Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1922-11-17

grace became plain TO all. my girl leIt
home. She went west. After q while
l heard from her. SHE was well
working-living for her baby. A long
time passed. 1 had no ties. l drirted
west. Her lover had also gone west.
In those days everybody went west.
/ trailed him, intending to kill him.
But l lost his trail. Neither could l
find any trace of her. She moved on,
driven, no doubt, by the hound of her
past. Since that l have taken to the
wilds h%ilpting gold on the desert"
Yes, it's the old, old story, only
sadder, 1 think" said Cameron; and
his voice was strained and unnatural.
"Pardner, what Illinois tow was it
you hailed from?"
PEORIA"
"And your-your name?" went on
Cameron, huskily.
"Warren-Jonas Warren"
That pame might as we'll have been
a hulIe.. CaraerOn stood erect, mo-
tionless, as men sometimes stand mo-
mentarily when shot straight through
tile heart. In an instant, when
thoughts resurged like binding flashes
of lightning through his mind. he vas
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
belief, indeed, was Ii that out of the
millions of men In the world two who
had never seer each other could have
been driven into the desert by memory
of the same woman. II brought the
past SC close. 1t 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
Their of the girl he had wrecked. II
was incomprehensible; II 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 II was not fear of
death that put Cameron on the rack.
He had faced death too often to be
1t was the thought of adding
to this l~ong-suffering man.. All
augment Warren's trouble. or let
him stain his hands with blood. He
would tell the truth of Nell's sad story
and his own. and make what amends |
he could.
Then Cameron's thought shifted
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 a broken life. And now
she was fighting for the name and
happiness of her child. Little Nell
Cameron experienced a s%huddering
in all his being-the physical
rack of an emotion born Of a new and
strange consciousness. He felt that |
It had been given him to help Warren
with his burden.
He returned to camp trying to
evolve a plan. All night he lay
awake thinking.
In the morning. when Warren
brought the burros to camp and began
preparations for the usual packing.
Cameron broke silence.
"Pardner, your story last night made
me think. I want to tell you some
thing about myself. In my younger
days-it seems long now, yet it's not
so many years. was Wild. l wronged
the sweetest and loveliest girl l ever
knew. l went away not dreaming that
any disgrace might come to her. Along
about that time I fell into terrible
moods-I changed learned l really
loved her. Then came q letter l
should have gotten months before. 1t
told of her trouble-importuned me to
hurry to save her. Half frantic with
shame and fear, l got q marriage GER
tiicate and rushed back to her town.
She was gone-had been gone for
weeks. and her disgrace WAS known.
Friends warned me to keep out Of
reach Of her father. l trailed her
found her. l married her. But too
late! She would not live with
me. She left mel followed her west.
but never found her."
Warren leaned forward a little and
looked into Cameron's eyes. as If