Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-04-07

VIZ HEN he wakened it was twilight, and
w the horse had disappeared. His
face burned from sun, and his head
ached violently He was weak, too, from
hunger, and the mornings, dizziness per
sisted. Connected thought was impossible,
beyond the fact that if he did not get out
soon. he would be too weak to travel. EX-
hausted and on the verge of sunstroke he
set out on foot to find the trail.
He Travelled all night, and the dawn found
him still moving, a mere automaton of a
man, haggard and stumbling, no longer
milling his progress, but somehow incred-
IDLY advancing. He felt no surprise and no
relief when he saw a cabin in a clearing
and a woman in the doorway, watching him
with curious eyes. He pulled himself to-
gether. and made final effort but without
much interest in the result.
Il wonder if you could give me some
food?" he said 81 have lost my horse and
I've been wandering all night"
"I guess L cam she replied, not unamia-
bly,. "You look as though you need it, and
a wash, too. There's basin and pail of
water on that bench"
But when she came out later to call him
to breakfast, she found him sitting the
bench. and the pail overturned on the
ground.
"I'm sorry he said, duly, 81 tried to
lift it, but I'm about all in"
You'd better come in. I've made some
coffee"
He could not rise. He could not even
raise his hand.
She called her husband from where he
was chopping wood, off in the trees, and
together they got him into the house. 1t
was days before he so much as spoke again.
So it happened that the search went on.
Wilkins from the east of the range and
Bassett from the west; went on at first
with furious energy, then systematically,
then not at all, while Dick lay in the bed
made of young trees in mountain cabin,
and for the second time in his life watched
a woman moving in a lean-to kitchen, and
was fed by a woman's hand
He forced himself to think Of this small
panorama Of life that moved before him,
rather than of himself. The woman was
young and pretty in slovenly way. The
man was much Older, and silent. He was
of better class than the woman, and un-
DERIVING his assumption of crudity there
were occasional outcroppings Of some Gull
tured Background. Not then, nor at any
subsequent time, did he learn the story, if
story there was. He began to see them,
however, not so much pioneers as refu-
gees. The cabin was, he thought, a haven
to the man and prison to the woman
But they were uniformly kind to him,
and for weeks he stayed there, slowly re-
adjusting. In his early convalescence he
cooking pot for her AS he gained in
strength he cut a little firewood. Always
he sought Something to keep him from
thinking.
Two incidents always stood out after
wards in his memory of the cabin. One
was the first time he saw himself in a mir
ror. He knew by that time that Bassett' S
story had been true and that he was ten
years older than he remembered himself
to be. He thought he was in a measure
prepared. But he saw in the glass man
whose face was lined and whose hair was
streaked with gray. The fact that his beard
had grown added to the terrible maturity of
the reflection he saw, and sent the mirror
gathering to the ground.
The other incident was later, and when
he was fairly strong again. The man was
caught under a tree he was Telling, and
badly hurt. During the hour or so that
followed, getting the tree cut away, and
moving the injured man to the cabin on
wood sledge Dick had the feeling of
helplessness of any layman in an accident.
He was solicitous, but clumsy. But when
they had got the patient into his bed quite