The Mena weekly star., 1917-06-14
o NAN of @ MUSIC MOUNTAIN By frank II. Spedrmdn
 Author ot Whispering Smfth
Aulhor ot Whispering Smith-

| x A ANh nAA hikuI. denry," ,he said, turning to him and as if thinking of question she wanted to lsK, how did you happen to come to ne tonight when l wanted you soT'
 T came because you sent for me" ie answered, surprised.
 But l didn't send for you"
 He stopped, dumfounded. "What 10 you mean, Nan7" he demanded un- easily. T got your message on the telephone last night, in my office at sleepy Cat, from man that refused o give his name"
 T never sent any message to you" 'he insisted in growing wonderment l have been locked in a room for hree days, dearie. The Lord knows wanted to send you word. Who ever elephoned message like that? Was t a trap to get you in here?"
 He told her the story-of the stren- ious efforts he had made to discover he identity of the messenger-and low he had been baked. "No mat CT" said Nan at last. Tt couldn't nave been trap. It must have been friend, surely. not an enemy.
 Henry" every time she repeated lis name De Spain cared less for what should happen in the rest of the world, what are we going to do now We can't stay here all highland take what they will greet us with in the morning."
 He answered her question with an- other: What about trying to get out by El Capitan?"
 She started in spite of herself. Tt would be certain death, Henry"
 Il don't mean at the worst to try to cross 1t till we get a glimpse of daylight. But it's quite a way over there. The question is, Can we find a trail up to where we want to go?
 T know two or three" she an- swered, If they are only not flooded"
 The storm seemed to have passed, but the darkness was intense, and from above the northern Expectations came low mutterings of thunder. Com pelled to strike out over the rocks to get up to any of the trails toward Fl Capitan, Nan, helped by De Spain when he could help, led the ascent toward the first ledge they could hope to follow on their dangerous course.
 The point at which the two climbed almost five hundred feet that night up Music mountain is still pointed out in the gap. No person. looking at that confused wall, willingly be- heves it could ever have been scaled in the dead of night. Torn, bruised and exhausted, Nan, handed up by her lover, threw herself at last prostrate on the ledge at the real beginning of their trail and from that vantage point they made their way along the east ern side of Music mountain for two miles before they stopped again to rest.
 It was already we'll after midnight. A favoring spot was seized on by De Spain for the resting place he wanted. A dry recess beneath an overhanging wall made a shelter for the fire that he insisted on building to warm Nan in her soaked clothing. It was dan gerous, both realized, to start a fire, but they concealed the blaze as best they could and took the chance-a chance that more nearly than any that had gone before, cost them their lives.
 The mutterings above the noun tains now grew rapidly louder, and while the two lowered over the fire, a thunder squall, rolling wildly down the eastern slope, burst over the gap. Nan knew even better than her com panion the fickle nature of q range storm, and understood uncomfortably we'll how sudden shift might, at any moment, lay their entire path open to It's fierceness. She warned De Spain they must be moving, and. freshened by the brief rest, they set out toward Fl Capitan.
 They had covered more than half the distance that separated them from the cliff, when second thunderstorm seeming to rush in from the desert, burst above their heads. Drenched with rain, they were forced to draw back under projecting rock. In an- other moment the two storms, meet ing in the gap, rushed together. AS if m unseen hand had touched thou sand granite springs above the gap, every slender crevice spouted stream that shot foaming out from the mountainsides. The sound of nov ing waters rose in dull, vast roar, broken by the unseen boom of distant falls, launching huge masses of water Into caverns far below. The storm laden wind tore and swirled among the crowded peaks, and above all the angry sky moaned and quivered in the rage of the clements.
 It was only the lulls between the sharp squalls that enabled them to cover the trail before daylight. When they paused before El Capitan the fury of the night seemed largely to have exhausted itself, but the over charged air hung above the noun tains, trembling and moaning like a bruised and stricken thing. Light ming. playing across the inky heavens, blazed in constant sheets from end to end of the horizon. Under it all the two refugees, high on the noun looked down on the flooding gap.
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