Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-04-26
CHAPTER XVI.
Her Bad Penny.

| tISI SGd FCti4iy
Nan reached her room in a fever of
excitement angry at De Spain, bitterly
angry at Gale, angry with the noun
tains, the world, and resentfuIIy fight
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
Il bunch of cattle. He rode q fractions
horse, Infatuated, as his horses fire.
quently were, by his brutal treatment,
bolted in moment UnguaGded by his
master, and flung Duke on his back IN
i strip Of lava rocks.
The old MANN the mountains a
man is called old after he passes
forty-was heavy and the fall a serf-
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
aned 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 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 low and sent to the
hospital by a 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 a messenger from McAIpin
rode to her with note telling her Of
the accident.
Whatever his vices, Duke had been
4 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
litions Of the family as it had once
lourished in Kentucky. Nan took the
saddle for Sleepy Cat in haste and
alarm. When she reached her uncle's
bedside she understood how seriously
he had been hurt, and the doctors
warnings were not needed to convince
her he must have care.
1of77cnJ 4o lC+ =,
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
he 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 q curiOusiy.
brief period, dissolved into conf
dence in her ability to withstand fur
the1 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 q dead
T7aJ hot
nirer and her persistent town courtfer
who was more considerable and bet
ter hammered, but no less logged, and.
n fact, good deal more difficult &c
handle.
AS to the bOisterOus mountain man,
MS resolute little cousin made no Sc
ret of her detestatiOn of him. She
denied and defied him as openly as a
sirl 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 CaIabasas.
De Spain, from Thief river to Sleepy
lat, was a marked man None sought
o cross his path or his purposes, and
neither the town haunts Of CaIabasas
nen nor those of their Morgan Gan
had any champion dis
'osed to follow too closely the alert
Iedicine Bend railroader
In and about the hospital, and in the
own itself. Nan found the chief oh
tacle to her peace of mind in the talk
he could not ALWAYS avoid hearinc