The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1917-02-09

| gaping rent in its side. At little dis
| lance the woman was sitting in the
sands. bosom and shoulders heaying
| convulSively, damp, matted hair yelling
her like q curtain Of sunlit seaweed.
He moved with painful effort toward
| her. She turned up to him her pitiful,
wTithen face, white. as parchment.
Are you-hurt?" he managed to ask.
Il mean-injuredI
She moved her head from side TO
side, us if she could not speak for pant
ing.
''Tm-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-
se1nbled dwellings.
| go get help :"
he repeated thickly.
He started off with a brave, stagger-
| ing rush that carried him dozen feet
| inland, Then his knees turned to wa
| ter, and the blackness of night shut
| down upon his senses.
When Whitaker awoke the afternoon
was cloudy-warm and bright, so that
| his eyes were grateful for the shade Of
a white parasol that a girl was holding
| over him. He grew suspicious of his
| senses; and when the parasol was
| transformed into the shape of wom
an wearing q clumsy jacket of soiled
covert cloth over 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 :;
30 dear. If he's delirious-:"
His voice, when he strove to answer,
rustled and ratified SO that he barely
managed to say: "What nonsense: I'm
just thirsty.'
L thought you would be- said the
| woman, calmly; $50 I brought water.
Here -
She offered Il tin vessel to his lips.
He sat up suddenly, seized the vessel
and buried his face in it. gradually tilt
ing it, 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
bedched catboat. The woman he had
rescued sat quite near him. The gale
was still booming overhead, but now
with less force Cor SO he fancied) {:
and the surf still crashed in thunder>
on the beach a hundred feet or more
away; but the haze was lighter, and
| the blue Of the sky was visible, if tar.
| niSheG. )
The sands curved OF in wide creS-
cent, ending in a long, sandy spit
There was 4 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
| nonplace farmhouse, in good repair,
strongly constructed and neatly paint
ed; with brood of out buildings.
Here and there. in scattered groups
and Singly, sheep foraged.
With puzzled eyes Whitaker sought
counsel and enlightenment of the wom-
an, and found in her appearance quite
| as much 10 confOund anticipation and
| deepen perpleXity. What she had
Worn the night before lie could not
say; but it certainly could have had
nothing in common with the worn
stained. Inisshapen 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
us we'll while his tennis shoes re-
manned tolerably intact. and the can
vas brace had shrunk upon his ankle
until it gripped it like o wise.
But these details he absorbed rather
than studied, in the first few moments
subsequent to his awakening. His
chiefest and most direct interest CEN
tered upon the woman. There was
warm color in the cheeks that he had
last seen livid, there was the wonted
play Of light and shadow in her fas-
cinating eyes: there were gracious
rounded curves where had been sunken
surfaces, followed out by fatigue and
strain: and there remained the in
eluctable 9llurer1ent of her tremendous
vitality.
You are not hurt he demanded.
You are-all right
Quite she told him with i smile
significant of her appreciation of his
generous feeling. "But YOU Haven t
you slept at al:"
oh. surely--a great deal. But I've
been awake for some timc--a few
hours"
'Eut i, What tfmc i it,"
Il haven't a watch, but late after
noon should thinIs-going by the
sun. IL nearly down
Good heavens" he nUttered,
dashed Il have slept
''1-ou earned your right t.,
Nru needed it far more than I, Her
eve, Shcn". warm with kindness.
She sVayed almost inPercep>hly TO-
ward him. Her voice vas low pitched
and Il rifle broken with emotion;
You saved my life
4? Oh that "as only ~.hM any
other NAH
None other did
'Please don't speak of it neAn,
consider it that way" he ~taunncr"d.
"What want f." kn"" j. vh.r" are
We