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

again., his lips were blue. anG clammy
sweat stood heavy on his craggy brow.
Still clutching his side, he opened
the locket, with it's secret. trying not
to see the beautiful face, lest it turn
him from his purpose; took out both
pictures; struck a match, set them
alight and watched them burn to
ashes.
AS he sat staring, gradually he
seemed to grow aware of the envelope
lying in his lap. He picked it up and
gazed at 1t absently, as if his mind
still dwelt with the dead ashes Of the
past-the past with its %disappoint-
ments, its misunderstanding, it's
tragedy.
In a bold hand that wavered slight
Enthusiastically the hand of an old
mantle big envelope was addressed,
curiously enough, to Jack Warhope,
with the legend-"Not to be opened
until his twenty-frst birthday"
After a moment the old man fun
bled some ~legal-looking papers out of
the envelope; read them through with
great care; replaced them sealed the
envelope and put it in his pocket. Then
he walked to the safe; dropped the
empty locket behind some papers at
the very back of it; closed the door;
locked it and strayed aimlessly out to
the porch again.
The shadows of the fine old trees in
the yard were creeping well eastward.
The preacher, still a truant from his
studies, was with Texie at the spring.
Just over the brink of the decline
where the yard dipped to the park
like orchard, he could see them-the
girl on the rustic seat, the tall form
of the young minister lounging against
a fork of the huge maple.
The drone of their voices carried I'D
to the lonesome old man, at q loss how
to spend the hours of his enforced
idleness, and the splintered ruins of
what had once beer a smile for a mo-
ment chased the WEAKNESS from his
craggy old battlement of a face. He
dragged a chair to a sunny spot of
the porch and sat down.
The girl, hearing the scrape of the
chair, sprang up.
"Fatheri" she cried. Hes up"
Springing over the gnarled, exposed
roots of the great maple, she hurried
up the yard, half laughing back over
her shoulder at the preachers mine
ing steps as he followed.
She flew to the porch, and in a mo-
ment her arms were around the weary
gray figure in the chair.
"F'rgive me, father-I didn't know
y'u was up r I'd "a come sooner
Jaw, that's all right he drawled.
Cant expect young folks t. waste
Their time on old ones"
mo, no! Not waste" She smoothed
his hair. I'm so sorry 1 f'rgot-your
good day at home, too"
The old man patted her face and re-
assured her, in a voice that the people
who borrowed his money had never
heard.
"W'y, child, 1 got up only a little
bit ago, an thought I'd jist set out on
some in the house."
"And do y'u feel better after y'ur
nap?" the girl asked, glowingly happy
at his Observation-Disclosures that
had been all too rare.
Oceans" was his answer, with a
grimace at the idea of the nap-a
grimace that he suppressed Just in
time to keep her from seeing. "Good
as new. / ben wonderin' why y'u
never tuck Mr.. Hopkins hossback
ridin'. Y'u amt even showed i'm y'ur
new saddle boss, have y'u?"
Brownie? Err a wonder, | hain't.
But this is the first time he's ever
ben here, except at highland he's
travelled s. much and knows s. much
that I didn't low he'd care about
bosses. We've jist ben talking about
Ken
The old banker bent his head and
fumbled with a loosened screw of the
chair-arm. The girl gazed out across
the wide bottoms to the river. The
preacher took out his handkerchief
nervously brushed away a speck OF
dust from his coat sleeve; put it back,
Brownie" the girl repeated after a
time, her yes turning back from the
river to the piously pensive face OF
the preacher, would y'u care t. see
'er?"
"Lt would give me the greatest pleas
ure," was his answer, in the studied
and faultless though somewhat stilted
diction of the period.
y could talk y'u t death about 'er."
Il should die happy" he answered.
The girl was so artless and un-
spoiled that the 1attery, trite as it s
was, half pleased her. The native
~cneerfulness, subdued for a moment I
by thoughts of her hapless brother, r
again in her eyes. She {
threw her arm about her father, !
dragged him up out of the chair and l
led the way to the barn. 7
Brownie, a beautiful dark sorrel, t
with a single small patch Of white in ]
her forehead, hearing the girls voice, 6
trOtting I'D out of the pasture i