The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-01-08
Picked Up the Girl. He Placed Her
in the Boat, Ran Back and Found It
and Threw 1t Inside, Together With
the Pack From His Shoulders.

the Pack From HIS shoulders.
reach that nearing, welcome shore. He
felt the wet blood trickling down him.
His breath was coming in short gasps.
He bent to the oars with all his reso-
luton set Upon the completion of that
journey. At last the shore seemed to
reach out to him, the forests parted,
the distant shouts died away. He ran
the boat aground.
Lees brain seemed preternaturally
acute. In that moment he did not for
get the pack, but, snatching it from
the boat, leaped ashore, and, running
some fifty yards, placed 1t carefully in
the brush at the base Of a tall pine.
He ran back, picked up the girl, and,
carrying her in his arms, began to
make his way into the thick of the
forest.
And all the while he ran, he vas
weighing everything. The Free Trad
ers would not know that he was
wounded, they would certainly aban-
don the pursuit as hopeless he must
carry the girl a mile into the forest,
where the light of their fire would not
betray them, returning for the pack in
the morning. He suffered no pain,
and seemed momentarily endowed
with some extraordinary vitality, but
there was a numbness In his side
which seemed to be spreading upward.
He had no idea how serious the
wound was; everything that was him
self was set Upon the completion Of
the last phase of his task, so that, If
he died, the girl should at least come
back to consciousness in the forest
and not in Railways hands.
He struggled on, felt himself weak
ening, felt himself choking, and set
down the girl in order to draw breath.
But as he raised her again, he felt
a sudden stab of agonizing pain, and
something grated beneath his heart.
He realized then that the rifle bullet
had split one of his ribs, probably
glancing off again, and that the bone
had given way under the strain of the
girls weight.
In a way this treasured him, for a
glancing wound of that kind was not
likely to be a serious one. On the
other hand, the agony was growing
uncomfortable. Every step was now
torture. Three or four times, when it
seemed impossible to proceed, Lee was
forced to set the girl down and, lean
oo,inc+ n froo IN oacD for hrnath /
Eternities seemed to be passing. All
his left side was now a flaming hell of
pain, which radiated from the wound
throughout his body, and this was be-
an automaton, driven by the
will. He was no longer conscious of
muscular control over it. A hundred
times he felt that the next step must
be his last. And yet some monitor IN
the back of his consciousness kept in
sisting that he must complete the mile
he had set himself, and would not let
him drop in his tracks.
And as he staggered on, he was sur
orised to hear himself talking to him.
self. and he listened with mild inter
est, as if he we're o~verhearing the re-
marks of a third person.
He heard himself solemnly address
ng Estelle, thanking her for having
relieved him of the last vestige Of the
owe that he hard one felt toward her.
He had thought he loved her once,
and that love, although ~unworthily
bestowed. had not been wholly folly.
gstelle had had many good qualities
heart; she was reckless and pas
,ionate, but there was nothing petty or
about her. She was the daugh-
ter of a well-to-do lumberman, and SHE
lad been well educated; but there was
some faint in her blood, some atayistic
,endency that drove her upon wild and
courses.
For a while she had been on the
and had earned some reputa
ion as a clever mimic.
For a long time Lee had known
of the stories that were being
circulated by all the gossips of the
own, nor that her name was asso
with that Of a man named Kean,
whom he had neve met. kean was
me of a gang selling liquor to the
Indians, and he had a wife in Chicago
Lee learned, about a month before
he date set for their marriage, that
he was the commiseration and the
aughtng stock of the little community.
When, burning with anger, he went
70 confront Estelle, it was to find that
she had been warned of his discovery,
and had fed from the place-to Kean,
he gosSips said.
Lee never made any inquiries. AS
as possible he secured a trans
FER to another post; then he was sem
to France, and his life had no room
Tor feminine interests.
About ten months previously, how
ever, while in the trenches, he had
had a letter from Mrs. Kean, enclos-
ing a copy of a marriage certificate.
She was thinking Of a divorce, and
wanted to know whether he could give