit seaweed.
He moved with painful effort toward
her. She turned up to him her pitifuI,
writhen face, white as parchment.
Are you-hurt?" he managed to ask.
Il mean-injured7"
Sire moved her head from side to
side, as If she could not speak for pant
ing.
"rm-glad," he said duly. "You
stay-here I'll go get help"
he raised his eyes, peering inland.
Back of the beach the land rose In
long, sweeping hillocks, treeless but
green. His curiously befogged vision
made out number of shapes that re-
sembled dwellings,.
Go get help >"
he repeated thickly.
He started off with brave, stagger-
Ing rush that carried him a dozen feet
inland. Then his knees turned to wa
ter, and the blackness of night shut
down upon his senses.
| q
When Whitaker awoke the afternoon
was cloudy-warm and bright, SO that
his eyes were grateful for the shade of
a white parasol that girl was holding
over him. He grew suspicious of his
senses; and when the parasol was
transformed into the shape of q wom-
ON wearing clumsy jacket OF soiled
covert cloth over a nondescript gar
ment of weirdly printed calico-then
he was sure that something was wrong
with him.
Besides, the woman suddenly turned
and bent over him an anxious face, ex-
claiming in accents of CONSERVATION
20 dearl If he's delirious-"
His voice, when he strove to answer,
rustled and ratified so that he barely
managed to say: "What nonsense Pm
just thirstyp
II thought you would be-" said the
woman, calmly; $50 1 brought water.
| Here :"
She offered a tin vessel to his lips.
He sat up suddenly, seized the vessel
and buried his face in 1t, gradually tilt
ing 1t, while its cool, delicious sweet
ness irrigated his arid tissues, until
every blessed drop was drained. Then.
and not till then, he lowered the pail
and with sane vision began to renew
acquaintance with the world.
He was sitting in the lee of the
beached catbOat. The woman he had
rescued sat quite near him. The gale
was still booming overhead, but now
with less force (or so he fancled) !;
and the surf still crashed in thunders
on the beach a hundred feet or more
away; but the haze was lighter, and
the blue Of the sky was visible, If tar
nished.
The sands curved off in a wide cres-
cent, ending I'm a long, sandy spit.
There was a low, ragged earth bank
rising from the sands. Midway be-
tween the beach and where the hazy
uplands lifted their blurred profile
against the faded sky, stood a com
mOnplace farmhouse, I'm good repair.
strongly constructed and neatly paint
ed; with a brood OF out buildings
Here and there, in scattered groups
and singly, sheep foraged
With puzzled eyes Whitaker sought
counsel and enlightenment of the won-
an, and found I'm her appearance quite
as much to cOnfOund anticipation and
deepen perplexity. what she had
worn the night before he could not
say; but it certainly could have had
nothing I'm common with the worn.
stained, misshapen jacket covering her
shoulders. beneath it the calico wrap
per scant and crude beyond belief up
on her feet the rusty wrecks that once
had been shoes.
AS for himself, his once white fan
mel trousers were precious souvenirs.
even though the cloth had contracted
TO an alarming extent-uncOmfortab
as well; while his tennis shoes re-
maiued tolerably intact. and the can
vas brace had shruuk upon his ankle
until It gripped It like a wise.
But these details he absorbed rather
than studied in the first few moments
subsequent to his awakening. His
caleiest and most direct interest CEN
tered upon the woman. There was
warm color I'm the cheeks that he had
last seen Hvid. there was the wonted
play Of light and shadow in her fas-