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

STOTH MIlllCA OA Ah0 Colh anu Q0cls
lie led her again toward the
charred bones; he found no resistance
in her.
"Look there, Brena. Do you see the
footprints? Here are yours and mine.
But look again on the sand There are
others, too. A thin veil of dust is over
them. They move here and there
they criss-cross and move away. They
are the footprints of Compton Parma
lee. He has come to stand gazing
down at the white skeleton-white as
oyster Shells"
"Blackened," she said.
oval !" Peter said. "There are the
spots where he stood looking down.
He had his answer; no living Jim Hen
nepin of Virginia would ever fill him
with lead. And as he stood, Brena,
perhaps gazing down for a long, long
time-because his footsteps are lost
in that stew of impressions-he was
filed with all the concentrated terror
that l suppose only a murderer can
know. He went into a crazy wild
panic of fear. These bones were his
the %grinning skull. They must be
hidden"
"How 90 you know all this?'
Because he has moved toward this
old well. He reached the stone well
curb. He sprang up. Do you see
the marks? He found the mouth
choked with massive blocks. Nothing
could be hidden there! His track
moved back"
$50 on said Brena.
"Now he goes running out along the
walls searching for something. Look
Here! He ran out along the base
of the wall searching"
For what?"
"For bits of wood-for anything that
would burn-for fuel. He must have
a funeral pyre. He has been crazed
by fear again. But he finds nothing,
Brena. There is no wood here, no
paper, no grass. There's nothing but
sand and stone. Let him run about
till he drops. There is nc mercy for
him. Nothing that viii burn. Nothing
within a half a hundred miles. Like
Hennepin, he too screams and the
scream comes back from the cliff with
a terrible mockery."
'But he did find fuel, Peter" she
said. HE must have found some
thing
Eyes, he found something that would
do-not very well, as we can see. He
had hoped for better results than he
got. Come"
On the way toward the gate of h
fertilization walls Peter stopped and
kicked at a blackened spot on the
sand. He said laconically, Their fire.
Where they ate their last supper TO-
gether-the vanished men,"
The sun had dropped below the
mountains above the mesa; its
needed fire had settled down into a
hot layer Of dull, sullen heat. But
beyond the wall where their car stood
the open desert. bare, cruel, with he
heat waves running like endless herds
of sheep along the %quivering horizon,
was a relief from that strange spell
of the dried we'll, the ruins, the fine
ye~llow-gray dust, and the silence.
Brena filled her lungs as one does
has come from the interior of a
mortuary.
peter" she said.
Eyes, dear"
81 want to tell you, Peter, h a you
need not worry about me. | am all
right. 1t is necessary for me to know.
And I'm going~to know, Peter, with
out any weakening. We've come too
far for that"
He took her hand.
I'm not willing to let this make a
scar on me, Peter" she said. 1--WE
paid in full before this. So show me.
And then let's turn toward the earn
-ng of our ways"
"Our way he insisted, correcting
Ter. Not ways. The earning Of u
way, together"
She shook her head a little as if
some doubt had stirred within, but
hey were outside the wall now and
Peters eyes were upon that which he
lad seen before.
He dropped behind her and turned
Ter body 80 that she faced toward
he bend in the southern end of the
ratification wall.
'There," said he. you did not see
t as we drove in."
Standing on the desert, like q ragged
lnkempt improperly, was the ruin of
touring car. All that was left of its
was hanging in wispy strips on
metal frame, its paint and varnish
Iad almost gone, the tires had
Iardened and crumbled On the wheels,
hreds of dry rotted leather dangled
rom the cushions. Motionless, dead,
ilent as all else, the car, as if it
7ere a shabby outcast thrown out to
lie, appeared d~isconsolate, ready to
end forth a wall of loneliness into
he emptiness. 1t had turned its back
pom Pueblo Mescalero, as if it had
,anted to go away but could net.
HE came in that, Peter?' Brena