Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 105, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1912 — Page 2

SYNOPSIS. Enid Maitland, a frank, free and unspoiled young Philadelphia girl, is taken to the Colorado mountains toy her uncle, Robert Maitland. James Armstrong. Maitland’s protege, falls in love with her. His persistent wooing thrills the girl, but she hesitates, and Armstrong goes east on business without a definite answer. Enid hears the story of a mining engineer, Newbold. whose Wife fell pit a cliff and Was so seriously hurt that he was compelled to shoot her to prevent her being eaten by wolves while he went for help. Klrkby, the old guide who tells the •tory. gives Enid a package of letters which he says were found on the dead Woman’s body. She reads the lettersana mtKlrkby’s request keeps them. WWle bathing in mountain* stream Bnid is attacked by a bear, which Is mysteriously •hot. A storm adds to the girl’s terror. A sudden deluge transform brook Into raging torrent, which sweeps Enid Into gorge, where she Is rescued by a mountain hermit after a thrilling experience. CHAPTER VI (Continued). He caught with his forearm, as the torrent swerved him around, a stout young pine so deeply rooted as yet to have withstood the, flood. Summoning the last reserve of strength that is bestowed upon us in our hour of need, and comee unless from God we know Sot whence, he drew hiihself in front of the pine, got his back against it and although the water thundered against him still —only by comparison could it be called quieter—and his foothold was most precarious, he reached down carefully and grasped the woman under the shoulders. His position was a cramped one, but by the power of his arms alone he lifted her up until he got his left arm about her waist again. It was a mighty feat of strength indeed. The pine stood to the midst of the water, for even on the farther side the earth was overflowed, but the water was stiller. He did not know what might be there, but he had to chance it. Lifting her up he stepped out, fortunately meeting firm ground. A above the flood. He raised her.above bis head and laid her upon the shore, then with the very last atom of all his force, physical, mental and spiritual, be drew himself up and fell panting and utterly exhausted but triumphant by her side.

The cloudburst was over, but the rate still beat down upon them, the thunder still roared above them, the lightning still flashed about them, but they were safe, alive, If the woman had not died in his arms. He had done It thing superhuman. No man knowing conditions would have believed it. •He himself would have declared a thousand times its patent Impossibility. For a few seconds he strove to recover himself, then he thought of the flask he always carried in his pocket. It was gone. His clothes were ragged end torn; they had been ruined by his battle with the waves. The girl lay where he had placed her on her back. In the pocket of her hunting shirt he noticed a little protuberance. The pocket was provided with a flap and tightly buttoned. Without hesitation he unbuttoned it There was a flask there, a little silver mounted affair; by some miracle it had not been broken. It was half full. With nervous hands be opened it and poured some of it down her throat; then he bent over her, his soul in his glance, scarcely knowing what to do next Presently she opened her eyes. And there, in the rain, by that raging torrent whence he had drawn her as it were from the jaws of death by the power of his arm, in the presence of the Ood above them, this man and this women looked at each other and life for both of them was no longer the same.

CHAPTER VII. A Wild Dash for the Hills. Ola Klrkby, who had been lazily mending a saddle the greater part of the morning, had eaten his dinner, smoked his pipe and was now stretched out on the grass in the warm sun taking a nap. Mrs. Maitland was drowsing over a book In the shadow of one of the big pines, when Pete, the horse wrangler, who had been wandering rather far down the canon rounding up the ever straying stock, suddenly came bursting into the camp. “Great God Almighty!”- he cried, actually kicking the prostrate frontiersman as he almost stumbled over glrim: "Wake up, old man, an’ ” “What the —” began Klrkby fiercely. thus rudely aroused from slumber and resentful of the daring and most unusual affront to his dignity and station since all men, and especially the younger ones, held him In great hon- " Look here ” yelled Peter in growing excitement and entirely oblivious to bis lese-majestle, pointing at a black cloud rolling over the top of the , range “It'll tie a cloudburst sure. We’ll have to git out o’ here an’ in a burry too. Oh, Mrs. Maitland.” By this time Klrkby was on his feet, the storm had stolen upon him gleeping and unaware. The configuration of the canon had completely hid

its approach. At best the three in the camp could not have discovered it until it was high in the heavens. Now the clduds were already approaching the noonday sun. Klrkby was alive to the situation at onee. He had the rare ability of men of action of awakeniiig with all his faculties at instant command. He did not have to rub his eyes and "Wonder where he was, and speculate as to what was to b>> done. The moment that 'his eyes, following Pete’s outstretched arm, discovered the -black mass of clouds be rair toward Mrs. Maitland and standing on no ceremony he shoo-: her vigorously by the shoulder. ‘‘Well have to run for our lives, ma’am,” he said briefly. “Pete, drive the stock up on the hills, fur as you kin, the hosses pertikler, they'll be more to us an’ them burros must take keer of themselves.”

Pete needed no urging. He was off like a Bhot in the direction of the improvised corral. He loosed the horses from their pickets and started them up the steep trail that led down from the hogback to the camp by the water’s edge. He also tried to ctart the burros he had just rounded up in the same direction. Some of them would go and some of them would not. He had his handß full in an instant Meanwhile Kirkby did not linger by the side of Mrs. Maitland. With incredible agility for so old a man he ran over to the tent inhere the stores were kept and began picking out such articles of provision as he could easiest carry. "Come over here, Mrs. Maitland,” he cried. “We’ll have to carry up on the hill somethin’ to keep us from starvin’ till we get back to town. We hadn’t orter camped in this yere pocket noways, but who’d ever expected anything like this now?” “What' do you fear?" asked the woman, joining him as she spoke and waiting for his directions. “Looks to me like a cloudburst,” was the answer. “Creek’s pretty full now, an’ if she does break everything below yere ’ll go to hell on a run.” It was evidence of his perturbation and anxiety that he used such language, which, however, in the emergency did not seem unwarranted even to the refined ear of Mrs. Maitland. "Is it possible?” she exclaimed. “ ’Taint only possible, it’s sartin. Now, ma’am,” he hastily bundled up a lot of miscellaneous provisions in a small piece of canvass, tied it up and handed it to her. “That’ll be for you.”

Immediately after he made up a much larger bundle In another .tent fly, adding, "An* this is mine.” “Oh, let us hurry,” cried Mrs. Maitland, as a peal of thunder, low, muttered. menacing, burst forth from the flying clouds, now obscuring the sun, and rolled over the camp. “We’ve got time enough yit,” answered Klrkby, coolly calculating their chances. "Best git yer slicker on, you'll need it in a few minutes.’’ Mrs. Maitland ran to her own tent and soon came out with sou’wester and yellpw oilskins completely covering her. Klrkby meantime bad don-

ned his own old battered, soiled rain clothes and had grabbed up Pete’s. “I brought the children’s coats along,” said Mrs; Maitland, extending three others. -■ - “Good.” said Kirkby. “Now we’ll take our packs an’ “Do you think there is any danger to Robert?” “He’ll git nothin’ worse 'n ft wettin’," returned the old man confidently. “If we’d pitched tents up on the hog back, that’s all we’d a been in “I have to leave the tents and all the things," said Mrs. Maitland. “You can stay with them,” answered Klrkby, dryly, “but if what I think ’s goin’ to happen comes off, you won’t have no need of nothin’ no more — Great God, here she comes.” As he spoke there was a sudden, swift downpour of rain, not in drops, but in a torrent. Catching up his own pack and motioning the woman to do likewise with her load, Kirkby caught her by the hand, and half led, half dragged her up the steep trail from the brook to the ridge which bordered the side of the canon. The canon was much wider here than further up and there was much more room and much more space for the water to spread. Yet, they had to hurry for their lives as it was. They had gone up scarcely a hundred feet when the disgorgement of the heavens took place. The water fell with such force, directness and continuousness that 4t almost beat them down. It ran over the trail down the side of the mountain in sheets like water falls. It required all the old man’s skill and address to keep himself and cpmpanion from losing their footing and falling down into the seething tumult below.

The tents went down in an instant Where there had been a pleasant bit of meadow land was now a muddy, tossing lake of black water. Some of the horses and most of the burros which Pete had been unable to do anything with were engulfed in a moment. The two on the mountain side could see them swimming for dear life as they swept down the canon. Pete himself, with a few of the animals, was already scrambling up to safety. Speech was impossible between the noise of the falling rain and the incessant peals of thunder, but by persistent gesture, old Kirkby urged the terrified, trembling woman up the trail until they finally reached the top of the hog back, where under the poor shelter of the stunted pines they

Presently She Opened Her Eyes.

joined Pete with such of the horses as he had been able to drive up. Klrkby, taking a thought for the morrow, noted that there were four of them, enough to pull the wagon if they could get back to it. After the first awful deluge of the cloudburst it moderated slightly, but the bard rain came down steadily, the wind rose as well, and in spite of their oilskins they were soon wet and cold. It was Impossible to make a fire, there was no place for them to go, nothing to be done. They could only remain where they were and wait After a half hoiy of exposure

The Chalice of Courage

if Befn&tfce Jill! A CJ*Topr

By Cyrus Ta wnsend Brady.

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to the merciless fury of the storm, a thought came suddenly to Mrs. Maitland. She leaned over and caugh(. the frontiersmah TSy "hli wet sleeve. Seeing that she wished to speak to him, he bent his head toward her lips. “Enid,” she cried, pointing down the canon. She had not thought before of the position of the girl. Kirkby, who had not forgotten her, hut who had instantly realized that he could do nothing for her, shook his head, lifted his eyes and solemnly pointed his finger up to the gray skies. He had skid nothing to Mrs. Maitland before. What was the use of troubling her.

“God onjy kin help her,” he cried. “She’s beyond the help of man.” Ah, Indeed, old trapper, whence came the confident assurance of that dogmatic statement? For as it chanced, at that very moment the woman for whose peril your heart was wrung was being lifted out of the torrent by

"Great God!" He Cried. “Where Is Enid?"

a man’s hand! And, yet, who shall say that the old hunter was not right, and that the man himself, as men of old have been, was sent from God? "It can’t be," began Mrs. Maitland in great anguish for the girl she had grown to love. “Es she need the storm an’ realized what It was, an' had sense enough to climb up the canon wall,’’ answered the other, “she won’t be no worse ofFn we are; es not ” Mrs. Maitland had- only to look down Into the seething cauldron to understand the possibility of that “If." "Oh,” she cried, “let us pray for her that she sought the hills.” ‘Tve been a doin’ it,” said the old man gruffly. He had a deep vein of piety in him, but, like other rich ores, It had to be mined for In the depths before It was apparent By slow degrees the water subsided, and after a long while the rain ceased, a heavy mist lay on the mountains and the night approached without any further appearance of the veiled sun. Toward evening Robert Maitland, with the three men and the three children, joined the wretched trio above the camp. Maitland, wild with excitement and apprehension, had pressed on ahead of the rest It was a glad-faced man lndeed who ran the last tew steps of the rough way and clasped his wife in his arms, but as he did so he noticed that one was missing. - r ~ , “Great God." he cried, releasing his wife, “where Is Enid?” “She went down the canon early this mornln’ intendin’ to stay all day," slowly and reluctantly answered otd Klrkby. "an* He paused there. It wasn't necessary for him to say anything mere. Maitland walked .to the edge of the trail and looked down Into the valley. It had been swept clean of tbe camp Rocks had been rolled over upon tbe

meadow land, trunks of trees torn up by the roots had lodged against them, it was a scene of desolate and miserable confusion and disaster. “Oh, Robert, don’t you think she may be safe?” asked Mrs. Maitland.“There’s just a chance, I think,'that she may have suspicioned the storm an’ got out of the canon,” suggested the old frontiersman. “A slim chance,” answered Maitland gloomily. “God, I wouldn’t have had this happen for anything on earth.” “Nor me. ltd. a heap ruther it had got me than her,” said Kirkby simply. "I didn’t See it coming," continued Maitland, nodding as if Kirkby’s statement Were to be accepted aB a hiatter of course, as Indeed it was. “We wefe on the other slope of the mountain until It was almost overhead.” “Nuther did I. To tell the truth I

was lyin’ down nappln’ w’en Pete, yere, who’d been down the canon rounding up some of the critters, came bustin’ in on us.” “I ain’t saved but four bosses,” said Pete mournfully, “and there’s only one burro on the hog back.’’ “We came back as fast as we could," said Maitland. pushed on ahead, George, Bradshaw and Phillips are bringing Bob and the girls. We must search the canon." ‘lt can’t be done tonight, «old man,” said Klrkby. "I tell you we can’t wait, Jack!” “We’ve got to, I’m as willin’ to lay down my life for that young gal as anybody on earth, but in this yere mist an’ as black a night as it’s goin’ to be, we couldn’t go ten rod without killin’ ourselves an’ we couldn’t see nothin’ noways.” "But she may be In the canon.” "If she's in the canon ’twon’t make no difference to her w’ether we flndß her tomorrer or next day or next year. Bob," «3SU Maitland groaned in anguish. “I can’t stay here inactive." he persisted stubbornly. ‘lt’s a hard thing, but we got to wait till mornln'. Es she got out of the canon and climbed up on the hog back she’U be all right, she’ll soon ! find out she can’t makeno progress In this mist and darkness. No, old friend, we’re up agin It hard. We jest got to stay the night w’ere we are an' as long as we got to wait we might as weH make ourselves as comfortable as possible. For the wimmen an' children, anyway. I fetched up some ham and some canned goods and other eqtih’s in these ye# canvas sacks. We might kindle a fire — "It’s hardly possible.” skid Maitland. "We shall have to eat ft cold.” “Oh, Robert,” pleaded bis wife, “isn’t it possible that she may have escaped?” “Possible, yes, but - V •

“We won’t give up hope, ma’am," said Klrkby, “until tomorrer w’en we ’ve had a look at the canon.” By this time the others joined the party. Phillips and Bradshaw showed the stuff that was in them. They immediately volunteered to go down the canon at once, knowing little or nothing of its dangers and indifferent to what they did know, but as Kirkby had pointed out, the attempt was clearly impossible. Maitland bitterly reproached himself for having allowed the girl to go alone, and in those self-reproaches old Klrkby joined. They were too wet and cold to sleep. There was no shelter arid it was not until early in the morning they succeeded in kindling a fire. .Meanwhile the men talked the situation over very carefully. They wefe two days’ Journey from the wagons. It was necessary that the Women and children should be taken back at once. Kirkby hadn’t been able to save much more than enough to eat to get them back to a -ranch or settlement, and on very short rations at best It was finally decided that George and Pete and Mrs. Maitland, the two girls and the youngster, should go back to the wagon, drive to the nearest settlement, leave the women and then return on horseback with all speed to meet Maitland and Kirkby, who would meanwhile search the canon. The two men from the east had to go back with the others, although they pleaded gallantly to be allowed man to man and then Robert Maitland, standing in the midst of the group, bowfed his head In the sunny morning, for the sky again was clear, and poured out a brief prayer that God would prosper them, that they would find the child and that they would all be together again In health and happiness. And without another word, he and Kirkby plunged down to the side of the canon, the others tak* ing up their weary march homeward with sad hearts and in great dismay.

CHAPTER VIII. A Telegram and a Caller. “You say," asked Maitland, as they surveyed the canon, “that she went down the Btream?” “She .said she was goin’ down. I showed her how to cut across the mountains an’ avoid the big bend. I’ve got no reason to suspicion that she didn’t go w’ere she said.” “Nevertheless,’’ said Maitland, “it is barely possible that she may have changed her mind and gone up the canon.”

“Yep, the feemale mind does often change unexpected like,” returned the other,"but w’ether she went up,. or down, the only place for us to look, I take it, 1b down, for if she’s alive, if she got out of the canon and is above us, nacherly she’d follow it down yere an’ we’d a seed her by this time. If she didn’t git out of the canon, why, to remain with the two who were to take up the hunt for Enid. Maitland might have kept them with him, but that meant retaining a larger portion of the scanty supplies that had been saved and he was compelled against his will to refuse their requests. Leaving barely enough to subsist Maitland and Kirkby for three or four days, or until the return of the relief party, the groups separated at daybreak. "Oh, Robert,” pleaded his wife, as he kissed her good bye, “take care of . yourself, but find Enid." “Yes,” answered her husband, "I shall, never fear, but I nflMt find the dear girl or discover what has become of her." There was not time for further leave taking. A few handclasps from all that’s left of her is bound to be down stream.” Maitland nodded. He understood. "We’d better go fl&wn, then," continued Kirkby, whose reasoning was flawless except that he made no allowance for the human-divine interposition that had been Enid Maitland’s sklvation, “an’ if we don’t find no trace of her down Btream, we kin come back here an’ go ups". It was a hard, desperate journey the two men took. One of them followed the stream at its level, the other tramped along in the mountains high above the high water mark of the day before. If they bad needed any evidence of the power of that cloudburst and storm, they found tt in the canon. In some places where it was narrow and rocky the pass had been fairly scoured; at other places the whole aspect of it was the place was a welter of uprooted trees, logs jammed together in fantastic shapes; It was as~ff some wanton besom of destruction had swept the <narrow rftt (TO BE! CONTINUED.) Money Concealed in Pettlooat. Mrs. Herman Nicolay of Norwich heard a rustling In one of her pettipetticoat property of the