The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1922-10-21
Continued from ias5 issusI

fContinuea from last issueI
II reckon we're two of q kind" he
said ut was woman who drove me
into the desert. But I come to re.
member. The deserts the only place
j can do that"
''Was she your wlfe" asked the
elder man.
mo-
A long silence ensued. The camp.
fire wore down to rudy ashen heap
Il, had a daughter" said Cameron's
'comrade. "She lost her mother nj
birth. And IL didn't know how to
bring up a girl. She was pretty and
gay. 1t was the-the old story
His words were peculiarly signif.
cant to Cameron. They distressed
him. He had been wrapped up in his
remorse. II ever in the past he had
thought of anyone connected with
the girl he had wronged, he had long
forgotten. But the consequences OF
such wrong were far.reaching. They
struck at the roots of home.
"Nell, tell me more?' asked Cam.
eron earnestly.
1T was the old. old story. My girl
was pretty and free. The young bucks
ran after her. I guess she did not run
away from them. And was away a
good deal-working in another town
She was in love with a wild fellow.
knew nothing Of it till too late. He
was engaged to marry her. But he
.lidn't come back. And when the dis
grace became plain to all, my girl left
home. She went west. After a while
l heard from her. She was we'll
working-living for her baby. A long
time passed. had NO ties. I drifted
west Her lover had also gone west.
In those days everybody went west.
l. trailed him. intending to kill him.
But lost his trail. Neither could I
lind any trace Of her. She moved on,
driven, no doubt, by the hound Of her
past. Since that have taken to the
wilds, hunting gold on the desert"
Yes, it's the old, old story, only
salder, I think" said Cameron; and
his voice was strained and unnatural.
"Pardner, what Illinois town was it
youshailed fromT
Peoria"
And your-your name?" went on
Cameron, huskily.
"Warren-Jonas Warren"
=" That name might as we'll have been
a bullet. Cameron stood erect, mo-
tionless, as men, sometimes stand mo-
mentarily when shot straight through
the heart In an instant. when
thoughts resurged like binding flashes
Of lightning through his mind, he was
a swaying, quivering. terror-stricken
man. He mumbled something hoarse-
ly and backed into the shadow. But
he need not have feared discovery,
however surely his agitation might
have betrayed him. Warren sat brood
ing over the campfire, oblivious Of his
comrade, absorbed in the past.
Cameron swiftly walked away in
the gloom, with the blood drumming
thick in his ears, whispering over and
over:
"Merciful Cd! Nell was his daugh.
ter" - ''
AS thought and feeling multiplied,
Cameron was overwhelmed. Beyond
belize, indeed, was 1t that out of the
millions of men In the world two who
had never seen each other could have
been driven into the desert by memory
Of the same woman. 1t brought the
past so close. It showed Cameron
how inevitably all his spiritual life
was governed by what had happened
long ago. That which made life sig
nificant to him was a wandering In
silent places where no eye could see
him with his secret. Some fateful
chance had thrown him with the ia
Their Of the girl he had wrecked. It
was incomprehensible; it was terrible.
1t was the one thing Of all possible
happenings in the world of chance
that both father and lover would have
found uncomfortable.
Something within him cried out to
him TO reveal his identity. Warren
would kill him; but it was not fear of
death that put Cameron on the rack.
lie had faced death too often to be
afraid, 1t was. the Thought Of adding
torture to this long-sufferiny man. AL
at once Cameron swore that he would
not augment Warren's trouble. or let
him stain his hands with blood. He
would5tell the truth Of Nell's sad story
and his own, and make what amends
lie could.
Then Cameron's thought shifted
from father to daughter. She was
somewhere beyond the dim horizon
line. In those past lonely hours by
the campfire his fancy had tortured
him with pictures of Nell. But his
remorseful and cruel fancy had lied
TO him. Nell had struggled upward
out Of. menacing depths. -. She had re-
constructed broken life. And now
she was fighting for the name and
happiness of her child. Little Nell!
Cameron experienced a shuddering
ripple in all his being-the physical
rack of an emotion born of new and
strange consciousness. He felt that