Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1918-07-04

goods in a weather-beaten old log
house which sprawled a hundred feet
back from the street Thirty years,
he told her. he had kept that store in
Fort George. She guessed that Bill
had selected him because he was a
fixture
She sat down at his counter and
wrote her message. Just a few terse
lines. And when she had delivered it
to Courvoiseur she went back to the
hotel. There was nothing now to do
but wait. And with the message I'M
der way she found herself impatient
to reach the cabin. to spend the wait
ing days where she had first found
happiness. She could set her house in
order against her mans coming. And
If the days dragged, and the great,
lone land seemed to close in and press
inexorably upon her, she would have
to be patient. very patient.
Jake was held up, waiting for sup
plies. Fort George suffered sugar
famine. Two days later the belated
freight arrived. He loaded his wagon,
a ton of goods for himself, a like
weight of Hazers supplies and be-
longings. A goodly load, but he drove
out of Fort George with four strap
ping bays arching their powerful
necks. and champing on the bit.
"Four days We will make it by der
ranch" Jake chuckled. "Mit der mule
und Gretchen, der COW, Won week it
take me, NIT half der Loaf"
Four altogether pleasant and salts
flying days they were to Hazel. The
worst of the fly pests were vanished
for the season. A crisp touch of frost
sharpened the night winds. Indian
summer hung it's mellow haze over the
land. The clean, pungent air that sift-
ed through the forests seemed doubly
sweet after the vitiated atmosphere of
town. Fresh from gridiron of dusty
streets and stone pavements, and but
stepped, as one might say, from days
of Imprisonment in the narrow con-
fines of a railway coach, she drank the
whey air in hungry gulps. and joyed
in the soft yielding of the turf be-
meath her feet, the fern and peavine
carpet of the forest floor.
1t was her pleasure at night to sleep
as she and Bill had slept, with her face
barred to the stars. She would draw
her bed a little aside from the camp
fire and from the low seclusion of a
thicket lie watching the nimble flames
at their merry dance, smiling lazily at
the grotesque shadows cast by Jake
and his frau as they moved about the
blaze. And she would wake in the
morning clear-headed, alert, grateful
for the pleasant woodland smells
arising wholesomely from the fecund
bosom of the earth.
Lauer pulled up before his own cab
in at mid-afternoon of the fourth day,
unloaded his own stuff, and drove to
his neighbours with the rest.
It'll walk back after a little" Hazel
told him, when he had piled her goods
in one corner of the kitchen.
The rattle of the wagon died away.
She was alone-at home. Her eyes
filled as she roved restlessly from
kitchen to 1iving-room and on into the
bedroom at the end. Bill had I'M
packed. The rugs were down, the
books slowed in familiar disarray up
on their shelves, the bedding spread in
semi-disorder where he had last slept
and gone away without troubling to
smooth it out in housewifely fashion.
She came back to the living-room
and seated herself in the big chair.
She had expected to be lonely, very
lonely. But she was not. Perhaps
that would come later. For the pres
ent it seemed as if she had reached
the end of something, as if she were
very tired, and had gratefully come to