The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1923-12-27
SYNOPSIS

SYNOPSIS
CHAPTER Lon the banks of tho
Wabash stand Texie Colin and Jack
Warhope, young and very much in owe.
Texie is the only daughter of old Pap
Simon, rich man and money-lender
Jack is the orphan bound boy of Pap
Simon, who had f~oreclosed a mortgage
on the Warhope estate. At first Texie
and Jack talk sadly of Ken Colin, the
that in ten days his servitude will be
over, that he will go to California for
gold and that he will come back. Then
Ihe hilford stage comes in, bringing
Rev: Caleb Hopkins, the new minister
OF Buckeye, in the Flatwoods.
CHAPTER II.-Simon Colin welcomes
the minister and introduces the viii
layers. The preacher is a young man
with a beard. enormous spectacles. stir
neck stock and patent leather boots.
CHAPTER III.-At supper at the
Colin home the preacher, who had been
Ken's roommate at college, tells how
the boy killed q gambler and disaP-
fall from grace to HIS red lock Of hair.
an inheritance from Red Colin" a
pirate in the days OF Elizabeth. Then
bbrad1ugsst m ON BY SaI rea e s0r a l ct s'f rom
Ken, somewhere in New York" who
curses his father on his death bed. A
postscript by another hand says he
Is dead.
CHAPTER Iv.-At the village store
says he saw the new parson with his
arm around Texie. Jack slaps him,
ticks him, shoots a pistol from his hand
and makes him say he was mistaken.
CHAPTER v.-The parson goes SEM
ing on the river with Jack n others.
Jack discovers the parson carries a re-
den h~ouseboat. Jack discovers that the
parsons boot fits a footprint on the
dusty deck.
CHAPTER Wall the villagers
gather at a festival in the schoolhouse.
A drunken stranger disturbs the fes-
Invites. He attacks Jack with a knife.
Jack knocks him nat, but receives an
unimportant wound in the shoulder.
The preacher faces the desperate and
points to the door. The %ruffian. cowed.
goes out and disappears.
CHAPTER VII.-Jack, working in a
field, sees the desperate of the festival
watching him from behind a log. He
trails the man to the cabin where Bel
den and his sister live.
CHAPTER vIII.-Jack tells Pap ST.
mon. who has been good to him, that
he's going to California to inc gold to
buy back the old homestead. He tells
Texie of his owe for her-in all but
words.
CHAPTER Lx-Al Counterman and
Uncle Nick Whites. friends OF Jack,
agree that the festival desperate is
Black Bogus, a counterfeiter n bad
wanted by the sheriff, that he is
harborin' with Loge Belden and that
they are mir to rob Pap Simon.
CHAPTER x.-Jack trails a night
growler' who goes to Whispering
owl hO0T and hands him a small mack |
age.
A faint suspicion of bitterness, of
inconsistencies for scenes long gone
for the stimulating uncertainties of
the perilous trail-quavered in the
old mans tones. He stopped, plucked
off a tender shoot from a sassafras
sprout and stood chewing it medita-
How come y'u left y'ur trail g
open this m%orning?" asked Jack. 81
it up where y'u jumped the
The question seemed to recall the
mans straying thoughts.
"Yes. an va ort' "a picked it up
bTore. Y'u crossed It twice't
o'fore ever y'u come down the bluffs
about a hundred yards west O.
he pheasant's nest, an ag'in a leetle
10th of whar y'u stood lookin' down
It Hen Spencer's OF cabin. Y'u didn't
hardly act like y'urse'f this mornin'-
IA acted kinda keerless an fur away,
ike-so 1 left the trail open a leetle
har at the road an at the crick."
The young man turned away and
gazing out across the %brush-tan-
yled hollow.
"And me thinkin' t. take by surprise
he famous ranger that found the
rail of the great Tecumseh, when it
vas hid from the best of the runners"
lie said warmly-"and you was jist
with me-"
At reference to the far-famed
achievement of his younger days, the
shoulders of the old hunter seemed to
row a little more erect, while his
lark eyes glowed with a faint sugges-
ion Of the fire that in his prime had
made them the hardest pair Of eyes
N the border to pass unseen.
well, not jist playin', nuther." He
hard on the ~sassafras sprout a
moment. you must a. purt nigh
un into that gal a lettle bit agO?"
A statement with the force of a
questionable young man started, but
lid the movement by fumbling with
lis sore shoulder. The terrified face
If the mountain girl freshened in his
mind, with the dread of discovery In
Ter startled eyes. He hitched the
blouse loose from his shoulder and
out across the hollow without
Meeting his old friends look.
What gal?"
The old man jerked a hand toward
he opposite bluff.
Jaw, / jist glimpsed n a-peakin'
long through the brush yonder an
owed mebbe y'u might "a run acrosst
He stood chewing the s~assafras
boot and looking away down the hol-
wv in the direction of Black rock.