The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-06-11
"Whatf~

New Orleans, Fort Worth, and q place
called Kremlin Wells, Texas. He wa:
to be there Excuse me-"
The chief clerk picked up from The
desk the bronze-framed calendar ant
moved his pencil on it. He said, "Ht
was to be there on the oath, but gave
no address there. The twenty-fourtf
is four days from now"
"Kremlin Wells, Texas? l never
heard OF such a place." said Penning.
: ton scowling after the manner Of one
who dislikes any fact not within the
swing of his own radius.
Nor had I. l looked it up. Not In
the geography. But it's In the railroad
guide-a way station, probably with a
water tank, on the Texas Central and
New Mexico-On the desert near the
border between the two states, Mr..
Pennington. That was all that he
said. He left some papers to put In
our safe and asked me to open them
and attend to them If he was not back
In three weeks"
THANK YOU" said Pennington.
"Tha's all, Fred"
"Wait!'
Brena had spoken in a low tone, but
her voice.
The chief clerk stopped as If her
word had been a bullet in his lungs.
"Will you help me?" she said to Pc
ter's lawyer. 81 assure you that he
would wish It,"
look at a new model of some automo-
bile at last he nodded.
II want to know the first train leav-
ing New York for st. Louis and Tex
as" she said. II want some one to
go for a ticket and reservations to
Kremlin Wells or the nearest point.
1 want a taxicab. l want you to do
everything in your power to get me to
Kremlin Wells before the twenty
fourth. 1t must be done /"
Pennington stared at her.
VERY unusual" he muttered. But
l said we'd do it, Miss Selcoss."
Partly because of the assistance of
his office force, Brena was on her way
to st. Louis, without ever hand bag
gage, but within an hour; partly be-
cause of 1t she was on a train that
rolled into Dallas through the railroad
yards with the shabby wooden settle
ments, seen again from her berth
through the slit of window beneath
the curtain as she raised her weight
on one elbow. 1t had not changed com
pletely since she had seen it on her
return after Jim Hennepin had disap-
peared. This morning began the 23d
of the month she had the sense of
racing to Kremlin Wells in a contest
with death.
At the final junction point of her
long journey, tired, nerve-wracked by
u%nremitting heat of night and day and
by the strain of suspense, she found it
to wait under a train shed,
where In the waiting-room OF on the
platform the midday humidity Gre
ated a smothering steam filed with the
gases belched from locomotive stacks
and the ear-smashing explosions from
engine exhausts and the impact of car
couplers. The train for the West vas
three hours late. She could not leave
the station she walked back and forth,
her weary eyes held open wide by will,
her jaw firm. And logging every step
she took was the fear that she would
be too late, that when daylight came
on the twenty-fourth she would not yet
be at her destination.
The conductor on the w%estbound
mail was not of the same mind. Beau
tiful young women travelling alone do
not alight every day in "holes in the
DESERT as he called the Wells; he con-
.idered it less desirable to set her
down some time in the dark hour be-
tween three and four. He said the
place consisted of a siding, a water
tank, a general store, five houses, two
where roulette wheels were
going during the sheep herders' season,
an adobe ruin and a hotel with three
looms above a bar.
81 am sure it will be all right" said
3rena. But wen If it were not |
would nave TO leave tHlS lTdlu lueIe.
At about three the porter woke her.
There were ten minutes Of dressing,
then she heard the whine of the
,rakes, and with muddy, sleep-thick-
med senses, with the ache of stiff
and muscles and nerves after
heat, the inadequate sleep and the
train, she felt out from the lower step
With one foot into the bottomless
Iepths of blackness for the boards of
he platform. :
When the soft night breeze that r
lowed in a steady stream from the
outhwest had blown the daze away
s if it were a dust that had settled on
er. the train had been swallowed in
he dark.
She could hear the splash Of water
eaking from the bottom of the rail-
pad tank and occasionally the heat
ghtning on the horizon covered the
esert toward the south with the white