Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1886 — EFFIE’S STRANGE WARNING. [ARTICLE]

EFFIE’S STRANGE WARNING.

BY NATHAN D. URNER.

1 On a certain bright, deceitfully-warm March morning. Joe Morford and Achille Dufarge. professional “wolfers,” set out on' what was meant to be their last jadt-hunt of the season, from their homes in thl* quiet but thrifty little Idaho settlement of I lor•nce, bound for their distant wolfing di#-, trict near the headwaters of the Snake Biver, among the wild spurs of the Bitter Root Mountains. They had hardly got clear of the settlement when Joe’s sweetheart. Effie Sintram —a sweet and delicate girl, the belle of the settlement, and better known ns the Sutler’s Daughter—was seen on the last rise ©f ground, waving her ,hnndk< rchief with a peremptoriness that no lover could resist. “Wait for me, Achille,” said Joe. a frankfaced young trapper who wore his heart on his sleeve. “I ll have to run back, and see what she wants.” Achille nodded with assumed carelessness, and drew rein beside the pack-mule they owner! in common. as though wholly indifferent to his partner's softness in obeying the summons. But hardly had the latter quitted his side Itefore his black, piercing eyes followed him with a malevo-. lent glance, that at last rested on the reunited lovers with a burning and vengeful intensity that was not good to see. Achille was a French half-breed from the Saskatchewan wilderness- a swarthy and singularly handsome man of some yearsJoe Morford s s< nior—who had made himself very popular among the female element of the territory, though of doubtful antecedents and dangerous temper, “I didn't call you back merely for another kiss. Joe,” said Effie, none the less tiptoeing for one as Joe hurriedly put his powerful arm around her. “It was to tell you that I'll keep on having my sleep-waking dreams till vou come back; so that you'd better be on your good behavior while gone.” Joe’s brow grew troubled. “I wish you wouldn't. Effie!” said he, half-impatiently. “The doctor says you're high-strung enough as it is; and you know perfectly well that those trance-fits or sleep-wakings leave you exhausted and nervous.” He alluded to strange conditions of clairvoyance. or second-sigh;, to which the young girl had been subject in her cliildhood. and which, after years of hentthful discontinuance, had. to the no small disquiet of her father and friends, repossessed her wish increased and oft-times startling manifestations, so far as concerned their realistic vividness and subsequent confirmations, ever since her he art had passed out of her keeping into that of honest Joe Morford, five or six months before the opening of our story. Effie smiled a little sadly. “You talk as if 1 could altogether help it,” said she. “But you can resist the spells to a certain degree—so as to weaken both their intensity and their after effects. You -have told me no, darling. ” “I can, but shall not until after we are made one at the altar. , Joe. listen to me, I dare not!” and there was a wild earnestness in her voice aud manner. “When has my strange gift been at fault in following you out and away upon your perilous expeditions after the wolf-pelts? Never, and you know it. Joe, I, must still follow you thus as long as that evil-hearted man, Achille Dufarge, accompanies you. His offer was the first I had—long before you spoke your heart to me—and he has never forgiven, my rejection of it. He will harm me. if possible, through ?/ow. But I shall be watching over you, my darling. My mysterious inner and far-sight shall never miss you at the merest hint of peril. Nay, more; I feel that my gift shall attain new poW&, new expression; that in the event of dire misfortune, not alone my eyes, but my voice as well, shall reach you, and you shall hear me calling to you over the weary leagues of mountain, valley, eanon. and morass!" Oh, Joe, my beloved, my precious one! it is more with soul than with heart that I love you; and it is my soul that st es; ” Impressed against his will by the intensity of her words, he took" her in his arms and kissed her tenderly, even while

murmuring: . Wild words, my darling—wild, though •sweet! Ido not doubt a certain reality in your gift, bnt you are wrong about poor Achille—an ill-governed, passionate, but true-hearted man!” "You're astray—astray! But wait!” She drew him back a pace or two, and her eyes, directed toward the distant half-breed, assumed a strained fixety, while her Sweet features grew pale, abstracted and set. -rife is looking at us at this instant,” she continued, slowly, "and these muttered vAards are escaping his compressed lips—l repeat them syllable by syllable; 'Joe Morford, beware! a clever chance, a caprice of d«stiny against yo it. might mean that love and happiness formel’ There, that is all. Isn’t it enough?” She was her bright, natural self again; and a smile of incredulity came into her lover’s face. “Why, Effie, do be reasonable!” said he. •“Achille is fully five furlongs distant, and telephonic communication is' as vet denied you.” ‘ - She. laughed, too, and was solelv loverlike as she threw her arms about him for the final embrace. “If you don’t give over doubting me, I shall some day love you to death!” she ■cried. “Good-bye, Joe, Joe. dear . Joe! And forget nothing I have said—remember every word!” There Was a shower of kisses, and she only gave way to her sobs when her lover was well Out of hearing. Joe said not a word, and neither did his associate wolf er, for many minutes after continuing their way together. At last the former said: “Achille, did you speak any words aloud when observing Effie and me, just the minute before our parting kiss back yonder?” “Yes—no! Once, perhaps, but of course not. There was no one with me. What do you mean?” Achille had been startled, and was even yet confused. “You know Effie's strange sleep-waking power, and all that,” Joe went on. “Well, at the moment I refer to, she treated words that she professed to catch, syllable by syllable, from your lips, in Spite of the separating distance. ” . Achille burst into a nervous laagh. “Mon Dieu! lam frightened/* said- he,

in mock alarm. “Hell me, Joe; what did aha echo me as saying?” >“These words, muttered through your compressed tips; ‘Joe. Morford, beware.' a clever chance, a caprice of destiny against you, might yuan that girt's love and happiness for wir.’" Achille looked more startled than at first, but his laugh was even louder and more scoffing. “Le diable! I give in, I'm crushed.” he continued, bnnteringly. “Sorceress fro Tess than seeress, what can avail against your wonderful Effie Sintram, the sutler’s I daughter?” I “No. no; but. joking apart, Achille, pray tell me, honestly, if such words really did or didnot escape you?” - Achille was also, apparently, in earnest now, and he held ont his hand engagingly. “They did not, pard, on my word of honor!” said he. simply; “nor did such an envious, unworthy thought us is expressed by those words enter my head an instant. lam above it, old fellow. Do you believe me?” \ ■ ■ ' “Oh! of course!” But Joe could not forget Achille's agitation, evert while clasping the extended hand with hearty good will. “Why not? Think no more of it. Poor Effie! she may be growing a little unbalanced.’’ j They reached their little cabin.. eighty miles away, at the end of the third day, and good luck seemed to attend this, their last expedition, from the start. A heavy snow fell, just enough to make the coyotes hungry, and to nicely plant the sharp sticks, dressed -with Btryebninepoisoned bear or elk meat, set after the most approved fashion of yyolf-catching; and, after this, it cleared off good and cold, Tendering long-distance traveling on snowshoes effective and agreeable, and enabling them to set their baits, or traps, and establish their caches over a wide extent of wilderness; while the Indians, troublesome enough at the beginning of the season, were only conspicuous by their absence. It was the custom of these two wolfers to meet at their cabin at the end of every third day. bringing in such pelts as had been collected. Then, after spending a night and day in each other's company, chiefly devoted to preparing the skins for market, they would again separate, to make their lonely rounds among the baiting grounds in different directions. - But at ike end of three weeks, after five profitable collections had been made, the good luck suddenly changed to worse. Joe, having reached home first, was preparing the coffee over the cabin fire, when suddenly a voice, Effie Sintram's v&ice, was heard, calling to him. Greatly startleiT, lie ran out of the cabin, " which occupied a bare knoll commanding a wide, uninterrupted view on every side, and looked eagerly, around, without per-' ceiving Effie or anyone else in sight. Yet,still the beloved voice kept on calling to him from ont of- the bosoming distance and from due southwest, directly from the point of Effie Sintram’s home, eighty miles away, and presently he distinguished these words of warning: “Joe, 1 Joe Morford! beware. Achille is only self-wounded, and the Spokanes, while seeming to attack you, are realty his confederates." He shook off the superstitious feeling that momentarily possessed him, afid then, feeling assured that it was nothing less than Effie’a inner voice, or spirit-vigilance, s that had reached him across the. waste, as an attendant of her clairvoyant wakefulness, he again took a survey of his surroundings for an explanation of the warnJust then Achille’s trained pony, housed'> up with Joe’s and the pack-mule in a shed communicating with the cabin, sent forth the mysterious whinny ;, that it was accustomed to give at its master's approach. An instant later Achille himself appeared on the rough snowy trail, half a mile away. He seemed to move on his snow-shoes with ! difficulty, and made signs of distress. Joe hurriedly buckled on his own snowshoes, and was soon at his partner's side. Achille’s left leg was bandaged below the knee, and he was unwontedly excited. He was, moreover, without hjs.customarypackage of wolf-skins. “The Spokanes!” he hurriedly exclaimed. “They ambuscadei and wounded me two miles back in Splint Canon! They are coming for usl Hurry up! We cannot be prepared for them too soon.” With the mysterious warning, thus partly verified, still haunting his mind, Joe Morford said little in reply, but-assisted hiscompanion to the hut, and systematically made everything snug for the threatened attack. A ■

It wag now abont-sunset. Achille had in the meantime done notfik ing but groan with pain. ' “Now let's have a look at that leg of yours,” said Joe; and. in spite of Achille's entreaties to be careful, he summarily unbandaged the injured limb, and examined it. “Why. it’s nothing knt a gunshot flesh wound!” said he, contemptuously. “What are you up to, Achille? Both of us have had worse hurts without playing baby.” poisoned,” suggested Achille; “at all events it burns like fury.” Joe also: noticed that the bullet had been fired almost perpendicularly downward, which considerably t strengthened the. air-borne accusation of its having been self-inflicted; but he said nothing, and, a few moments later, the threatened Indian attack took place. “I might also ask what’s up with you, Joe?” said Achille, after ft few shots had been fired from the two loop-holes, andreturned/ “Yotr don't seem to care a continetital about these bloodthirsty devils.” “Bloodthirsty fiddle-sticks!” said Joe'. “There’s not more than a baker's dozen of the beggarly Spokane's; with no more Than" live .or six old" battered army muskets among ’efii. With our Winchesters and revolvers, we ought to whip a regiment of ’em.” “Look out, though!” cried Achille, peering put excitedly! “They’re creeping up ail in a bunch, and- — There! what did I tell you?”

There really was an entire volley received, and as Joe sprang to his loop-hole, a concerted rush was observable as preparing on the part of the, savages. At this instant the far-off, air-borne voice, Effie's voice, rang out once more, sounding in Joe s ears at least with clarion distinctness: "Be on your guard. Joe, be on your guard!” it cried. “Beware ofshots not from without, but from within—not from in front, but from behind! Ok. too late, too late! Lost, lost!” And it died away in a long, agonizing wail. , “Bid you hear that strange cry just then, Achille?" cried Joe, now greatly wrought up. “Where are you? What causes all this smoke and steam?” “I don’t know,” replied the half-breed from somewhere in the smoke. “ And what cry do you mean? I heard nothing, and—" Here there was an bath, followed by the words: “Mon Dieu! they’ve fired the horseshed. Look out for yourself, pard!” Then a number of shots echoed around the outer walls, quickly followed by an individual flash and report from within—and Joe Morford was down with a ghastly gunshot hole in his side. ■ Then the aria! voice swelled for the last time upon his hearing, but only in a long, expiring scream of intense and sympathetic anguish. . ■ “I believe I'm done for,” growled Joe,

•till masking the terrible suspicion that I filled his mind —the suspicion that Achille's I bullet had purposely sought him out from | amid thp smoke. “Perhaps,” and there j was a teriible sneer in his voice, “you didn’t • hear that cry either?” ’ Achille protested that he had not with unaffected sincerity, and made haste to i minister to his wounded partner; while the i smo)ce and steam, Which turned ont to have been caused by th© overturning of the ! coffee pot on the live coals, gradually 1 cleared; and it also became evident that the Spokanes, whether their attack had been a ' sham or a reality, had taken themselves off. ! nt the instance of the Winchesters, most : likely-. / An hour or two later, Joe Morford’s sit- | tiation was extremely precarious. Lying helplessly in his bunk, he was bidding ' temporary adieu to his uncertain partner, Achille Dufarge, who, after dressing his 1 comrade’s frightful wound to the best of his ability, was about setting out as hur- I riedly as his own injury would permit to j obtain needed provisions and medicines ; from a cache, or secret storage-place, five ! miles distant, there chancing to be none of either on hand in the cabin. To add to the gravity of the situation, ' another great snow-storm was setting in|. “Good-bye, and God speed your return, ! Achille!” said Joe, with difficulty i controlling a shudder while • submitting j to the parting hand-shake. “I shall ; doubtless die any way of this accursed i Indian bullet; but the misery or 1 comparative solace of my last moments 1 will depend on your getting back to, me within ten lloufs at the lurthest. Old fellow, I would not die here alone!” “Morblen! that you shall not, my tried comrade, while the breath remains in my body!” cried the handsome half-breed, with hypocritical earnestness. “Ten hours? I shall return inside of six, or perish in the snows.” He. passed out cheerfully in the , storm, leaving a good fire on the hearth, fuel within the sufferer’s reach, and a lamp burning. The murderous hound!” muttered Joe to himself. “Self-preservation alone prevented my charging him with his treachery. * If ho does not return, lam lost. Oh, if I I could but hear my Effie’s spirit-voice once more, to cheer me in this terrible suspense! And how odd it was that Achille should have been deaf to it! for I know his superstitious terror would ha/B been overpowering, had it been otherwise.” But Joe was also deaf to it thereafter, for it came no more; and neither did Achille return. Hours and days passed, an .1 Joe Morford felt assured that he had been either heartlessly left to starve and suffer to dea h alone in the wilderness, or that the halfbreed had in reality perished in the snows; though the former supposition, in view of past developments, was the more likely of the two. At last, one sunshiny morning, when the snows were fast disappearing, Joe managed to crawl to and open the cabin door. He was wasted almost to a skeleton; death was impatiently waiting for him, it seemed. He crushed a handful of snow upon his fevered lips, and threw a straining glance over the trackless waste. “Oh, if I might but hear it once again!” he cried in his desolateness. "That voice, , that voice! ’ The voice of iny s weethoatt, ' Effie Sintram!” Hark! what was that? A shout from far below—a nearer and ringing cry—and yet another! Was it delirium? No; those were real shapes, rescuingJuiman. shal>esl-tQilißgJiP-toward him through the snow. And that was Effie’s voice—not her airborne phantom voice, the voice of her sleep-waking abnormity, but her own clear natural and girlish tones—and he hears it again, nearer, at his very side; he sees her beloved image, he is in her arms, her sobs and laughs are mingling- melodiously in his ears, her grateful tears are raining on his wasted face l~~’ - All is well once mote.. Joe has not quite overstepped the threshold of recovery, and the best of physicians, the kindest of neighbors are there to assist the sweet feminine hands that soothe his pillow. All is gradually explained to him. The butler’s daughter had seen all his peril up to the treacherous shot that had laid her lover low; had seen it vividly in her sleepwaking trance, and out of that had her sympathetic voice called its warnings to the beset soul that was dearest, nearest to her own. But, with the final catastrophe, the treacherous shot, her trance had snapped its mystic chord in that last long anguished wail, and a dreamless sleep, lasting for three days, had supervened; after which she had secretly enlisted the physician and several neighbors in the rescuing expedition that had just terminated so fortunately, sb providentially; her father in the meantime treasuring the secret at home, inorder

to entrap the envious and murderous halfbreed to his reckoning,— For nothing had as yet been heard of Achille; though there was iittle doubt that he was but "biding his time to reappear at the settlement, with his semi-fabrication of death for his comrade, untold hardships for himself, arid, doubtless, with a future claim upon Effie's "hand and affections on the score of gratitude for what he would profess to have tried to do for her ill-starred lover. Strange as it may sound in the telling, this fanciful programme of Achille Dufarge’s motives and designs was borne out by the facts in the case almost to the very letter. ' Joe was carried back to the settlement, and so well was his return kept secret that he was well on the road to recovery a few weeks later when Achille presented himself at the old sutler's house. He was clothed in rags and woe-begone in the extreme, and. was even permitted to spin out his fabrication in the presence of a large audience before being at last confronted by fhe-dead-alive, and overwhelmed with confusion and dismay. ' , His attempt at murder, however, could not conveniently be proved against him jo the satisfaction of a court of law; so he was quietly permitted to disappear,, after being subjected to a little public expression of disesteem, which in this instance assumed the form of a coat of tar and feathers, and an evanishment from that particular corner of Idaho by the unique fashion of equestrianism known as riding on a rail. Joe and Effie were married with great rejoicings before the close of the following merry month of May; and I am happy to say that there has been no recurrence of the pretty bride’s sleep-waking or clairvoyant experiences since that eventful and happy day. ———£-1