The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-06-25

She
yes" said Peter. THAT was VIII,
Parmalee destroyed the map. He hat
probably ridden back to some other
settlement after shooting Hennepin's
horse in some gully and he wanted tc
vine out all evidence. For months he
resisted the temptation-that burned
and scorched inside-to see YOU
ITO find out whether | had beer
told anything about Hennepin's desti
nation? And then when he wasn't
sure-when there was that scrap OF
paper not accounted for Peter, II
is too horrible; he proposed that
strange marriage agreement In order
to 90 away and take me with him. He
was afraid / might remember some
word-give some clew."
mo" replied Peter. ut was that of
course. But that was not all. The
spark of real man that you saw in him
was there, Brena. Terror put it out at
last. but the real tragedy Of Parmalee
was that he had that redeeming spark
He waited for her to look up again
she had been staring down at the vel
low-gray dust.
81 suppose you can see," he went on,
81 suppose you can see now what WAS
In his mind. Two pictures. One was
the picture of Jim Hennepin alive
that great muscular athlete who drank
hard, who had the false traditions of
the South, the love of death oathS, the
degenerate temper, the sly smiling
ways of carrying a vengeance through.
He saw him escaping from the desert,
Brena-heaven knows how-but es-
Gaping by some desperate effort, some
chance, some miracle, some way that
Parmalee's brain could not conceive,
but yet couldn't be put out Of range of
possibility. He saw Hennepin seeking
him. Yes, he saw it-a picture-a
with his malicious, desperate, haunt
ing eyes and his terrible muscles. He
saw him smelling along the trail for
his quarry. He saw him walking
about a quiet picture gallery, and,
suddenly seeing your portrait and
1tdAlLlAAS lboI L q lOhCh 0Ooy
turn red with renewed wrath which
would send him out for a knife
"At last that imaginary Hennepin
became almost a reality" said Brena.
HE shot at him once-at a reflection
in a piece of glass. He kept Paul be-
cause Paul was q brute who would
fight. He was afraid Hennepin would
send some assassin to get employment
as a servant. He never knew when
Hennepin might cOme-and KILL
But he saw the other picture too.
He saw the buzzards lowering over
what was left of H%ennepin, he saw a
whitened skeleton grinning up at the
sunlit sky and at the stars, Brena.
That's what he saw. And some day
some n would somehow come there.
Perhaps some one had been there al
ready. Perhaps at the very minute
a prospector, dirty and unshaved, or
some accursed archaeological explorer
from a university was in that very
town where they had bought the
horses and was telling of the skeleton
and of finding the skeleton of the
riderless horse with the bit still held
between the white teeth. He might
have that bit in his pocket. Some one
recognizes it. Somehow the chain
once started never ends until"
"There comes a hand upon the
shoulder" said Brena, as If In a dream,
"and a voice saying, we have looked
q long time for YOU"
Eyes. There wasn't one fear,"
Peter said, marking two lines in the
sand with his forefnger. "There were
two fears. They fought each other
and their battle-ground was P~armalee's
soul. 1t was trampled into a wallow
of terror, of questioning, of doubt.
Do you know, Brena, that somehow
there creeps into me q great pity for
eff he had been able to put his
finger upon some button that would
have blown him to bits he would have
taken that way she said. But he
had an exaggerated instinct for self
preservation. 1t threw him back from
any approach to suicide"
Peter, getting up, came to her and
put his hand upon her shoulder as
If to give her strength. She had
spoken with a voice too evenly meas
lred to deceive him as to the strain
she felt. 1t had been a long pull for
her, he thought. The last steps,
though they might lead out into the
sunlight Of freedom, were upon rough
ground-rough even for a man. He
vas wondering how he could ave her
rom pain. He wanted to have this
surgery over, and to have it oven
was only n way.
ut was inevitable that he would ]
,ome herein the end" he said. He
to see. He had covered his ter
ors by a cowardly process of trying
O make you believe that some mys-
cry that chung to you was the cause ]
4 them. He began to fear disclosure.
Ia faorad that he WOuld allow Won /