The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-01-22

then? Resign from the police. of
course, n bear the burden of the
shame for the rest Of his days, read
ing it in Joyce's eyes, their children
reading it in their parents eyes.
No, even that was not possible.
There was no escape for him.
And he thanked God that he did not
have To weigh those possibilities,
though he would never have yielded.
For stronger even thaE conscience
was the thought Of the force he was
so proud to serve.
Those dauntless guardians of the
law had endured the ley blasts of the
treeless tundras, they had looked un-
%1inchingly into the face of death,
death by violence, by cold, by hunger,
and on the battlefield it was all part
CT the game whether n faced a moral
enemy or a physical one. Even in
thought there could be no tempering
with dishonor.
And it was only for a moment that
Lee weighed these possibilities as he
strobe through the storm. Then he
squared his shoulders resolutely and
threw off the burden. He would take
Joyce to the Moravian mission as he
had planned, there HAND her over to
the priest, and-leave her to go to his
task, the apprehension of her father.
The storm was growing fiercer.
Lee, awakening to the realization of
e~xternals as the icy flakes whipped his
face, discovered that he had left the
clearing far behind him he could no
longer discern the cabin in the dis
lance through the whirling snow. He
had been travelling across the ridges
of the broken ground, apparently
making unconsciously for the shelter
of the friendly forest behind it, with
the instinct of a wounded beast to
take cover.
Well, he must go back, and they two
must face that night together, and the
next day. There was no help for it.
AS he strobe on, suddenly instinct
pulled him up sharply. He had been
trampling through a mass of withered
underground and bramble; and now.
directly in front of him. he perceived a
great gorge, so concealed in this
growth that he had all but stepped
over the edge.
He advanced cautiously and peered
down into it. 1t was an extraordinary
formation. He had seen such before,
in that and other regions, where the
limestone, pushed up through molten
by volcanic action at some pre-
historic time, AMI then abraded by rain
Or torrent, left strange hollows and
But he had never seen one on such
a scale as this.
He was looking into a natural his
sure in the ground, a long, irregular,
winding chasm, extending indefinitely
into the distance, but so narrow as to
be merely a lip or crack in the rugged
surface of the ground.
1t had not been worn by rains or
water; it vas too deep for that. Prob
ably the limestone, thrust up originally
the earth's inner core, had been
down again in some final con-
%vulsion, while the granite was still
half molten, leaving the granite shell
about the chasm.
And in spite Of it's depth the chasm
was so narrow that it almost looked
as if a man could have leaped across
t.
This was undoubtedly incorrect, the
distance between cliff and cliff being
)nly apparently reduced by the dense
lnderbrush hat fringed the %orifice;
out the distance between the walls,
which inclined inward toward the sum
nit was less than half that of the base.
1t was just such a chasm as a man
step into in a storm, to certain
leath.
On the floor Of this gorge Lee could
)rimly erect, seeming to be hardly
than tree seedlings in a horti-
ultural nursery.
The assure extended diagonally Of
he cabin. Lee began to retrace his
teps, following it along it's edge, until
iG CdlAG " a pace WAClS II tSAAht
lated suddenly in a pile of great rocks
f granite outcrop.
Two of these rocks stood up, n on
ach side of the end of the chasm,
ike monoliths, although it was clear
hat they had not been fashioned by
hands. Between them was a
bird, like a monolith that had been
.ung down.
Resting on this was an enormous
ock and Lee, who had been walking
nto the face of the wind, stopped and
eaned against this stone for a few
loments, in order to catch his breath.
To his establishment the massive
seemed about to topple back
ard under his weight. He felt him
elf slipping. He turned round,
at the stone, and saw it heav-
lg under his gaze like a ship at sea.
And then he realized what had hap