Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-10-10
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tamarack, her neart, winch seemed
tc ~suffocate her, quieted; and she
leaned against a shoulder Of rock.
strangely tired.
After a while she drew from her
pocket his handkerchief, and looked
at it. The square of cambria bore
his initials, j. s. Blood from her lip
remained on it. She had not washed
out the spots.,s
She put 1t to her lips again, me-
Chemically. A faint odor of tobacco
still chung to it.
BY every law Of loyalty, pride, self
respect, she should have held this
man her enemy. Instead, she held
his handkerchief against her lips
crushed it there suddenly, closing
her eyes while the color surged and
surged through her skin from throat
to hair.
Then, YEARLY, she lifted her head
and looked out into the gray and
empty vista of her life, where the
dreary years seemed to stretch like
milestones away, away into an end
less waste.
She put the handkerchief into her
pocket. shouldered her rife, moved
on without looking about her-a
mistake which only the emotion of
the moment could account for in a
girl so habituated to caution-for
she had gone only a few rods be-
fore a mans strident voice halted
her:
"Halte lal Crosse en- air!"
Drop that rife!" came another
voice from behind her. You're COW
cred. Throw your gun on the
ground"
She stood as though paralyzed. To
Ifha ri0hf ond 1off che heard naan1a
trampling through the thicket to-
( ward her.
Down with that gun, damn your
repeated the voice, breathless from
running. All around her men came
foundering and crashing toward
her through the underground. She
could see some of them.
AS she stopped to place her rife
on the dead leaves, she drew the fiat
packet from her cartridge sack at
the same time and slid 1t deftly
under a rotting log. Then, calm
but very pale, she stood upright to
faco events.
The first man wor a red and vel
low bandanna handkerchief yer the
lower half of his face, pulled tightly
pistol nearly PARALLEL to his own
body; and when he came up to
where she was standing he poked
the muzzle into her stomach.
She did not finch: he said moth
ing; she looked intently into the
two ratty eyes fastened on her over |
the edge of his bandanna.
Five other men were surrounding |
her, but they all wore white masks
Of wizard shape, revealing chin and
mouth.
They were different otherwise,
also. wearing various sorts and pat
terms of sport clothes, brand new, |
and giving them an odd, foreign ap-
pearance.
What troubled her most was the
silence they maintained. The man
wearing the bandanna was the only
one who seemed at all a familiar
figure-merely, perhaps, because he
was American in build, clothing and
movement.
He took her by the shoulder
turned her around and gave her a
shove forward. She staggered a step
or two; he gave her another shove
and She comprehended that she was
to keep on going.
Presently she found herself In a
steep, wet deer-trail rising upward
through a gully. She knew thai
runway. 1t led up Star Peak.
Behind her as she climbed she
heard the stopping, painting tread
of men; her wind was better than
theirs; she climbed lithely upward,
setting a pace which finally resulted
in a violent jerk backwards saw
ase,w ordless ~admonition to go more
slowly.
AS she climbed she wondered
whether she should have fred ar
alarm shot on the chance of he
State Trooper, Stormont. hearing it.
But she had thought only of the
packet at the moment of surprise.
And now she wondered whether,
when freed, she could ever again
find hat rotting log.
Up, up, always up along the wet
gully, deep with silt and frost splint-
cred rock she toiled, the heavy gasp
ing of men behind her. Twith she
jerked to a halt while her escort
rested.
Once. without turning she said un-
steadily: "Who are you? What have
I done to you?"
There was no reply.
what are you going to do to
me-" she began again. n was
shaken by the shoulder until silent.
At last the vast arch of the east
ern sky sprang out ahead, where
stunted spruce stood out against
the sunshine and the intense hea;
of midday fell upon a bare table LAM
of rock and moss and fern.
As she came out upon the level,
the men behind her took both he;
arms and pulled them back and
somebody bandaged her eyes. Then
a hand closed on her left arm and
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forward across the rocks for a few
,,opoapfc until har p1tida haJfad her