Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-03-03

Il
- - came, threw the dry bedding onto the
slab and set a match to it, brought in portions
of the lean-tO roof for further supply for the
fire, opened a can of tomatoes and set it on
the edge of the hearth to heat and sliced
bacon into his diminutive frying pan.
He was aching in every muscle when he
finally stretched out on the bare boards of
the lower bunk. While he slept small furry
noses appeared in the openings in the broken
floor, to be followed by little bodies that
moved cautiously out into the open. He
aroused once, and peered over the edge of the
bunk. Several field mice were basking in
front of the dying embers of the fire, and two
were sitting on his boots. He grinned at
them and lay back again, but he found him
self fully awake and very uncomfortable.
He lay there, contemplating his own folly,
and demanding of himself almost fercely
what he had expected to get out of all his
effort and misery. For ten days or so men
had come here. Wilkins had come, for one,
and there had been others. And had found
nothing, and had gone away. And now he
was there, and the end of the procession, to
look for God knows what
He pulled the raincoat UP around his Shout
ders, and lay back almost sullenly. Then
he was not an imaginative mamie began to
feel that eyes were staring at him, furtive,
hidden eyes, intently watching him.
Without moving he began to rake the
cabin with his eyes, wall to wall, corner to
corner. He turned very stealthily, and
glanced at the door into the lean-to. 1t gaped
cavernous and empty. But the sense of
being watched persisted, and when he looked
at the floor, the field mice had disappeared.
He could almost locate the direction Of the
menace. For as menace he found himself
considering it. 1t was the blank, window
less east wall, opposite the bunk.
After a time the thing became intolerable.
He reached for his revolver and getting
quietly out of the bunk, went to the doorway
and threw open the door, to find himself
peering into the blackness like wall, and
to hear a hasty crunching of the underbrush
that sounded like some animal in full fight.
He pulled himself together then, although he
still stood staring out. The cold night air
ON his face, the feel of the pine needles under
his stockinged feet brought him back to
sense and nOrmality.' Some creature of the
wilderness, a deer or a bear, perhaps, had
been moving stealthily outside the cabin, and
it was sound he had heard, not gaze he had
felt. He was rather cynically amused at him
self. He went back into the cabin, closed
the door and stopped to turn his boots over
before the fire.
1t was while he was STOPPING that he heard
horse galloping off along the trail
He did not go to sleep again. Now and
then he considered the possibility of it's
having been his own animal, somehow freed
Of the rope and frightened by the same thing
that had frightened him. But when, with the
first light he went outside, his horse, Sc
cure1y hobbled, was grazing on the scant pas
ture not far away
minute examination of the ground beneath
the east wall, but the earth was hard, and a
broken branch or two might have been caused
by his horse. He had no skill in woodcraft
and in the broad day his alarm seemed almost
absurd. Some free horse on the range had
probably wandered into the vicinity of the
cabin, and had made off again on a trot.
Nevertheless, he made up his mind not to re-
main over another night, but to look about
after breakfast, and then to start down again.
Not until he had gone some distance did he
lind anything. Then in small, bare spot
he found in the dust the imprints of a
horses shoes, turned down the trail.
Even then he was slow to read into the
incident anything that related to himself or
to his errand. He went over the various
contingencies of the trail; making his way
on to town; forest fire, and the alarm sound
ed-thls although no sign of fire showed any
where. In short, he refused to grant that the
incident was anything but fortuitous until
months later, he. found its real explanation,
too late to be useful.
He set resolutely about his business which
was to urn up, somehow, some way proof
of the truth of Maggie Donaldson's dying
statement. To begin with, then, he accepted
that statement, to find where it would lead
him. and it led him, eventually to the broken
down stove under the fallen roof of the
Iean-to.
He deliberately set himself to work at first,