Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1921-11-04
a Great GIadness Filled Elizabeth's
Heart.

"I've thought much over it, and just
now I've decided. When decide, it's
for all time! you know that, don't
your"
A great gladness filed Elizabeth's
heart. 1t did not occur to her to ask
how, in what manner, he was going to
take care of her people it was enough
to know that he was going to take care
of them. He put a fathers arm lightly
around her shoulders. She tried to
speak, choked, and couldn't utter
word. But it didn't matter. John K.
Dale understood perfectly.
Then he took his arm away, faced to
the right, and drew bis hat rim low
over his eyes. For two minutes he
stood there and looked for the little old
cabin down near the foot of the north
end of the mountain, and he failed to
find it. His mind had gone back once
more to that woeful night that had cut
his life in twain. He remembered
plainly waking in the early morning
with an aching head and with the
ranking taste Of much dead whisky
in his mouth. Remembered seeing Da-
vid Moreland, with a bullet hole
through and through him, lying Oh the
floor beside him. Remembered his
horror, his smothered cries of anguish,
and his hurried flight.
He had wondered, he remembered,
why the law made no attempt to track
him down. He had not known that the
mountaineer's code of honor demands
that the mountaineer himself collect
that which is due him.
"Tell me-" he said in tones so low
that Elizabeth barely heard, where is
David Moreland buried?"
He had turned, and stood facing her.
She pointed to the southwark.
'"They buried him out the crest O.
the mountain a little ways, on the
highest place, by the side of his
wife. That was always touchin'
thing to me, that he buried his wife on
the very highest point of his own
mountain. You know why, don't you?
David Moreland believed in God and
hereafter, and he believed that heaven.
was up. He wanted to get even his
Wife's ashes as close to heaven as he
could"
IT'D like to go out there" John
Dale said, his voice almost a whisper.
I'D like to see the place."
IT wouldn't" replied Ben Little
ford's daughter. For she knew-oh,
she knew.
eyes, yes, my dear-I must see the
place." declared John K. Dale, hoarse-
" whispering go out there"
There was never any disobeying him
when he was determined, and he was
determined now. It is strange, that
dread human thing that drew him
Elizabeth turned and started out
the snowy crest of the mountain, wend-
ing her way here and there between
clumps of snow-heavy laurel and ivy
and under snow-heavy pines. After a
quarter of an hour of this somewhat
difficult travelling, the two drew up be-
fore a small Enclosure made of round
oaken posts and round open ratings
and hand-split and pointed oaken pal
ings as high as mans shoulders all
of which were gray and weatherbeat-
en-. Elizabeth knew the spot well. She
swung the gate stiff1y open on it's wood
en- hinges and stepped inside. Old Dale,
trembling in every fiber, followed her.
His face was very, very pale.
Before them were two snow-covered
mounds bordered with the dead stalks
of flowers of another year-marigolds.
pretty-by-nights, zinnias. Near the
two graves there grew bare branched
wild honeysuckle and redbud, and
green-leaved laurel, which In the sum-
mer time were covered with beautiful
and fragrant blossoms of golden vel
low, royal purple, and waxen white. At
the head of one mound a great, rough
ly-shaped slab Of brown sandstone