Evening star., 1920-11-21
By Ben Ames Williams.

! made him feel naked before the eyes
| OF unnamed and terrible things. He
gave himself up. for a little, to a
trembling orgy Of fear.
| He was still. it should be under
stood. dared and uncertain Just what
had happened. but while he crouched
| in the road memory crept back to him
and amplified that first ghost Of recol-
| lection. He remembered that he had
been driving Wills wagon, that men
had stopped him. struck him. .
! The wagon. He groped about him in
the dark. forgot to crouch. moved here
and there. searchingly. along the road.
| The wagon was gone.
4 X * *
| WHERE Willis store was concerned
there was stiffness in Andy
as Jean Bubier and others had cause
to know. This stiffness showed itself
now. If there had been light You
might have seen his face go pale be-
meath its blood and mire. You might
have seen him stand rigidly in the
darkness. listening with all his ears,
frozen to stone. trembling with fear,
and trembling also with an honest
fury that blazed like fire in his eyes
Even big Wermuth and little Frellick
must have been disturbed if they
could have seen Andy in that moment
but-they could not see.
AndN later. was quite unable to say
wnat time II was when consciousness
returned to him. 1t must have been
toward midnight. for vean Gregg
pile at half after IL and did not see
andy The boy was undoubtedly still
IN the ditch at the time. The horse,
WIN Wits wagon. had wandered OFT
the road into meadow. half a mile
oeyond. and was grazing there. 1t
was NOT fnDnA
IT must have been then, midni6ht or
after when Andy came to himself. It
was minutes later before he remem- :
bered what had happened. But when
ne was sure the wagon was gone,
Andy was not SLOW to take measures.
He fumbled in his pockets, and he
found in his vest packet Of safety
matches. AS he lay on his back in the
ditch. they had been above the level
of the water, and they were dry and
serviceable. Andy scratched one on
the box. searched the road and iden-
titled the tracks of the wagon he had
been driving. The wagon had not
turned: 1t had gone on He used two
more matches in convincing himself
that the men had climbed into the
wagon and driven away
He began to trail the wagon along
the road. scratching matches as he
,, went and following the tracks Of the
wheels with his eye. And after a lit
tie he came upon something that in
creased his jealous anger 1t was a
cracker box; it had contained crack
ers. and he recognized 1t as one he
had put in the wagon to take to
Eroch Thomas. The men had ripped
the box open; the crackers were gone
A NDY stuffed the box under his
arm and went on. He had covered
no more than hundred yards-it was
slow work-when the last Of his
matches went out. He rummased for
more, found none. And he went down
on his hands and knees in the road,
crawling and followed the tracks Of
the wagon with his hand. fumblinR
in the soft gravel that topped the
road.
This was slower STILL and in the end
he was forced to stop when another
track-ft must have been made by
Gregg's car-obliterated that which
he had been following His first
thought was to push on; then he re-
| membered that an old wood road
turned into the swamp a little ahead
of him. They might have driven the
, wagon in there. He dared not risk
passing them in the dark.
1t was dark as cavern, there be-
meath the trees in the thick swamp
And when Andy stopped his fears Of
| the swamp returned to him. He want
&C to run. screaming.
He crept of the road and found .
tcwlder and crouched beside it. his