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E*TABMSHEDl8fiO. » VOL.XLV.HO.nl » Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Valley. pittston, LUZ1 5RNE CO., l'A., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, It 1)4. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. !"-S£S?Ar3.lM W'rt'wT'IM4 BY TKL J,B4.l^fWC0TT?Ca."^ way) Small wouuer is it tnat an uie bustle and excitement penetrates the portals of Mr. Jerrold's darkened quarters, and the shutters are thrown open and his bandaged head comes forth. there, as you said, two (lays before, iuiu the paiut oil tho slats was not. quite dry. The blindti and sills wero the only things they had touched up on that front, it seems,, and nothing on the sides. Now, on the fresh paiut of the colonel's slats are tho new imprints of masculine thumb and fingers, and on tho sill of the hall window is a footprint that I know to be other than Jerlold's."forth into tho dusty road, leaving old Graves shaking his head at tho door. wherever 1 drove. She gave orders tliat I should never have any of our horses to drive or ride alone—I, whom father had indulged to the utmost and who had ridden and driven at will from my babyhood. She came out to the fort with mo that evening for parade and never even agreed to let me go out to sec somo neighbors until she learned ho was to escort Miss Remvick. fSlie had ordered mo to bo ready to go with her to Chcquamagon the next day, and I would not go until I had seen him. There had been a misunderstanding. I got the Suttons to drivo me out while mother supposed me at tho Laurents', and Mr. Jerrold promised to meet me east of the bridge and drive in town with us, and I was to send him back in Graves' buggy. But she had borne too much, and the blow came all too soon—too heavy. 8he was well nigh senseless when the Beaubien carriage came whirling into the fort and old Maman rushed forth in voluble and rabid charge upon her daughter. All too late 1 It was useless now. Her darling's heart was weaned away and her love lavished on that tall, objectionable young soldier so soon to go forth to battle. Reproaches, tears, wrath, were all in order, but were abandoned at sight of poor Nina's agony of grief. Noon came, and the train, and with buoyant tread the gallant command marched down tho winding road and filed aboard the cars, and Howard Jerrold, shame stricken, humbled at the contemplation of his own utiworthiness, slowly unclasped her arms from about his neck, laid one long upon her white and quivering lips, took one brief look in the great dark, haunting, despairing eyes and carried her wail of anguish ringing in his ears as he sprang aboard and was whirled awny. poor nrea iariner can srrine wane resting at a fair, hadn't taken in 10 cents for over half au hour. NYE AND THE POETS. "I've known her ever since she was weaned," ho muttered, "and sho's a wild bird, if ever there was one, but she's never been tho liko o' this till last month." HE MEETS THE BARD OF THE PLAINS Finally the Hoosier man made out to break through Riley's profound solitude and make him hear and admit who he was. Then the surprised and delighted man shot into Riley's stunned and aching ear: "What is it, Harris?" he demands of a light battery man who is hurrying past AND ADMIRES HIM "Orders for Colorado, sir. Tho regiment goes by special train. Major Thornton's command's been massacred, and there's a big fight ahead." And the roan maro was covercd with foam and sweat when Nina Boaubien drovo into tho bustling fort, barely an hour after her receipt of Jerrold's telegram. A few officers were gathered in front of headquarters, and there wero curious looks from faco to face as she was recognized. Mr. Rollins was on the walk, giving some instructions to a sergeant of his company, and never saw her until tho buggy reined up close behind him, and taming suddenly he met her face to face as she spraug lightly to tho ground. Tho young fellow reddened to his eyis and would have recoiled, but she Vas mistress of the situation. She well know she had but to command, and he would obey. or. at the most, if sho could no longer command sho had only to implore, and he would be powerless to withstand her entreaty. 8 peak Ins of Poetry Reminds Him of Riley, and In a Few Well ChoHen Word* He Shows the Difference Between Dr. Holmes "I knew yer father!" "Yes, yos," said Riley, "so did I," and walked away. "My God! Here, stop one moment! Run over to Company B and see if you can find my servant or Merrick or somebody. If not, you come back quick. I want to send a note to Captain Armitago.""Why?" "Because he doesn't own such a thing as this track was made with, and I don't know a man in this command who does. It handiwork of the Tonto Apaches and came from the other side of the continent" and the Hoosier Poet. [Copyright, 1894, by Edgar W. Nye.] Now, Dr. Holmes, while, in fact, quite deaf, would hjre appeared to hear, and, in fact, in that way was quite different from Mr. Riley, who is a Ion r of fried onions and broad humor. He is more like Tennyson, I fancy. Just a little while ago I met the Poet of the Plains, sometimes called the Prairie Dog Poet of Topeka. Thomas Brower Peacock now lives in Kansas City, Kan., and combs his jet black locks from the back of his head up over the bleak and wind swept dome which gleams white and slick like a marble top washstand in the moonlight of his own glorious state. [COimNUKD.] "I can tako it, sir. We're not going. The band and the battery have to stay." "You mean it was" curious eyes tne party 01 at least a dozen—matrons and maids, wives or sisters of tho officers—scurried past the darkened wiudowsof Mr. Jerrold's quarters, and through the mysterious passage w%.;t of the colonel's silent house, and down the long stairs, just in time to catch the train that whirled them away cityward almost as soon as it had disgorged the morning's mail. Chatting and laughing and full of blithe anticipation of the glories of the coming germ an, in preparation for which most of thelf number had found it necessary to run in for just an hour's shopping, they went jubilantly on their way. Shopping done, they would all meet, take luncheon together at the Woman's Exchange, return to the post by the afternoon train and have plenty of time for a little nap before dressing for the germ an. Perhaps the most interesting question now up for discussion was, Who would lead with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot, the ladies hastened forth and in a moment were on tho street, cabs and carriages were passed in disdain, a brisk walk of a block carried them to the main thoroughfare and into tho heart of the shopping district, a rush of hoofs and wheels and pedestrians there encountered and the roar assailed their sensitiWj and unaccustomed ears, yet high above it all pierccd and poalod tho shrill voices of the newsboys darting bore and there with their eagerly bought journals. But women bent on gennans and shopping have time and ears for no such news as that which demands the publication of extras. Some of them never hoar or hoed the cry: "Indian massacre!" "Here y'are! All about the killin of Major Thornton an his sojersl" "Extry! Extryl" "Exactly. An Indian moccasin." Mr. Peacot k ha* just published an impassioned song called " My Queen of Love." It is one of those songs which open with a low trill or two and the twitter of the Devonshire bulbul in the catnip orchard, but soon,' wirh a glad snort, jumps the fence and gallop* away across the paddock, with a tail across the literary dashboard and an Algernonian Swinburnian whinny, kicks vast holes in the greensward and on Tuesdays and Fridays may be found at home gnawing the manger and chafing to be free. Once down in the flats, their footsteps made no noise in the yielding sand, and all was silence save for the clash of the waters along the shores. Far down the river were the reflections of ono or two twinkling lights, and close under the bank in the slack water a few stars were peeping at their own images, but no boat was there, and the captain led still farther to a little copse of willow, and there in the shadows, sure enough, was a rowboat, with a little lantern dimly burning, half hidden in the stern. And Jerrold, with trembling hand and feverish haste, scats himself at the same desk whenoe on that fatal morning he sent the note that wrought such disaster, and as he ristfs and hands his missive forth, throwing wide open the shutters as he does so, his bedroom door flies open, and a whirling gust of the morning wind sweeps through fron» rear to front, and half a score of bills and billets, letters and scraps of paper, go b»"looning out upon the parade Meantime Mr. Jerrold had been making hurried preparations, as he had fully determined that at any oost he would go with the regiment. Ho had been burning a number of lettors when Caotain Armitacre knocked and hurriedly entered. Jerrold pushed forward a chair and plunged at once into the matter at issue: "Ho had been refused iDerruission to leave the post, he sairt, and could not cross the bridge, where the sentries would be sure to recognize him, but as it was our last chance of meoting he risked the discovery of his absence, never dreaming of such a thing as his private rooms being inspected. He had a little skiff down in the willows 'that he had used before, and by leaving the partj at midnight ho could get home, change his dress, run down the bank and row down stream to the point, there leavo his skiff and climb up to the road. He met us there at 1 o'clock, and the Suttous would never lx?tray either of us, though they did not know we were engaged. We sat in their parlor a quarter of an hour after we got to town, and then 'twas time to go, and there was only a littlo 10 minutes' walk down to tho stable. I had seen him such a very short time, and I had so much to tell him." Chester could have burst into rapturous applauso had she been an actress. Her clieoks were aflame, her eyes full of fire and spirit, her bosom heaving, her little foot tapping the ground, as she stood there leaning on the colonel's fence and looking straight up in the perturbed veteran's face. She was magnificent, ho said to himself, and in her bravery, self sacrifice and indignation she was. "It was then after 2, and I could just as well go with him —somebody had to bring the buggy back —and Graves himself hitched in his roan in are for me, and I drove out, picked up Mr. Jerrold at the corner, and we came out here again through the darkness together. Even when we got to the point I did not let him go at once. It was over an hour's drive. Itwas fully half past 3 before we parted. Ho sprang down the path to reach the riverside, and before ho was fairly in his boat and pulling up against tho stream I heard, far over hero somewhere, those two faint shots. That was the shooting he spoke of in his letter to mo, not to her, and what business Colonel Maynard had to read and exhibit to his oflSec-ra a letter never intended for him I canuot understand. Mr. .Terrold says it was not what he wanted it to be at all, as he wrote hastily, so he wrote another and sent that to mo by Merrick that morning after his absence was discovered. It probably blew out of the window, as these other things did this morning. See for yourself, captain." And sho pointed to the two or three bills and scraps that had evidently only recently fluttered in among the now neglected rosea. Mr. Peacock wrote a Columbian ode, which was read for the National Editorial association in Chicago. He is also author of the "Poems of the Plains," price $1, in cloth; full gilt, *1.50. Mr. Peacock has a glad free jolt to his muse, "There is no time to waste, captain. I have sent to yon to ask •what I can do to be released from arrest and permitted to go with the command." "I am glad you aro here, Mr. Rollins. You can help me—sergeant, will you kindly hiuii any horse at that post? —now," she added in low, hurried tone, "come with me to Mr. Jerrold's." "By heaven!" he mutters, "that's how it happened, is it? Look at them go 1" for going they were, in spiral eddies or fluttering skips, up the grassy "quad" and over among the rosebushes of Alioe Ren wick's garden. Over on the other side of the uarrow, old fashioned frontier fort tho men were bustling about, and their exultant, eager voices rang out on the morning air. All was life and animation, and even in Jerrold's selfish soul there rose responsive echo to tho soldiery spirit that seemed to pervade tho whole command It was their first summons to active field duty with prospective battle since he had joined, and with all his shortcomings as a "duty" officer in garrison and his many frailties of character, Jerrold was not the man to lurk in the rear when there was danger ahead It dawned on him with sudden and crushing foroe that now it lay in the power of his enemies to do him vital injury; that he oould be held here at the post like a suspected felon, a mark for every finger, a target for every tongue, while every other officer of his regiment was hurrying with his men to tako his knightly share in tho coming onset It was intolerable, s&amefuL He paced the floor of his little parlor in nervous misery, ever and anon gazing from the window for sight of his captain. It was to him he had written, ureinu that he be permitted a few moments' talk. "This is no time for a personal misunderstanding," he wrote, "J must 6ee yon at once. I can clear away tho doubts, can explain my aotion; but for heaven's sake, intercede for me with Captain Chester that I may go with the command." "Answer the questions I put to you the other night and certify to your an- He says: I'd miss your sweet kisses and fond caressing. Oh, my would at hirst to drink from your soul, Where a fountain of love is scattering its blessing In the desert of life an oasis and goal. Not only that but as thay halted at the edge of the willows put forth a warning hand and cautioned silence. No need. Rollins' straining eyes were- already fixed on two figures that were standing in the shadows not 10 feet away—one that of a tall, slender man, the other a young girl. It was a moment before Rollins could recognize either, but in that moment the girl had turned suddenly, had. thrown ber arms about the neck of the tall young man, Rollins was too stupefied to answer. Silently he placed himself by her side, and together they the group at the office. Miss Beaubien nodded with something of her old archness and coquetry to the cap raising party, but never hesitated. Together they passed along the narrow board walk, followed by curious eyes, and as they reached the anglo and stopped beneath the shelter of the piazza in front of the long, low, green blinded bachelors' row there was sudden sensation in the group. Mr. Jerrold appeared at the door of hisquar ters; Rollins halted some 50 feet away, raised hid cap and left her, and all alone, with tho eyes of Fort Sibley upon her, Nina Beaubien stepped bravely forward to meet her lover. In another verse he boldly requests this oasis and goal to Cast off the anchors that bind you, and gla-i* We will float in my bark down lili'g pa stream. As a matter of fact, Mr. Peacoc' no bark. He admitted that tome, i a dog and a shotgun, but has no bai 9 wfu D could uot steer it if he had. Mortovi , his wife told me that if he went into the oasis and goal business, or attempt*; i to drift down life's passing stream with other parties and without leaving enough stove wood chopped up for the house while he was gone, she would cave in his organ of ideality with a pinking iron. I "What can J do to be released from arrest?"They saw him greet her at the door. Some of them turned away, unwilling to look and yet unwilling to go and not understand this new phase of the mystery. Rollins, looking neither to right nor left, repassed them and walked off with a set, savage look on his young face, and then, as one or two still gazed, fascinated by this strange and difring procooding, others, too, turned back and, half ashamed uf themselves for such a yielding to curiosity, glanood furtively over at Jerrold's door. TIIE POET AT HOME. mingled with the pathos of the dying grasshopper sufferer, which has even won the approval of English bards and wrung with sympathetic anguish the sluggish pulse of their tough old briskets. swers, and of course you'll have to apologize to Captain Chester for your last night's language." Mr. Riley was down recently in the mountains of North Carolina with our old friend, Dr. Hayes of Indianapolis. They had with them a case of Milwaukee beer and a case of hay fever. As a valet the little Hoosier poet had a Hooppole county youth, whom he called "Ringworm Pete because he runs around so much. He is a strawberry roan young man, with eyes like fried eggs and the low, retreating forehead of the pickerel "That, of course, though you will admit it looked like spying. Now let me ask you. Did ho tell you who the lady was?" D'3 Yet Mr. Peacock at times rebels at fate and says that a slow and niggardly public will one day hate itself for not helping him pay his rent, and that when his wild thrush song is still in death many a tardy reader of his loping verse will come to shed the scalding and the unavailing over the wind swept grave of the silent bard, or in uncontrollable remorse to kick loose the moss agates that border the lowly mound. "Oh, what have I donef what have 1 finautt91 "How did you know?!' "By intuition and my knowledgo of previous circumstances." "No; I told him." But. there were women who deemed themselves wvrse off than Nina Beaubien—the wives and daughters and sweethearts whom she met that morn in town, for when they got back to Sibley the regiment was miles away. Far them there was not even a kiss from the lips of those they loved. Time and train waited for no woman. There were oomradoa battling for life in the (jglorado Rockies, and aid oould not come too soon. The gtri had thrown her arm* about the neck of the tall young man. And with her head pillowed on his breast was gazing np in his face. It is not nntil they reach the broad portals of the great Stewart of the west that one of their number, half incredulously, buys a copy and reads aloud: "Major Thornton, tli infantry, Captain Langham and Lieutenant Bliss, th cavalry, and 30 men are killed Captains Wright and Lano and Lieutenants Willard and Brooks, th cavalry and some 40 more men are seriously wounded The rest of the command is corralled by an overwhelming force of Indians, and their only hope is to hold out until help can reach thenf All troops along the line of the Union Pacific are already under orders." "We have no time to discuss it I make no attempt to conceal it now, but I ask that, on your honor, neither you nor he reveal it" There they stood—ho rC-strained by his arrest, unable to come forth; she, restrained moro by his barring form than by any consideration of maidenly reserve, for, had he bidden, she would have gono within. Sho had fully made up her inind that wherever ho was, even wero it behind the sentinels and bars of the guardhouse, she would demand th»t she be taken to his 6id& He had handed out a chair, but she would not sit. They saw her looking up into his face as he talked and noted the eager gesticulation, so characteristic of his Creole blood, that seemed to accompany his rapid words. They saw her bending toward him, looking eagerly up in his eves and occasionally casting indignant glances over toward the group at the office, as though sho would annihilate with her wrath the persecutors of her hero. Then they saw her stretch forth both her hands, with a quick impulsive movement, and grasp his one instant, looking so faithfully, steadfastly, loyally. intn hi* clnnrftv} nnd anxious face Then sho turned, and with quick, eager steps came tripping toward them. They stood irresolute. Every man felt that it was somebody's duty to step forward, meet her and be her escort through the party, but no one advanced There was, if anything, a tendency to sidlo toward the office door, as though to leave the sidewalk unimpeded- But sho nover sought to pass them by. With flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, sho bore straight upon them, and with indignant emphasis upon every word accosted them: "Kiss me onoe more, Howard. Then I must go," they heard her whisper. I passed through Indianapolis not long ago on the Large Four railroad, and on the train from Shelbyville we had a number of the Riley people. One old man reminded me of William Leachman, and the Liztown humorist was along, with plug tobacco in his restless jaw and cotton in his ears. Rollins seized the captain's sleeve and strove, sick at heart, to pull him back, but Chester stoutly stood his ground In the few seoonds more that they remained they saw his arms more closely Infold her. They saw her turn at the brink, and in an utter abandonment of rapturous, passionate love throw hnr arms again about his neck and stand on tiptoe to reach his faoe with her warm 11 pa. They could not fail to hear the oarening tone of her every word or to mark his receptive but gloomy silence. They ooold not mistake the voice, the farm, shadowy though it was. The girl was Nina Beaubien and the man beyond question Howard Jerrold "And continue to let the garrison believe that you were in Miss Renwick's room that ghastly night?" asked Armitago dryly. Perchance he is right Publics are ungrateful. Out of 250 admirers who have oome to gaze on me at my country home and stay to dinner this summer only eight had read my new history of the United States, and of that number six had borrowed the book of other people. One admirer tied his horse to a Japanese maple, whioh cost me $9, and the beast ate the bark all off, not having been fed since Lent. Jerrold flushed: "I have denied that, and I would have proved my alibi could I have done so without betraying a woman's secret Must I tell?" [to be continued.] As lock would have it, Armitage was with Chester at the offlco when the letter was handed in. He opened it, gave a whistle of surprise and simply held it forth to the temporary commander. Also I saw the family that seemed to be on its way baok to "Griggsby's station, back where they used to be so happy and so pore." HE DID PALL. "Bo far as I am ooncerned, Mr. Jerrold, " said Armitage, with cold and relentless meaning, "you not only must toll—you must prove—both that night's doings and Saturday night's, both that and how you obtained that photograph."And the Man Who Knew It Was I am now on the way to the northwest up the upper Mississippi, where I will visit old haunts in the valley of "Oh, isn't it dreadful?" "Read that," ho said. Chester frowned, but took tho note and looked it curiously over. The other rainy afternoon, when a dozen pedestrians had halted under the awning of a Woodward avenue store to wait for a slackup, an old man with a long gray goatee, and who was carrying an umbrella with three broken ribs, looked hard at the man beside him for a moment and then broke out with: "Yes, but aren't you glad It wasn't ours? Oh, look I There's Nina Beaubien over there in her carriage. Do let's find out if she's going to lead with Rollins." Mr. Peacock is a self made poet and I composes better with the window open and his tongue out a little way on the left hand sida He likes the breeze to blow against his hot temples, and a jug of hot water at his feet, with which he mixes a little reddish liquor from the drug stores of Kansas. Then the warm Peruvian bark blood will mantle in his ffhoplr Jtllil tflfl 1fUrt.Gr. uranafn} tnwon nnmn boiling out like the graceful links of rosy sausage at Mr. Armour's great abattoirs in Chicago. "I have no patience with tho man now," he said "Of course, after what I saw last night, I begin to understand the nature of his defense, but we don't want any such man in the regiment after thik What's the use of taking him with us?" V8e victis! Far out in the glorious park country in the heart of the Centennial State a little band of blue coats sent to sucoor a periled agent is making desperate stand against fearful odds. Less than 200 men has the exalted wisdom u( the department sent forth through the wilderness to find and, if noed be, fight its way through five times its weight in well armed foes. The officers and men have no special ouarrel with those Indians, nor the Indians with them. Only two winters before, when those same Indians were sick and starving, and their lying go betweens, the bureau employees, would give them neither food nor justice, a small band made their way to the railway and were fed on soldier food and their wrongs righted by soldier justice. But another snarl has come now, and this time the bureau people are in a pickle, and the army—ever between two fires at least, and thankful when it isn't sis—is ordered to send a little force and go out there and help the agent maintain his authority. The very night before the column reaches the borders of the reservation the leading chiefs come in camp to interview tho officers, shake hands, beg tobacco and try an their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there aro only a handful, and plan the morrow's ambuscade and massacre. Vso victis! There are women and children among the garrisons along tho Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans in the horror of this morning's tidings. But Sibley Is miles and miles away, and, as Mrs. Wheeler says, aren't you glad it wasn't ours? "My Qodt In one oase it is a woman's name In the other I have promised on honor not to reveal it" They saw him hand her into the light skiff and hurriedly kiss her good night Onoe again, as though she could not leave him, her arms were thrown about his neck, and she clung to him with all liar strength. Then the little boat swung slowly out into the stream, the sculls -were shipped, and with practiced hand Nina Beaubien pulled forth into the swirling waters of the river, and the faint light, like slowly setting star, floated downward with tho sweeping tide and finally disappeared beyond the point. "Then when he was aroused at reveille and you threatened him with punishment and hold over his head the Btartling accusation that you knew of oor meeting and nur secret hi* naturally infinitely distressed and could only write to warn me, and ho managed to get in and say goodby to me at the station. As for me, I was back home by 5 o'clock, let myself noiselessly up to my rocm, and no one know it but the "That ends it then. You remain here in close arrest, and the charges against you will bo pushed to the bitter end. I will writo them this very hour." "Waal, thought it?" by gosh, but who'd 'a' "That isn't the point," said Armitage. "Now or never, possibly, is the time to clear up this mystery. Of oourae Maynard will be np to join us by the first train, and what won't it bo worth to him to have positive proof that all his fears were unfounded?" "Are vou speaking to me, sir?" Queried the other, who looxea to be a solid sort of a citizen, and who had about made up his mind to move on and let it rain and be hanged CHAPTEB XVL At 10 o'clock that morning, shortly after a smiling interview with the ladies of Fort Sibley, In which, with infinite spirit and the most perfect self control, Miss Beaabicn had informed them that she had promised to lead with Mr. Jerrold, and since ho was in duress she would lead with no one, and sent them off wondering and greatly excited, there came running up to the carriage a telegraph messenger boy, who handed her a dispatch. "Yaas, I was. I never expected to sot eyes on you again. Did you git over it all right?" I admire Thomas Brower Peacock because he does not get irritated over my free criticisms. He comes to me with the old warm grasp of the honest hand and the old twinkle in his eye, no matter how untrammeled my remarks on his verse may be. That shows a sweet disposition not usual with the average poet. "Even if it wasn't Jerrold, there is still the fact that I saw a man clambering out of her window. How is that to be cleared up?" said Chester gloomily. Suttona and old Graves, neither of whom would betray ma I had no fear of the long dark road. I had ridden and driven as a child all over these bluffs and prairies before thero was auy town worth mentioning and in days when my father and I found only friends—not enemies—hero at Sibley," "I think you have made a mistake, sir," said the solid man as he looked the old man over. Then Jerrold turned to leave, and Cheater stepped forth and confronted him: 1 "That may come later and won't be such a bugbear as you think. If you are not worried into a morbid condition over all this trouble, you would not look so seriously upon a thing which I regard as a piece of mere night prowling, with a possible spice of romance." "Noap—hain't made no mistake. Do you remember the 14th day of last January?""Mr. Jerrold, did I not instruct yon to confine yourself to your quarters until satisfactory explanation was made of the abeenoes with which you are charged?"This leads me to refer to James Whitoomb Riley, my old partner and comrade in the show business. I notice that some warm admirer gives Riley the place left vacant by Dr. Holmes. This is surely nnqnalified praise, yet we must pause to think how different the two men were. While the Hoosier poet may easily compare the size of their audiences, Dr. Holmes' humor was of a different and more strictly Massachusetts character. He did not care so much for practical humor as Riley does. He would be content with a pun or a conundrum, while Riley enjoys practical humor. For instance, I remember on night when our manager thought tha Anything in the line of ale, wine or *uost any kind of alcoholic or malt liquors would cast a gloom over the performance on the following day, so he spoke to the hotel people about it, and a convention of bell boys and barkeepers was instructed to send nothing but clean shirts and farinaceous food to No. 182. "Ha, ha, ha! Makes me laugh every time I think of 11 On the 14th day of last January, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you was turn in the corner up thar by the city ha.ll. I was right behind you. All to once—ha, ha, ha!" "Not particularly. What about it?" "I was going up to the avenue, mum, " he explained, ''but J seen you here." "Captain Wilton, Major Bloat, I wish to see Captain. Chester at onoe. Is he in the office?" "Miss Beaubien, let mo protest agidnst your accusation. It is not for mo to reprove your grave imprudence or recklessness, nor have I the right to disapprove your choice of Mr. Jerrold. Let me say at onco that you havo none but friends here, and if it ever should be known to what lengths vou went to save him it will, only mako him more ouvietl and you more genuinely admired. I question your wisdom; but, upon my soul, I admiro your bravery and spirit You hav D cleared him of a terrible charge." OUT OX THE LAWN. the St. Croix and the grave of old man Tidd, a large, healthy blacksmith during my boyhood days, who looked like Carver Doone. He was a dark giant, with artificial teeth which did not fit him, and which he used to file and fuss with in his blacksmith shop on Sundays and gnash at boys during the week. He came near brewing my neck eight times for catching trout in his brook, and I stopped growing whenever I saw him. He is gone now, far, far away, an » • fancy I can still hear him gnasl Jerrold started at the abrupt and unlooked for greeting, but his answer was prompt: "What romance, I'd like to know?" Nina's face paled as she toro It open and read the curt linos: "Never mind that now. I'm playing detective for the timo being. Let me see Jerrold for you and find out what he has to offer. Then you can decide. Are you willing? All right! But remember this while I think of it You admit that the light you saw on the wall Sunday night was exactly like that which you saw tbo night of your adventure, and that the shadows were thrown in the same way. You thought that night that the light was turned np and afterward turned out in her room, and that it was her figure you saw at the window. Didn't you?" "Certainly, Miss "euubien. Shall I call him, or will yC a walk in?" And both men were at her side in a moment "Not at all, sir. You gave me to understand that I was to remain here— not to leave the poet—until yon had decided on oertain points, and though I do not admit the jnstioe of your course, and though yon have put me to grave "Come to mo hero. Your help needed instantly." "Sir, what are you trying to get at?" demanded the solid man as the crowd gathered around the pair. "Thanks. I will go right in—if you will kindly show mo to him." She sprang from the carriage. "Tell mother I have gone over to see some fort friends—not to wait," she called to the coachman, well knowing he would understand that she meant the ladies with whom she had been so rooently talking. Like a frightened deer she sped around tho corner, bailed the driver of a cab, lounging with his fellows along the walk, ordered him to drive with all speed to Summit avenue, and with beating heart decided on her plan. Her glorious eyes were flashing; the native courage and fierce determination of her raoe were working in her woman's heart She well knew that Imminent danger threatened him She had dared everything for love of his mere presence, his sweet caress. What would she not dare to save him if save she oould? He had not been true to her. She knew, and know well, that, whether sought or not, Alios Ben wick bad been winning him from her, that bo was wavering, that he had been oold and negligent but with all her soul and strength she, loved him and believed him grand and brave and fine as ho was beautiful Now—now was her opportunity. Ho needed her. His commission, his honor, depended on her. He had intimated as much the night before—bad told her of the accusations and suspicions that attaobed to him—but mado no mention of the photograph. Another moment, and Armitage and Chester, deep in the mid't of their du ties and surrounded byoleika and orderlies aud assailed t y half u dozen questions in one and the same instant looked up astonished as Wilton stepped in and aanouncod Mi88 Beaubien, desiring to see Captain Chester on immediate business. There was no time for or nference. There she stood in the doorway, and all tongues weie hushed on the Instant Chester rose and stepped forward, with anxious courtesy. She did not choose to see tho extended hand. "I—I beg your pardin for laffln, but I can't help it It was the funniest sight T ever saw. All to once, as you was walkin along stiff as a poker, your right foot slid out this way, and—and—ha, ba. ha!" You are either a fool or bave bean drinking too much,'' sharply replied the solid man as ho began to back off. inoonvenlence, I obeyed the order. 1 needed to go to town today on urgent business, but between yon and Captain Armitage am in no condition to ga For all this, sir, there will come proper retribution when my colonel returns. And now, sir, you are spying upon me—spying, I say—and it only confirms what I said at yon before." A most disdainful and impatient shrug of her shapely shoulders was Miss Beaubien'sonly answer to that allusion. Tho possibility of Mr. Jerrold's be. g suspected of another entanglement was something sho would not tolerate. those marked down teeth in a subtro *1 land. He was a mighty man, God wot. With whiskers on his hands "Noap—neither drunk nor a fooL I'm jest tickled half to death. When you found yourself goin down, you pawed and clawed and slipped and skated, but it was no use. You struck the sidewalk like a ton of rock, and you fetched a grunt which—ho, ho, ho! Say, don't git mad at mo, fur I've gnt to laff or bust" "Yes. What then?" "Silence, Mr. Jerroldl This is insub ordination." "Well, I believe her statement that she saw and heard nothing until reveille. I believe it wan Mrs. Maynard who did the whole thing without Miss Renwiok's knowing anything about it" "I know nothing of other people's affairs. I simply speak of my own. Let us end this as quickly as possiblo, captain. Now about Saturday night. Mother had consented to our coming back for the german—she enjoys seeing me lead, it seems—and she decided to pay a short visit to relations at St Croix, staying there Saturday night and over Sunday. This would give us a chance to meet again, as ho could spend the evening in St. Croix and return by late train, and I wrote and asked him. He came. Wo had a long talk in the summer houso in tho garden, for mother never dreamed of his being there, and unluckily ho just missed tho night train and did not get back until inspection. It was impossiblo for him to have been at Sablon, and ho can furnish other proof, but would do nothing until he had seen me,'' "I don't care a d—n what it is, sir! 'X'nere is nothing contemptuous cnougn for me to say of you or your conduct to ma" Out at the fort there is a different scene. The morning journals and the clicking telegraph send a thrill throughout the whole command. The train has barely whistled out of sight when the ringing notes of officers' call resound through the quadrangle and over the broader drill ground beyond. Wondering, but prompt, the staid captains and eager subalterns come harrying to headquarters, and the band, that had come forth and taken its station on the parade, all ready for guard mount goes quickly back, while the men gather in big squads along the shaded row of their quarters and watch the rapid assembly at the office. And there old Chester, with kindling eyes, reads to the silent company the brief officii*1 tder. Aye, though it be miles and «. _ s away, fast as t-team and wheel can take it, the good old regiment in all its sturdy strength goes forth to join the rescue of the imprisoned comrades far in tho Colorado Rockies. "Have your entire command in readiness for immediate field service in the department of the Platte. Special train will be there to take you by noon at latestAnd though many a man has lost friend and comrade in the tragedy that calls them forth, and though many a brow clouds for the moment with the bitter news of «uch useless sacrifice, every eyo brightens, every to brace, every nerve and pulse to*throb and thrill with the glorious excitement of quick assembly and coming action. Aye, wo are miles and miles away. Wo leave the dear old post, with homes and firesides, wives, children and sweethearts, all to the caro of the few whom sickness or old wound? or advancing years render unfit for hard, sharp marching, and, thank God, we'll be there to take a hand and help those gallant fellows out of their "corral" or to have one good blow at the cowardly hounds who lured and lied to them 1 "It is you, alone, I wish to see, captain. Is it impossible heie?" Mr. Riley has a keen sense of humor, and finding that his room communicated with 160, and that the man who had 180 had gone out to make a night of it, Mr. Riley stepped in thero and at odd times used the bell of 180 with great skill, thereby irritating the manager so that he returned to NC jr York on the following day. "Why?" "I fear it is, Miss Beaubien, but we can walk oat in the open air. I feel that I know what it is vou wish to sav to mo," no added in a low tone, took his cap from the peg on which it hung and led the way. Again sho passed through the curious but respectful group and Jerrold, watching furtivoly from his window, saw them come forth. We are inclined to pity the Puritan little one of New England who knows nothing about merry Christmastide, with its rollicking games of blindman's buff, hunt the slipper, snapdragon and the like, but some of them enjoyed the practice which they called "burning the Christmas candle." This taper was a homemade affair and differed from other tallow dips only in being larger and having the wick divided at the lower end to form three legs, while at its heart was conoealed a quill well filled with gunpowder. Ou Christmas eve it was lighted, and the quaint little Puritan folk sat around telling stories and riddles until suddenly the candle went off with a tremendous explosion, n. 'ng a delightful excitement and giving the children of the colonies their only taste of uproarious holiday fun. Burning the Chriatmas Candle. "Not another word, Mr. Jerorldl Go to your quarters in arrest Mr. Rollins, you are witness to this language." "Because I accomplished the feat with the aid of the little night lamp that I found beside the colonel's bedside. It is my theory that Mrs. Maynard was restless after the oolonel finally fell asleep; that she heard your tumble and took her little lamp, crossed over into Miss Renwick's room, opened the door without creaking, as I can do to your satisfaction, found her sleeping quietly, but the room a trifle close and warm, set her night lamp down on the table, as I did, threw her shadow on the wall, as I did, and opened the shade, as you thought her daughter did. "Dion she withdrew and left those doors open— both hers and her daughter's—and the light instead of being turned down, as you thought was simply carried back into her own room." "Yes, fell right down and rolled ovet and wiped up the sidewalk and cussed and ripped like a—ha, ha, ha! Don't you remember that I got you by the coattails and tried to—to—ho, ho, ho!" "I fell down, did I?" But Rollins was not Turning from the spot in blankness of heart before a word was uttered between them, he followed the waning light with eyes full of yearning and trouble. He trudged his way down along the sandy shore until he came to the silent waters of the slough and oould go no farther, and then he sat him down and covered his faoe with his hands. It was pretty hard to bear. Holmes had none of this dry, crisp humor, but oared more for a subtle and delicate play upon words than a play upon a lecture manager or hotel proprietor.The captain turned to her as soon as they were out of earshot: "No, sir, I don't, and you ought to bo sent to a fool asylum!" shouted the other. "Who are you anyhow, and how dare vou insult me in this manner?" "I havo no daughter of my own, my dear young lady, but if I had I could not moro thoroughly feel for you than I da How can I help you?" ".Name's hotter," replied the old man as he wiped the tears from his eyes —"name's Potter, and I couldn't help laffiu if you killed me. When I tried to git you up, I fell down oa top of you, and the way you did kick and claw and rip was jest—ho, ho, ho! Don't you re■uember that a polioeman"— Yesterday I met an old citizen of Hudson, Wis., who asked me all about Mr. Riley. He seemed to feel a great interest in both of us, so I asked him if he read our books. Tho rei)ly was unexpectedly spirited. Ho h«d fcought to encourage and sustain her, bo sympathetic and paternal; but as he afterward ruefully admitted, he "never did seem to get tho hang of a woman's temperament" Apparently sympathy was not tho thing sho needed. Tuesday still, and all manner of things bad happened and wore still to happen in the harrying hours that followed Sunday night The garrison woke at Tuesday's reveille in much perturbation of spirit, as has been said, but by 8 o'clock and breakfast time ono cause of perplexity was at an cud. Relief had oome with Monday afternoon and Alico Benwick's letter saying sue would not attend the german, and now still greater relief in the news that sped from mouth to mouth—Lieutenant Jerrold was in close arrest. Armitage and Chester had been again in consultation Monday night, said the gossips, and something new had been discovered— Do one knew just what—and the toils had settled upon Jerrold'h handsome head, and now be was to be tried. As usual in such cases, the news came in through the* kitchen, and most officers heard it at the breakfast table from tho lip. of their better halves, who could hardly find words to express their sentiments aa to the inability of their lords to explain the new phase of the situation. When the first sergeant of Company B came around to Captain Armitage with the siokbook soon after (i in the morning the captain briefly directed him to transfer Lieutemint Jerrold on the morning report from present for duty to "in arrest," and no sooner was it known at the quarters of Company B than it began to work back to officers' row through the medium of the servants •ad strikers. CHAPTER XV. "Miss Beaubien, you havo cleared him. I only wish that you could clear —every one." fie bod said that, though nothing ooald drag from him a word that would compromise her, she might be called npon to stand 'twixt him and ruin, and now perhaps the hour had ooma She ooald free, exonerate, glorify him, and in doing so claim hlta for her own. Who. af-er this, oould stand 'twixt her and him} He loved her, though ho had bMa oold, aad she? fiad he bidden her bow h#r dusky bead to earth and kiss the print of his heel she would have obeyed oould she but feel sure that her reward would be 9 simple touch of hi* hand, an assuranoe that no other woman ogulcULad a moment's bis lore. Verily, ho had been doing d«sp*ratp wooing in the long winter, for the very depths of her nature were all athrob with lovo for him. And now he oould no loneer nlead that Dovertr withheld his offer of his hand. She would Boon be mistress of her own little fortune, and at her mother's death of an independence. Go to him she would, and on wings of tho wind, and go she did. The cab released her at the gato to her home and went back with a double fare that set the driver to thinking. She sped through the house and out the rear doors, much to the amaze of cook and others who were in consultation In the kitchen. She dew down a winding flight of stairs to the level below, and her fairy feet went tripping over the pavement of a plebeian street. A quick turn, and she was at a little second rate stable, whose proprietor knew her and started from his chair. "What's wrong today, Miss Nina?" "I want the roan mare and light buggy again—quick as you can. Your own price at tho old terms, Mr. Graves—silence. " "No," he said. "I never read much after erry one of ye, bnt I saw ye when Riley visited ye here at Hudson for a few weeks, and both of ye was out on the lawn with an umbrella apieoe, and 4 plug hat, playin two old cat with a yarn ball in a pourin rain, and I says to myself surely Hudson is a favored spot, for I never saw two such d d fools in one inoloeure, and no charge for admission. " "No, sir. No, sir I If you weren't an Did man and drunk on top of that, I'd give you one on tho jaw. The idea of Insulting me in this fashion!" "I am in nowise concerned in that other matter to which you havo alluded; neither is Mr. Jerrold May I say to him at onuo that this ends his persecution?""That is all possibla But how about the man in her room? Nothing was stolen, though money and jewelry wore lying around looae. If theft was not the object, what was?" "It is late in tho day to ask such a question, Captain Chester. You have done great wrong and injustice. The question is now, Will you undo It?" Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr., formerly minister to Sweden, describes the Swedish Christmas thus: "Ono wintry afternoon, at jul-tide, I had been skating on a pretty lake, Dalsjon, three miles from Gottenburg. On my way home I noticed at every farmer's house wo passed there was erected in the middle of the dooryard a pole, to the top of which was bound a large, full sheaf of fftai)i. 'Why is this?' I asked of my comrade. 'Ob, that's for the birds, the little wild birds I They must have a Christmas, too, you know.' There is not a peasant in all Sweden who will sit down with his children to a Christmas dinner within doors till he hai first raise - aloft a Christmas dii:n«i for the little birds that live in tlie cold and snow without' " The Birds' Christmas. "Didn't you fall down?" "I have slipped down, but what of He was too surprised to speak for a moment When his tongue was unloosed, he said: Tho captain smiled. "You certainly deserve to be the bearer of good tidings. I wish ho may appreciate it" it?" "Theft certainly was not, and I'm not prepared to say what was, but I have reason to believe it wasn't Miss Renwick." "Nuthin, only—ha, ha, ha! Funniest blamed sight I ever beheld. Of all tho pawiu and clawin and rippin I ever heard tell of—ho, ho, ho! Goin away?" Another moment, and she had left him and sped back to Jerrold's doorway. lie was there to meet her, and Chester looked with grim and uncertain emotion at the radiauco in her face. He had to get b; «ek to the office and to pass them; so, as Evilly as ho could, considering the weight of wrath and contempt he felt for tho man, ho stopped and spoke: "I shall bo glad to be convinced I was wrong." But we were then loss than 40 years of age. We are more serious now. "Anything to provo it?" •■1 Know attxo ot army justice or army laws, Captain Chester, but when a girl is compelled to tako this step to rescue a friend there is something brutal about them, or tho men who enforce them. Mr. Jerrold tells me that ho is arrested I knew that last night, but not until this morning did ho consent to let me know that he would bo court martialod unless ho oould prove where ho was tho night you were officer of tho day two weeks ago and last Saturday night Ho is too noblo and good to dofend himself when by doing so ho might harm pia But I am hero to free him from tho cruel suspicion you havo formed." Sho had quickened her Step, and in her impulsiveness and agitation they were almost at the end of the walk. He hesitated, as though reluctant to go along under the piazza, but sho was imperious, and he yielded. "No, comol" she said. "I mean that you shall hear tho whole truth, and that at once I do not expect you to understand or condone my conduct, but you must acquit him. We are engaged, and—I love him. Ho has enemies hero, as I see all too plainly, and they havo prejudiced mother against him, and sho has forbidden my seeing him. I came out to tho fort without her knowledge one day, and it angered her. From that time she would not let mo see him alone. She watched every moyement and came with me "Nono o' your business, sir. Don't you over dare to speak to me again, or I may forget that you aroan old man." Still Riley is different from Holmea "Yes, and, though time is precious and I cannot show you, you may take my word for tfc We mast bo off at noon, and both of us have much to do, but there may bo no other chance to talk, and before you leave this post I want you to realize her utter innocence.'' Once on the "-state fail, grounds at Indianapolis an elderly Hoosier came up to our manager and said: "But you—you fell down!" protested tho old man. "What if I did?" MEjtcnse me, but ain't that little benoh leg feller over there the Hoosier poet?" "And you—yon struck with an awful squat and rolled over the sidewalk and busted your suspenders and—ha, ha, ha! If I live a thousand years, I shall never forgit it. Say, don't go yit Let's hov a leetlo moro talk about it. You feoe"— "I want to, Arinitaga " "Your fair advocate has been all powerful. Mr. Jerrold. I congratulate you, and your arrest is at an end. Captain Annitago will require no duty of you until wo aro aboard, but we've only half an hour. The train is coming sharp at noon." "Yes," says Mr. Walker, "but he oan't hear muoh of anything in ono ear, and the other is plum gone. On that aide he hasn't heard his own loudest thoughts for years. If you speak to him, you must let your voice out." "I know you do, so look hera We assume that tho same man paid the night visit both here and at Sablon, and that he wanted to seo tho same person— if ho did not come to steal; do we not?" But tho solid man raised his umbrella and walked rapidly away, and when it was seen that ho would not return the old man leaned up against the wall and said to those who lingered: So the man with the copperas hair and solferino whiskers stole up to him in a wild bleat 6hot this remark into Riley's ear: Declined With Thanks. "Yes." "Train! What train? Where aro you going?" sho asked, a wild anxiety in her eyes, a sudden pallor on her face. How the "assembly" rings on the morning air! How quick they spring to the ranks, those eager bearded faces and trim blue clad forms I How buoyant and brisk even the elders soem as the captains speed over to their company quarters and the quick, stirring orders are given: "Field kite; all tho cooked rations you have on hand; overcoat, blanket, extra socks and underclothes; every cartridge you've got; haversack and canteen and nothing else. Now get ready—lively!" How irrepressible is the cheer that goes up I How we pity the swells of the light battery who have to stay! How wistful those fellows look, and how eagerly they th/ong about the barracks, yearning to go, and, since that is denied, praying to bo of use in some "We know that at Bablon it was Mrs. Maynard he sought and called. The colonel says bo. " "We are ordered post hasto to Colorado, Nina, to rescue what is left of Thornton's men. But for you I should havo been left behind." "I didn't mean to hurt his feelin's. I never hurt nobody's feeliu's a-purpoee. I was jest behind him, you know, and ho was glidin along like a orowbar on runners, when all to once his feet skated this way and that way and—ha, ha, ha! Say, boys, I can't help it I would help it if I could, but I've got to git a brace fur my foet and let 'er go—ha, b... ha!" ••Is this Mr. Riley?" ,N "Presumably, then, it was she—not her daughter—ho had some reasons for wanting to soo here at 8ibley. What is more, if he wanted to boo Miss Benwick, there was nothing to prevent his going right into her window?" "Yea" The poet offered hirn tho other ear, at the same time looking at him with large blue, wondering, childlike eyoa People stepped back out.of range to give the man with the voice a chance, and ho repeated the query in a way that shook the blue ribbon of the large iron gray Rosa Bonheur stallion across tho plaza. n i "But for me! left behind!" sho cried "Oh, Howard, Howard! have I on'y— only won you to send you into danger? Oh, my darling! Oh, God, don't—don't go! They will kill you! It will kill me! Oh, what havo I done? what have 1 done?'' It was the sole topic of talk for a full boor. Many ladies who had intended going to town by the early train almost periled their chances of catching the lame in thoir eagerness to hear further details. "Nothing." "Well, I believe I oan prow be didn't, On the contrary, that he went around by tho roof of the porch to the colonel's room and tried there, but found it risky on account of tho blinds, and that finally he entered the hall window—what might be callid neutral ground. The painters had been at work "Is this Mr. Riley?" And tho others also "let 'er go," and the rain ceased falling, and tho sun came out, and everybody in Detroit felt happy with the exception of the solid man. Ho sat in his offico and was mad because he didn't wipe the earth with that old man's carcass.—Detroit free JPreea. The poet said softly as ho squirmed a little closer, "I can't hear what ye say." "Nina, hush! My honor is with the regiment. I muDt go, child. We'll be back in a few weeks. Indeed 1 fear 'twill all bo over before wo get there. Nina, don't look sot Don'tactso! Think where vou are!" Mr. Chrome—I'm so glad you lil the paintiug, Miss Ethel I But the shriek of the whistle far qp the valley broke up the group that was ao busily chatting and speculating over in the quadrangle, and with shy yet He nodded, called to a subordinate and in five minutes handed her into the frail vehicle. An impatient chirrup and flan of the reins, and the roan shot About 800 people wcro now around there waiting to see what would happen, twd the man with the pounding maghine, for telling how much a blows She—Oh, it's perfectly lov you must let me return the 1 nit mamma does not allow me to accept v uable presents from gentlemen.—Lit. E, t
Object Description
Title | Pittston Gazette |
Masthead | Pittston Gazette, Volume 45 Number 21, December 21, 1894 |
Volume | 45 |
Issue | 21 |
Subject | Pittston Gazette newspaper |
Description | The collection contains the archive of the Pittston Gazette, a northeastern Pennsylvania newspaper published from 1850 through 1965. This archive spans 1850-1907 and is significant to genealogists and historians focused on northeastern Pennsylvania. |
Publisher | Pittston Gazette |
Physical Description | microfilm |
Date | 1894-12-21 |
Location Covered | United States; Pennsylvania; Luzerne County; Pittston |
Type | Text |
Original Format | newspaper |
Digital Format | image/tiff |
Language | English |
Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ |
Contact | For information on source and images, contact the West Pittston Public Library, 200 Exeter Ave, West Pittston, PA 18643. Phone: (570) 654-9847. Email: wplibrary@luzernelibraries.org |
Contributing Institution | West Pittston Public Library |
Sponsorship | This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER Library: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education. |
Description
Title | Pittston Gazette |
Masthead | Pittston Gazette, Volume 45 Number 21, December 21, 1894 |
Volume | 45 |
Issue | 21 |
Subject | Pittston Gazette newspaper |
Description | The collection contains the archive of the Pittston Gazette, a northeastern Pennsylvania newspaper published from 1850 through 1965. This archive spans 1850-1907 and is significant to genealogists and historians focused on northeastern Pennsylvania. |
Publisher | Pittston Gazette |
Physical Description | microfilm |
Date | 1894-12-21 |
Location Covered | United States; Pennsylvania; Luzerne County; Pittston |
Type | Text |
Original Format | newspaper |
Digital Format | image/tiff |
Identifier | PGZ_18941221_001.tif |
Language | English |
Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ |
Contact | For information on source and images, contact the West Pittston Public Library, 200 Exeter Ave, West Pittston, PA 18643. Phone: (570) 654-9847. Email: wplibrary@luzernelibraries.org |
Contributing Institution | West Pittston Public Library |
Sponsorship | This Digital Object is provided in a collection that is included in POWER Library: Pennsylvania Photos and Documents, which is funded by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries of Pennsylvania/Pennsylvania Department of Education. |
Full Text | E*TABMSHEDl8fiO. » VOL.XLV.HO.nl » Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Valley. pittston, LUZ1 5RNE CO., l'A., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, It 1)4. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. !"-S£S?Ar3.lM W'rt'wT'IM4 BY TKL J,B4.l^fWC0TT?Ca."^ way) Small wouuer is it tnat an uie bustle and excitement penetrates the portals of Mr. Jerrold's darkened quarters, and the shutters are thrown open and his bandaged head comes forth. there, as you said, two (lays before, iuiu the paiut oil tho slats was not. quite dry. The blindti and sills wero the only things they had touched up on that front, it seems,, and nothing on the sides. Now, on the fresh paiut of the colonel's slats are tho new imprints of masculine thumb and fingers, and on tho sill of the hall window is a footprint that I know to be other than Jerlold's."forth into tho dusty road, leaving old Graves shaking his head at tho door. wherever 1 drove. She gave orders tliat I should never have any of our horses to drive or ride alone—I, whom father had indulged to the utmost and who had ridden and driven at will from my babyhood. She came out to the fort with mo that evening for parade and never even agreed to let me go out to sec somo neighbors until she learned ho was to escort Miss Remvick. fSlie had ordered mo to bo ready to go with her to Chcquamagon the next day, and I would not go until I had seen him. There had been a misunderstanding. I got the Suttons to drivo me out while mother supposed me at tho Laurents', and Mr. Jerrold promised to meet me east of the bridge and drive in town with us, and I was to send him back in Graves' buggy. But she had borne too much, and the blow came all too soon—too heavy. 8he was well nigh senseless when the Beaubien carriage came whirling into the fort and old Maman rushed forth in voluble and rabid charge upon her daughter. All too late 1 It was useless now. Her darling's heart was weaned away and her love lavished on that tall, objectionable young soldier so soon to go forth to battle. Reproaches, tears, wrath, were all in order, but were abandoned at sight of poor Nina's agony of grief. Noon came, and the train, and with buoyant tread the gallant command marched down tho winding road and filed aboard the cars, and Howard Jerrold, shame stricken, humbled at the contemplation of his own utiworthiness, slowly unclasped her arms from about his neck, laid one long upon her white and quivering lips, took one brief look in the great dark, haunting, despairing eyes and carried her wail of anguish ringing in his ears as he sprang aboard and was whirled awny. poor nrea iariner can srrine wane resting at a fair, hadn't taken in 10 cents for over half au hour. NYE AND THE POETS. "I've known her ever since she was weaned," ho muttered, "and sho's a wild bird, if ever there was one, but she's never been tho liko o' this till last month." HE MEETS THE BARD OF THE PLAINS Finally the Hoosier man made out to break through Riley's profound solitude and make him hear and admit who he was. Then the surprised and delighted man shot into Riley's stunned and aching ear: "What is it, Harris?" he demands of a light battery man who is hurrying past AND ADMIRES HIM "Orders for Colorado, sir. Tho regiment goes by special train. Major Thornton's command's been massacred, and there's a big fight ahead." And the roan maro was covercd with foam and sweat when Nina Boaubien drovo into tho bustling fort, barely an hour after her receipt of Jerrold's telegram. A few officers were gathered in front of headquarters, and there wero curious looks from faco to face as she was recognized. Mr. Rollins was on the walk, giving some instructions to a sergeant of his company, and never saw her until tho buggy reined up close behind him, and taming suddenly he met her face to face as she spraug lightly to tho ground. Tho young fellow reddened to his eyis and would have recoiled, but she Vas mistress of the situation. She well know she had but to command, and he would obey. or. at the most, if sho could no longer command sho had only to implore, and he would be powerless to withstand her entreaty. 8 peak Ins of Poetry Reminds Him of Riley, and In a Few Well ChoHen Word* He Shows the Difference Between Dr. Holmes "I knew yer father!" "Yes, yos," said Riley, "so did I," and walked away. "My God! Here, stop one moment! Run over to Company B and see if you can find my servant or Merrick or somebody. If not, you come back quick. I want to send a note to Captain Armitago.""Why?" "Because he doesn't own such a thing as this track was made with, and I don't know a man in this command who does. It handiwork of the Tonto Apaches and came from the other side of the continent" and the Hoosier Poet. [Copyright, 1894, by Edgar W. Nye.] Now, Dr. Holmes, while, in fact, quite deaf, would hjre appeared to hear, and, in fact, in that way was quite different from Mr. Riley, who is a Ion r of fried onions and broad humor. He is more like Tennyson, I fancy. Just a little while ago I met the Poet of the Plains, sometimes called the Prairie Dog Poet of Topeka. Thomas Brower Peacock now lives in Kansas City, Kan., and combs his jet black locks from the back of his head up over the bleak and wind swept dome which gleams white and slick like a marble top washstand in the moonlight of his own glorious state. [COimNUKD.] "I can tako it, sir. We're not going. The band and the battery have to stay." "You mean it was" curious eyes tne party 01 at least a dozen—matrons and maids, wives or sisters of tho officers—scurried past the darkened wiudowsof Mr. Jerrold's quarters, and through the mysterious passage w%.;t of the colonel's silent house, and down the long stairs, just in time to catch the train that whirled them away cityward almost as soon as it had disgorged the morning's mail. Chatting and laughing and full of blithe anticipation of the glories of the coming germ an, in preparation for which most of thelf number had found it necessary to run in for just an hour's shopping, they went jubilantly on their way. Shopping done, they would all meet, take luncheon together at the Woman's Exchange, return to the post by the afternoon train and have plenty of time for a little nap before dressing for the germ an. Perhaps the most interesting question now up for discussion was, Who would lead with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot, the ladies hastened forth and in a moment were on tho street, cabs and carriages were passed in disdain, a brisk walk of a block carried them to the main thoroughfare and into tho heart of the shopping district, a rush of hoofs and wheels and pedestrians there encountered and the roar assailed their sensitiWj and unaccustomed ears, yet high above it all pierccd and poalod tho shrill voices of the newsboys darting bore and there with their eagerly bought journals. But women bent on gennans and shopping have time and ears for no such news as that which demands the publication of extras. Some of them never hoar or hoed the cry: "Indian massacre!" "Here y'are! All about the killin of Major Thornton an his sojersl" "Extry! Extryl" "Exactly. An Indian moccasin." Mr. Peacot k ha* just published an impassioned song called " My Queen of Love." It is one of those songs which open with a low trill or two and the twitter of the Devonshire bulbul in the catnip orchard, but soon,' wirh a glad snort, jumps the fence and gallop* away across the paddock, with a tail across the literary dashboard and an Algernonian Swinburnian whinny, kicks vast holes in the greensward and on Tuesdays and Fridays may be found at home gnawing the manger and chafing to be free. Once down in the flats, their footsteps made no noise in the yielding sand, and all was silence save for the clash of the waters along the shores. Far down the river were the reflections of ono or two twinkling lights, and close under the bank in the slack water a few stars were peeping at their own images, but no boat was there, and the captain led still farther to a little copse of willow, and there in the shadows, sure enough, was a rowboat, with a little lantern dimly burning, half hidden in the stern. And Jerrold, with trembling hand and feverish haste, scats himself at the same desk whenoe on that fatal morning he sent the note that wrought such disaster, and as he ristfs and hands his missive forth, throwing wide open the shutters as he does so, his bedroom door flies open, and a whirling gust of the morning wind sweeps through fron» rear to front, and half a score of bills and billets, letters and scraps of paper, go b»"looning out upon the parade Meantime Mr. Jerrold had been making hurried preparations, as he had fully determined that at any oost he would go with the regiment. Ho had been burning a number of lettors when Caotain Armitacre knocked and hurriedly entered. Jerrold pushed forward a chair and plunged at once into the matter at issue: "Ho had been refused iDerruission to leave the post, he sairt, and could not cross the bridge, where the sentries would be sure to recognize him, but as it was our last chance of meoting he risked the discovery of his absence, never dreaming of such a thing as his private rooms being inspected. He had a little skiff down in the willows 'that he had used before, and by leaving the partj at midnight ho could get home, change his dress, run down the bank and row down stream to the point, there leavo his skiff and climb up to the road. He met us there at 1 o'clock, and the Suttous would never lx?tray either of us, though they did not know we were engaged. We sat in their parlor a quarter of an hour after we got to town, and then 'twas time to go, and there was only a littlo 10 minutes' walk down to tho stable. I had seen him such a very short time, and I had so much to tell him." Chester could have burst into rapturous applauso had she been an actress. Her clieoks were aflame, her eyes full of fire and spirit, her bosom heaving, her little foot tapping the ground, as she stood there leaning on the colonel's fence and looking straight up in the perturbed veteran's face. She was magnificent, ho said to himself, and in her bravery, self sacrifice and indignation she was. "It was then after 2, and I could just as well go with him —somebody had to bring the buggy back —and Graves himself hitched in his roan in are for me, and I drove out, picked up Mr. Jerrold at the corner, and we came out here again through the darkness together. Even when we got to the point I did not let him go at once. It was over an hour's drive. Itwas fully half past 3 before we parted. Ho sprang down the path to reach the riverside, and before ho was fairly in his boat and pulling up against tho stream I heard, far over hero somewhere, those two faint shots. That was the shooting he spoke of in his letter to mo, not to her, and what business Colonel Maynard had to read and exhibit to his oflSec-ra a letter never intended for him I canuot understand. Mr. .Terrold says it was not what he wanted it to be at all, as he wrote hastily, so he wrote another and sent that to mo by Merrick that morning after his absence was discovered. It probably blew out of the window, as these other things did this morning. See for yourself, captain." And sho pointed to the two or three bills and scraps that had evidently only recently fluttered in among the now neglected rosea. Mr. Peacock wrote a Columbian ode, which was read for the National Editorial association in Chicago. He is also author of the "Poems of the Plains," price $1, in cloth; full gilt, *1.50. Mr. Peacock has a glad free jolt to his muse, "There is no time to waste, captain. I have sent to yon to ask •what I can do to be released from arrest and permitted to go with the command." "I am glad you aro here, Mr. Rollins. You can help me—sergeant, will you kindly hiuii any horse at that post? —now," she added in low, hurried tone, "come with me to Mr. Jerrold's." "By heaven!" he mutters, "that's how it happened, is it? Look at them go 1" for going they were, in spiral eddies or fluttering skips, up the grassy "quad" and over among the rosebushes of Alioe Ren wick's garden. Over on the other side of the uarrow, old fashioned frontier fort tho men were bustling about, and their exultant, eager voices rang out on the morning air. All was life and animation, and even in Jerrold's selfish soul there rose responsive echo to tho soldiery spirit that seemed to pervade tho whole command It was their first summons to active field duty with prospective battle since he had joined, and with all his shortcomings as a "duty" officer in garrison and his many frailties of character, Jerrold was not the man to lurk in the rear when there was danger ahead It dawned on him with sudden and crushing foroe that now it lay in the power of his enemies to do him vital injury; that he oould be held here at the post like a suspected felon, a mark for every finger, a target for every tongue, while every other officer of his regiment was hurrying with his men to tako his knightly share in tho coming onset It was intolerable, s&amefuL He paced the floor of his little parlor in nervous misery, ever and anon gazing from the window for sight of his captain. It was to him he had written, ureinu that he be permitted a few moments' talk. "This is no time for a personal misunderstanding," he wrote, "J must 6ee yon at once. I can clear away tho doubts, can explain my aotion; but for heaven's sake, intercede for me with Captain Chester that I may go with the command." "Answer the questions I put to you the other night and certify to your an- He says: I'd miss your sweet kisses and fond caressing. Oh, my would at hirst to drink from your soul, Where a fountain of love is scattering its blessing In the desert of life an oasis and goal. Not only that but as thay halted at the edge of the willows put forth a warning hand and cautioned silence. No need. Rollins' straining eyes were- already fixed on two figures that were standing in the shadows not 10 feet away—one that of a tall, slender man, the other a young girl. It was a moment before Rollins could recognize either, but in that moment the girl had turned suddenly, had. thrown ber arms about the neck of the tall young man, Rollins was too stupefied to answer. Silently he placed himself by her side, and together they the group at the office. Miss Beaubien nodded with something of her old archness and coquetry to the cap raising party, but never hesitated. Together they passed along the narrow board walk, followed by curious eyes, and as they reached the anglo and stopped beneath the shelter of the piazza in front of the long, low, green blinded bachelors' row there was sudden sensation in the group. Mr. Jerrold appeared at the door of hisquar ters; Rollins halted some 50 feet away, raised hid cap and left her, and all alone, with tho eyes of Fort Sibley upon her, Nina Beaubien stepped bravely forward to meet her lover. In another verse he boldly requests this oasis and goal to Cast off the anchors that bind you, and gla-i* We will float in my bark down lili'g pa stream. As a matter of fact, Mr. Peacoc' no bark. He admitted that tome, i a dog and a shotgun, but has no bai 9 wfu D could uot steer it if he had. Mortovi , his wife told me that if he went into the oasis and goal business, or attempt*; i to drift down life's passing stream with other parties and without leaving enough stove wood chopped up for the house while he was gone, she would cave in his organ of ideality with a pinking iron. I "What can J do to be released from arrest?"They saw him greet her at the door. Some of them turned away, unwilling to look and yet unwilling to go and not understand this new phase of the mystery. Rollins, looking neither to right nor left, repassed them and walked off with a set, savage look on his young face, and then, as one or two still gazed, fascinated by this strange and difring procooding, others, too, turned back and, half ashamed uf themselves for such a yielding to curiosity, glanood furtively over at Jerrold's door. TIIE POET AT HOME. mingled with the pathos of the dying grasshopper sufferer, which has even won the approval of English bards and wrung with sympathetic anguish the sluggish pulse of their tough old briskets. swers, and of course you'll have to apologize to Captain Chester for your last night's language." Mr. Riley was down recently in the mountains of North Carolina with our old friend, Dr. Hayes of Indianapolis. They had with them a case of Milwaukee beer and a case of hay fever. As a valet the little Hoosier poet had a Hooppole county youth, whom he called "Ringworm Pete because he runs around so much. He is a strawberry roan young man, with eyes like fried eggs and the low, retreating forehead of the pickerel "That, of course, though you will admit it looked like spying. Now let me ask you. Did ho tell you who the lady was?" D'3 Yet Mr. Peacock at times rebels at fate and says that a slow and niggardly public will one day hate itself for not helping him pay his rent, and that when his wild thrush song is still in death many a tardy reader of his loping verse will come to shed the scalding and the unavailing over the wind swept grave of the silent bard, or in uncontrollable remorse to kick loose the moss agates that border the lowly mound. "Oh, what have I donef what have 1 finautt91 "How did you know?!' "By intuition and my knowledgo of previous circumstances." "No; I told him." But. there were women who deemed themselves wvrse off than Nina Beaubien—the wives and daughters and sweethearts whom she met that morn in town, for when they got back to Sibley the regiment was miles away. Far them there was not even a kiss from the lips of those they loved. Time and train waited for no woman. There were oomradoa battling for life in the (jglorado Rockies, and aid oould not come too soon. The gtri had thrown her arm* about the neck of the tall young man. And with her head pillowed on his breast was gazing np in his face. It is not nntil they reach the broad portals of the great Stewart of the west that one of their number, half incredulously, buys a copy and reads aloud: "Major Thornton, tli infantry, Captain Langham and Lieutenant Bliss, th cavalry, and 30 men are killed Captains Wright and Lano and Lieutenants Willard and Brooks, th cavalry and some 40 more men are seriously wounded The rest of the command is corralled by an overwhelming force of Indians, and their only hope is to hold out until help can reach thenf All troops along the line of the Union Pacific are already under orders." "We have no time to discuss it I make no attempt to conceal it now, but I ask that, on your honor, neither you nor he reveal it" There they stood—ho rC-strained by his arrest, unable to come forth; she, restrained moro by his barring form than by any consideration of maidenly reserve, for, had he bidden, she would have gono within. Sho had fully made up her inind that wherever ho was, even wero it behind the sentinels and bars of the guardhouse, she would demand th»t she be taken to his 6id& He had handed out a chair, but she would not sit. They saw her looking up into his face as he talked and noted the eager gesticulation, so characteristic of his Creole blood, that seemed to accompany his rapid words. They saw her bending toward him, looking eagerly up in his eves and occasionally casting indignant glances over toward the group at the office, as though sho would annihilate with her wrath the persecutors of her hero. Then they saw her stretch forth both her hands, with a quick impulsive movement, and grasp his one instant, looking so faithfully, steadfastly, loyally. intn hi* clnnrftv} nnd anxious face Then sho turned, and with quick, eager steps came tripping toward them. They stood irresolute. Every man felt that it was somebody's duty to step forward, meet her and be her escort through the party, but no one advanced There was, if anything, a tendency to sidlo toward the office door, as though to leave the sidewalk unimpeded- But sho nover sought to pass them by. With flashing eyes and crimson cheeks, sho bore straight upon them, and with indignant emphasis upon every word accosted them: "Kiss me onoe more, Howard. Then I must go," they heard her whisper. I passed through Indianapolis not long ago on the Large Four railroad, and on the train from Shelbyville we had a number of the Riley people. One old man reminded me of William Leachman, and the Liztown humorist was along, with plug tobacco in his restless jaw and cotton in his ears. Rollins seized the captain's sleeve and strove, sick at heart, to pull him back, but Chester stoutly stood his ground In the few seoonds more that they remained they saw his arms more closely Infold her. They saw her turn at the brink, and in an utter abandonment of rapturous, passionate love throw hnr arms again about his neck and stand on tiptoe to reach his faoe with her warm 11 pa. They could not fail to hear the oarening tone of her every word or to mark his receptive but gloomy silence. They ooold not mistake the voice, the farm, shadowy though it was. The girl was Nina Beaubien and the man beyond question Howard Jerrold "And continue to let the garrison believe that you were in Miss Renwick's room that ghastly night?" asked Armitago dryly. Perchance he is right Publics are ungrateful. Out of 250 admirers who have oome to gaze on me at my country home and stay to dinner this summer only eight had read my new history of the United States, and of that number six had borrowed the book of other people. One admirer tied his horse to a Japanese maple, whioh cost me $9, and the beast ate the bark all off, not having been fed since Lent. Jerrold flushed: "I have denied that, and I would have proved my alibi could I have done so without betraying a woman's secret Must I tell?" [to be continued.] As lock would have it, Armitage was with Chester at the offlco when the letter was handed in. He opened it, gave a whistle of surprise and simply held it forth to the temporary commander. Also I saw the family that seemed to be on its way baok to "Griggsby's station, back where they used to be so happy and so pore." HE DID PALL. "Bo far as I am ooncerned, Mr. Jerrold, " said Armitage, with cold and relentless meaning, "you not only must toll—you must prove—both that night's doings and Saturday night's, both that and how you obtained that photograph."And the Man Who Knew It Was I am now on the way to the northwest up the upper Mississippi, where I will visit old haunts in the valley of "Oh, isn't it dreadful?" "Read that," ho said. Chester frowned, but took tho note and looked it curiously over. The other rainy afternoon, when a dozen pedestrians had halted under the awning of a Woodward avenue store to wait for a slackup, an old man with a long gray goatee, and who was carrying an umbrella with three broken ribs, looked hard at the man beside him for a moment and then broke out with: "Yes, but aren't you glad It wasn't ours? Oh, look I There's Nina Beaubien over there in her carriage. Do let's find out if she's going to lead with Rollins." Mr. Peacock is a self made poet and I composes better with the window open and his tongue out a little way on the left hand sida He likes the breeze to blow against his hot temples, and a jug of hot water at his feet, with which he mixes a little reddish liquor from the drug stores of Kansas. Then the warm Peruvian bark blood will mantle in his ffhoplr Jtllil tflfl 1fUrt.Gr. uranafn} tnwon nnmn boiling out like the graceful links of rosy sausage at Mr. Armour's great abattoirs in Chicago. "I have no patience with tho man now," he said "Of course, after what I saw last night, I begin to understand the nature of his defense, but we don't want any such man in the regiment after thik What's the use of taking him with us?" V8e victis! Far out in the glorious park country in the heart of the Centennial State a little band of blue coats sent to sucoor a periled agent is making desperate stand against fearful odds. Less than 200 men has the exalted wisdom u( the department sent forth through the wilderness to find and, if noed be, fight its way through five times its weight in well armed foes. The officers and men have no special ouarrel with those Indians, nor the Indians with them. Only two winters before, when those same Indians were sick and starving, and their lying go betweens, the bureau employees, would give them neither food nor justice, a small band made their way to the railway and were fed on soldier food and their wrongs righted by soldier justice. But another snarl has come now, and this time the bureau people are in a pickle, and the army—ever between two fires at least, and thankful when it isn't sis—is ordered to send a little force and go out there and help the agent maintain his authority. The very night before the column reaches the borders of the reservation the leading chiefs come in camp to interview tho officers, shake hands, beg tobacco and try an their clothes, then go back to their braves and laugh as they tell there aro only a handful, and plan the morrow's ambuscade and massacre. Vso victis! There are women and children among the garrisons along tho Union Pacific whose hearts have little room for thoughts of germans in the horror of this morning's tidings. But Sibley Is miles and miles away, and, as Mrs. Wheeler says, aren't you glad it wasn't ours? "My Qodt In one oase it is a woman's name In the other I have promised on honor not to reveal it" They saw him hand her into the light skiff and hurriedly kiss her good night Onoe again, as though she could not leave him, her arms were thrown about his neck, and she clung to him with all liar strength. Then the little boat swung slowly out into the stream, the sculls -were shipped, and with practiced hand Nina Beaubien pulled forth into the swirling waters of the river, and the faint light, like slowly setting star, floated downward with tho sweeping tide and finally disappeared beyond the point. "Then when he was aroused at reveille and you threatened him with punishment and hold over his head the Btartling accusation that you knew of oor meeting and nur secret hi* naturally infinitely distressed and could only write to warn me, and ho managed to get in and say goodby to me at the station. As for me, I was back home by 5 o'clock, let myself noiselessly up to my rocm, and no one know it but the "That ends it then. You remain here in close arrest, and the charges against you will bo pushed to the bitter end. I will writo them this very hour." "Waal, thought it?" by gosh, but who'd 'a' "That isn't the point," said Armitage. "Now or never, possibly, is the time to clear up this mystery. Of oourae Maynard will be np to join us by the first train, and what won't it bo worth to him to have positive proof that all his fears were unfounded?" "Are vou speaking to me, sir?" Queried the other, who looxea to be a solid sort of a citizen, and who had about made up his mind to move on and let it rain and be hanged CHAPTEB XVL At 10 o'clock that morning, shortly after a smiling interview with the ladies of Fort Sibley, In which, with infinite spirit and the most perfect self control, Miss Beaabicn had informed them that she had promised to lead with Mr. Jerrold, and since ho was in duress she would lead with no one, and sent them off wondering and greatly excited, there came running up to the carriage a telegraph messenger boy, who handed her a dispatch. "Yaas, I was. I never expected to sot eyes on you again. Did you git over it all right?" I admire Thomas Brower Peacock because he does not get irritated over my free criticisms. He comes to me with the old warm grasp of the honest hand and the old twinkle in his eye, no matter how untrammeled my remarks on his verse may be. That shows a sweet disposition not usual with the average poet. "Even if it wasn't Jerrold, there is still the fact that I saw a man clambering out of her window. How is that to be cleared up?" said Chester gloomily. Suttona and old Graves, neither of whom would betray ma I had no fear of the long dark road. I had ridden and driven as a child all over these bluffs and prairies before thero was auy town worth mentioning and in days when my father and I found only friends—not enemies—hero at Sibley," "I think you have made a mistake, sir," said the solid man as he looked the old man over. Then Jerrold turned to leave, and Cheater stepped forth and confronted him: 1 "That may come later and won't be such a bugbear as you think. If you are not worried into a morbid condition over all this trouble, you would not look so seriously upon a thing which I regard as a piece of mere night prowling, with a possible spice of romance." "Noap—hain't made no mistake. Do you remember the 14th day of last January?""Mr. Jerrold, did I not instruct yon to confine yourself to your quarters until satisfactory explanation was made of the abeenoes with which you are charged?"This leads me to refer to James Whitoomb Riley, my old partner and comrade in the show business. I notice that some warm admirer gives Riley the place left vacant by Dr. Holmes. This is surely nnqnalified praise, yet we must pause to think how different the two men were. While the Hoosier poet may easily compare the size of their audiences, Dr. Holmes' humor was of a different and more strictly Massachusetts character. He did not care so much for practical humor as Riley does. He would be content with a pun or a conundrum, while Riley enjoys practical humor. For instance, I remember on night when our manager thought tha Anything in the line of ale, wine or *uost any kind of alcoholic or malt liquors would cast a gloom over the performance on the following day, so he spoke to the hotel people about it, and a convention of bell boys and barkeepers was instructed to send nothing but clean shirts and farinaceous food to No. 182. "Ha, ha, ha! Makes me laugh every time I think of 11 On the 14th day of last January, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you was turn in the corner up thar by the city ha.ll. I was right behind you. All to once—ha, ha, ha!" "Not particularly. What about it?" "I was going up to the avenue, mum, " he explained, ''but J seen you here." "Captain Wilton, Major Bloat, I wish to see Captain. Chester at onoe. Is he in the office?" "Miss Beaubien, let mo protest agidnst your accusation. It is not for mo to reprove your grave imprudence or recklessness, nor have I the right to disapprove your choice of Mr. Jerrold. Let me say at onco that you havo none but friends here, and if it ever should be known to what lengths vou went to save him it will, only mako him more ouvietl and you more genuinely admired. I question your wisdom; but, upon my soul, I admiro your bravery and spirit You hav D cleared him of a terrible charge." OUT OX THE LAWN. the St. Croix and the grave of old man Tidd, a large, healthy blacksmith during my boyhood days, who looked like Carver Doone. He was a dark giant, with artificial teeth which did not fit him, and which he used to file and fuss with in his blacksmith shop on Sundays and gnash at boys during the week. He came near brewing my neck eight times for catching trout in his brook, and I stopped growing whenever I saw him. He is gone now, far, far away, an » • fancy I can still hear him gnasl Jerrold started at the abrupt and unlooked for greeting, but his answer was prompt: "What romance, I'd like to know?" Nina's face paled as she toro It open and read the curt linos: "Never mind that now. I'm playing detective for the timo being. Let me see Jerrold for you and find out what he has to offer. Then you can decide. Are you willing? All right! But remember this while I think of it You admit that the light you saw on the wall Sunday night was exactly like that which you saw tbo night of your adventure, and that the shadows were thrown in the same way. You thought that night that the light was turned np and afterward turned out in her room, and that it was her figure you saw at the window. Didn't you?" "Certainly, Miss "euubien. Shall I call him, or will yC a walk in?" And both men were at her side in a moment "Not at all, sir. You gave me to understand that I was to remain here— not to leave the poet—until yon had decided on oertain points, and though I do not admit the jnstioe of your course, and though yon have put me to grave "Come to mo hero. Your help needed instantly." "Sir, what are you trying to get at?" demanded the solid man as the crowd gathered around the pair. "Thanks. I will go right in—if you will kindly show mo to him." She sprang from the carriage. "Tell mother I have gone over to see some fort friends—not to wait," she called to the coachman, well knowing he would understand that she meant the ladies with whom she had been so rooently talking. Like a frightened deer she sped around tho corner, bailed the driver of a cab, lounging with his fellows along the walk, ordered him to drive with all speed to Summit avenue, and with beating heart decided on her plan. Her glorious eyes were flashing; the native courage and fierce determination of her raoe were working in her woman's heart She well knew that Imminent danger threatened him She had dared everything for love of his mere presence, his sweet caress. What would she not dare to save him if save she oould? He had not been true to her. She knew, and know well, that, whether sought or not, Alios Ben wick bad been winning him from her, that bo was wavering, that he had been oold and negligent but with all her soul and strength she, loved him and believed him grand and brave and fine as ho was beautiful Now—now was her opportunity. Ho needed her. His commission, his honor, depended on her. He had intimated as much the night before—bad told her of the accusations and suspicions that attaobed to him—but mado no mention of the photograph. Another moment, and Armitage and Chester, deep in the mid't of their du ties and surrounded byoleika and orderlies aud assailed t y half u dozen questions in one and the same instant looked up astonished as Wilton stepped in and aanouncod Mi88 Beaubien, desiring to see Captain Chester on immediate business. There was no time for or nference. There she stood in the doorway, and all tongues weie hushed on the Instant Chester rose and stepped forward, with anxious courtesy. She did not choose to see tho extended hand. "I—I beg your pardin for laffln, but I can't help it It was the funniest sight T ever saw. All to once, as you was walkin along stiff as a poker, your right foot slid out this way, and—and—ha, ba. ha!" You are either a fool or bave bean drinking too much,'' sharply replied the solid man as ho began to back off. inoonvenlence, I obeyed the order. 1 needed to go to town today on urgent business, but between yon and Captain Armitage am in no condition to ga For all this, sir, there will come proper retribution when my colonel returns. And now, sir, you are spying upon me—spying, I say—and it only confirms what I said at yon before." A most disdainful and impatient shrug of her shapely shoulders was Miss Beaubien'sonly answer to that allusion. Tho possibility of Mr. Jerrold's be. g suspected of another entanglement was something sho would not tolerate. those marked down teeth in a subtro *1 land. He was a mighty man, God wot. With whiskers on his hands "Noap—neither drunk nor a fooL I'm jest tickled half to death. When you found yourself goin down, you pawed and clawed and slipped and skated, but it was no use. You struck the sidewalk like a ton of rock, and you fetched a grunt which—ho, ho, ho! Say, don't git mad at mo, fur I've gnt to laff or bust" "Yes. What then?" "Silence, Mr. Jerroldl This is insub ordination." "Well, I believe her statement that she saw and heard nothing until reveille. I believe it wan Mrs. Maynard who did the whole thing without Miss Renwiok's knowing anything about it" "I know nothing of other people's affairs. I simply speak of my own. Let us end this as quickly as possiblo, captain. Now about Saturday night. Mother had consented to our coming back for the german—she enjoys seeing me lead, it seems—and she decided to pay a short visit to relations at St Croix, staying there Saturday night and over Sunday. This would give us a chance to meet again, as ho could spend the evening in St. Croix and return by late train, and I wrote and asked him. He came. Wo had a long talk in the summer houso in tho garden, for mother never dreamed of his being there, and unluckily ho just missed tho night train and did not get back until inspection. It was impossiblo for him to have been at Sablon, and ho can furnish other proof, but would do nothing until he had seen me,'' "I don't care a d—n what it is, sir! 'X'nere is nothing contemptuous cnougn for me to say of you or your conduct to ma" Out at the fort there is a different scene. The morning journals and the clicking telegraph send a thrill throughout the whole command. The train has barely whistled out of sight when the ringing notes of officers' call resound through the quadrangle and over the broader drill ground beyond. Wondering, but prompt, the staid captains and eager subalterns come harrying to headquarters, and the band, that had come forth and taken its station on the parade, all ready for guard mount goes quickly back, while the men gather in big squads along the shaded row of their quarters and watch the rapid assembly at the office. And there old Chester, with kindling eyes, reads to the silent company the brief officii*1 tder. Aye, though it be miles and «. _ s away, fast as t-team and wheel can take it, the good old regiment in all its sturdy strength goes forth to join the rescue of the imprisoned comrades far in tho Colorado Rockies. "Have your entire command in readiness for immediate field service in the department of the Platte. Special train will be there to take you by noon at latestAnd though many a man has lost friend and comrade in the tragedy that calls them forth, and though many a brow clouds for the moment with the bitter news of «uch useless sacrifice, every eyo brightens, every to brace, every nerve and pulse to*throb and thrill with the glorious excitement of quick assembly and coming action. Aye, wo are miles and miles away. Wo leave the dear old post, with homes and firesides, wives, children and sweethearts, all to the caro of the few whom sickness or old wound? or advancing years render unfit for hard, sharp marching, and, thank God, we'll be there to take a hand and help those gallant fellows out of their "corral" or to have one good blow at the cowardly hounds who lured and lied to them 1 "It is you, alone, I wish to see, captain. Is it impossible heie?" Mr. Riley has a keen sense of humor, and finding that his room communicated with 160, and that the man who had 180 had gone out to make a night of it, Mr. Riley stepped in thero and at odd times used the bell of 180 with great skill, thereby irritating the manager so that he returned to NC jr York on the following day. "Why?" "I fear it is, Miss Beaubien, but we can walk oat in the open air. I feel that I know what it is vou wish to sav to mo," no added in a low tone, took his cap from the peg on which it hung and led the way. Again sho passed through the curious but respectful group and Jerrold, watching furtivoly from his window, saw them come forth. We are inclined to pity the Puritan little one of New England who knows nothing about merry Christmastide, with its rollicking games of blindman's buff, hunt the slipper, snapdragon and the like, but some of them enjoyed the practice which they called "burning the Christmas candle." This taper was a homemade affair and differed from other tallow dips only in being larger and having the wick divided at the lower end to form three legs, while at its heart was conoealed a quill well filled with gunpowder. Ou Christmas eve it was lighted, and the quaint little Puritan folk sat around telling stories and riddles until suddenly the candle went off with a tremendous explosion, n. 'ng a delightful excitement and giving the children of the colonies their only taste of uproarious holiday fun. Burning the Chriatmas Candle. "Not another word, Mr. Jerorldl Go to your quarters in arrest Mr. Rollins, you are witness to this language." "Because I accomplished the feat with the aid of the little night lamp that I found beside the colonel's bedside. It is my theory that Mrs. Maynard was restless after the oolonel finally fell asleep; that she heard your tumble and took her little lamp, crossed over into Miss Renwick's room, opened the door without creaking, as I can do to your satisfaction, found her sleeping quietly, but the room a trifle close and warm, set her night lamp down on the table, as I did, threw her shadow on the wall, as I did, and opened the shade, as you thought her daughter did. "Dion she withdrew and left those doors open— both hers and her daughter's—and the light instead of being turned down, as you thought was simply carried back into her own room." "Yes, fell right down and rolled ovet and wiped up the sidewalk and cussed and ripped like a—ha, ha, ha! Don't you remember that I got you by the coattails and tried to—to—ho, ho, ho!" "I fell down, did I?" But Rollins was not Turning from the spot in blankness of heart before a word was uttered between them, he followed the waning light with eyes full of yearning and trouble. He trudged his way down along the sandy shore until he came to the silent waters of the slough and oould go no farther, and then he sat him down and covered his faoe with his hands. It was pretty hard to bear. Holmes had none of this dry, crisp humor, but oared more for a subtle and delicate play upon words than a play upon a lecture manager or hotel proprietor.The captain turned to her as soon as they were out of earshot: "No, sir, I don't, and you ought to bo sent to a fool asylum!" shouted the other. "Who are you anyhow, and how dare vou insult me in this manner?" "I havo no daughter of my own, my dear young lady, but if I had I could not moro thoroughly feel for you than I da How can I help you?" ".Name's hotter," replied the old man as he wiped the tears from his eyes —"name's Potter, and I couldn't help laffiu if you killed me. When I tried to git you up, I fell down oa top of you, and the way you did kick and claw and rip was jest—ho, ho, ho! Don't you re■uember that a polioeman"— Yesterday I met an old citizen of Hudson, Wis., who asked me all about Mr. Riley. He seemed to feel a great interest in both of us, so I asked him if he read our books. Tho rei)ly was unexpectedly spirited. Ho h«d fcought to encourage and sustain her, bo sympathetic and paternal; but as he afterward ruefully admitted, he "never did seem to get tho hang of a woman's temperament" Apparently sympathy was not tho thing sho needed. Tuesday still, and all manner of things bad happened and wore still to happen in the harrying hours that followed Sunday night The garrison woke at Tuesday's reveille in much perturbation of spirit, as has been said, but by 8 o'clock and breakfast time ono cause of perplexity was at an cud. Relief had oome with Monday afternoon and Alico Benwick's letter saying sue would not attend the german, and now still greater relief in the news that sped from mouth to mouth—Lieutenant Jerrold was in close arrest. Armitage and Chester had been again in consultation Monday night, said the gossips, and something new had been discovered— Do one knew just what—and the toils had settled upon Jerrold'h handsome head, and now be was to be tried. As usual in such cases, the news came in through the* kitchen, and most officers heard it at the breakfast table from tho lip. of their better halves, who could hardly find words to express their sentiments aa to the inability of their lords to explain the new phase of the situation. When the first sergeant of Company B came around to Captain Armitage with the siokbook soon after (i in the morning the captain briefly directed him to transfer Lieutemint Jerrold on the morning report from present for duty to "in arrest," and no sooner was it known at the quarters of Company B than it began to work back to officers' row through the medium of the servants •ad strikers. CHAPTER XV. "Miss Beaubien, you havo cleared him. I only wish that you could clear —every one." fie bod said that, though nothing ooald drag from him a word that would compromise her, she might be called npon to stand 'twixt him and ruin, and now perhaps the hour had ooma She ooald free, exonerate, glorify him, and in doing so claim hlta for her own. Who. af-er this, oould stand 'twixt her and him} He loved her, though ho had bMa oold, aad she? fiad he bidden her bow h#r dusky bead to earth and kiss the print of his heel she would have obeyed oould she but feel sure that her reward would be 9 simple touch of hi* hand, an assuranoe that no other woman ogulcULad a moment's bis lore. Verily, ho had been doing d«sp*ratp wooing in the long winter, for the very depths of her nature were all athrob with lovo for him. And now he oould no loneer nlead that Dovertr withheld his offer of his hand. She would Boon be mistress of her own little fortune, and at her mother's death of an independence. Go to him she would, and on wings of tho wind, and go she did. The cab released her at the gato to her home and went back with a double fare that set the driver to thinking. She sped through the house and out the rear doors, much to the amaze of cook and others who were in consultation In the kitchen. She dew down a winding flight of stairs to the level below, and her fairy feet went tripping over the pavement of a plebeian street. A quick turn, and she was at a little second rate stable, whose proprietor knew her and started from his chair. "What's wrong today, Miss Nina?" "I want the roan mare and light buggy again—quick as you can. Your own price at tho old terms, Mr. Graves—silence. " "No," he said. "I never read much after erry one of ye, bnt I saw ye when Riley visited ye here at Hudson for a few weeks, and both of ye was out on the lawn with an umbrella apieoe, and 4 plug hat, playin two old cat with a yarn ball in a pourin rain, and I says to myself surely Hudson is a favored spot, for I never saw two such d d fools in one inoloeure, and no charge for admission. " "No, sir. No, sir I If you weren't an Did man and drunk on top of that, I'd give you one on tho jaw. The idea of Insulting me in this fashion!" "I am in nowise concerned in that other matter to which you havo alluded; neither is Mr. Jerrold May I say to him at onuo that this ends his persecution?""That is all possibla But how about the man in her room? Nothing was stolen, though money and jewelry wore lying around looae. If theft was not the object, what was?" "It is late in tho day to ask such a question, Captain Chester. You have done great wrong and injustice. The question is now, Will you undo It?" Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr., formerly minister to Sweden, describes the Swedish Christmas thus: "Ono wintry afternoon, at jul-tide, I had been skating on a pretty lake, Dalsjon, three miles from Gottenburg. On my way home I noticed at every farmer's house wo passed there was erected in the middle of the dooryard a pole, to the top of which was bound a large, full sheaf of fftai)i. 'Why is this?' I asked of my comrade. 'Ob, that's for the birds, the little wild birds I They must have a Christmas, too, you know.' There is not a peasant in all Sweden who will sit down with his children to a Christmas dinner within doors till he hai first raise - aloft a Christmas dii:n«i for the little birds that live in tlie cold and snow without' " The Birds' Christmas. "Didn't you fall down?" "I have slipped down, but what of He was too surprised to speak for a moment When his tongue was unloosed, he said: Tho captain smiled. "You certainly deserve to be the bearer of good tidings. I wish ho may appreciate it" it?" "Theft certainly was not, and I'm not prepared to say what was, but I have reason to believe it wasn't Miss Renwick." "Nuthin, only—ha, ha, ha! Funniest blamed sight I ever beheld. Of all tho pawiu and clawin and rippin I ever heard tell of—ho, ho, ho! Goin away?" Another moment, and she had left him and sped back to Jerrold's doorway. lie was there to meet her, and Chester looked with grim and uncertain emotion at the radiauco in her face. He had to get b; «ek to the office and to pass them; so, as Evilly as ho could, considering the weight of wrath and contempt he felt for tho man, ho stopped and spoke: "I shall bo glad to be convinced I was wrong." But we were then loss than 40 years of age. We are more serious now. "Anything to provo it?" •■1 Know attxo ot army justice or army laws, Captain Chester, but when a girl is compelled to tako this step to rescue a friend there is something brutal about them, or tho men who enforce them. Mr. Jerrold tells me that ho is arrested I knew that last night, but not until this morning did ho consent to let me know that he would bo court martialod unless ho oould prove where ho was tho night you were officer of tho day two weeks ago and last Saturday night Ho is too noblo and good to dofend himself when by doing so ho might harm pia But I am hero to free him from tho cruel suspicion you havo formed." Sho had quickened her Step, and in her impulsiveness and agitation they were almost at the end of the walk. He hesitated, as though reluctant to go along under the piazza, but sho was imperious, and he yielded. "No, comol" she said. "I mean that you shall hear tho whole truth, and that at once I do not expect you to understand or condone my conduct, but you must acquit him. We are engaged, and—I love him. Ho has enemies hero, as I see all too plainly, and they havo prejudiced mother against him, and sho has forbidden my seeing him. I came out to tho fort without her knowledge one day, and it angered her. From that time she would not let mo see him alone. She watched every moyement and came with me "Nono o' your business, sir. Don't you over dare to speak to me again, or I may forget that you aroan old man." Still Riley is different from Holmea "Yes, and, though time is precious and I cannot show you, you may take my word for tfc We mast bo off at noon, and both of us have much to do, but there may bo no other chance to talk, and before you leave this post I want you to realize her utter innocence.'' Once on the "-state fail, grounds at Indianapolis an elderly Hoosier came up to our manager and said: "But you—you fell down!" protested tho old man. "What if I did?" MEjtcnse me, but ain't that little benoh leg feller over there the Hoosier poet?" "And you—yon struck with an awful squat and rolled over the sidewalk and busted your suspenders and—ha, ha, ha! If I live a thousand years, I shall never forgit it. Say, don't go yit Let's hov a leetlo moro talk about it. You feoe"— "I want to, Arinitaga " "Your fair advocate has been all powerful. Mr. Jerrold. I congratulate you, and your arrest is at an end. Captain Annitago will require no duty of you until wo aro aboard, but we've only half an hour. The train is coming sharp at noon." "Yes," says Mr. Walker, "but he oan't hear muoh of anything in ono ear, and the other is plum gone. On that aide he hasn't heard his own loudest thoughts for years. If you speak to him, you must let your voice out." "I know you do, so look hera We assume that tho same man paid the night visit both here and at Sablon, and that he wanted to seo tho same person— if ho did not come to steal; do we not?" But tho solid man raised his umbrella and walked rapidly away, and when it was seen that ho would not return the old man leaned up against the wall and said to those who lingered: So the man with the copperas hair and solferino whiskers stole up to him in a wild bleat 6hot this remark into Riley's ear: Declined With Thanks. "Yes." "Train! What train? Where aro you going?" sho asked, a wild anxiety in her eyes, a sudden pallor on her face. How the "assembly" rings on the morning air! How quick they spring to the ranks, those eager bearded faces and trim blue clad forms I How buoyant and brisk even the elders soem as the captains speed over to their company quarters and the quick, stirring orders are given: "Field kite; all tho cooked rations you have on hand; overcoat, blanket, extra socks and underclothes; every cartridge you've got; haversack and canteen and nothing else. Now get ready—lively!" How irrepressible is the cheer that goes up I How we pity the swells of the light battery who have to stay! How wistful those fellows look, and how eagerly they th/ong about the barracks, yearning to go, and, since that is denied, praying to bo of use in some "We know that at Bablon it was Mrs. Maynard he sought and called. The colonel says bo. " "We are ordered post hasto to Colorado, Nina, to rescue what is left of Thornton's men. But for you I should havo been left behind." "I didn't mean to hurt his feelin's. I never hurt nobody's feeliu's a-purpoee. I was jest behind him, you know, and ho was glidin along like a orowbar on runners, when all to once his feet skated this way and that way and—ha, ha, ha! Say, boys, I can't help it I would help it if I could, but I've got to git a brace fur my foet and let 'er go—ha, b... ha!" ••Is this Mr. Riley?" ,N "Presumably, then, it was she—not her daughter—ho had some reasons for wanting to soo here at 8ibley. What is more, if he wanted to boo Miss Benwick, there was nothing to prevent his going right into her window?" "Yea" The poet offered hirn tho other ear, at the same time looking at him with large blue, wondering, childlike eyoa People stepped back out.of range to give the man with the voice a chance, and ho repeated the query in a way that shook the blue ribbon of the large iron gray Rosa Bonheur stallion across tho plaza. n i "But for me! left behind!" sho cried "Oh, Howard, Howard! have I on'y— only won you to send you into danger? Oh, my darling! Oh, God, don't—don't go! They will kill you! It will kill me! Oh, what havo I done? what have 1 done?'' It was the sole topic of talk for a full boor. Many ladies who had intended going to town by the early train almost periled their chances of catching the lame in thoir eagerness to hear further details. "Nothing." "Well, I believe I oan prow be didn't, On the contrary, that he went around by tho roof of the porch to the colonel's room and tried there, but found it risky on account of tho blinds, and that finally he entered the hall window—what might be callid neutral ground. The painters had been at work "Is this Mr. Riley?" And tho others also "let 'er go," and the rain ceased falling, and tho sun came out, and everybody in Detroit felt happy with the exception of the solid man. Ho sat in his offico and was mad because he didn't wipe the earth with that old man's carcass.—Detroit free JPreea. The poet said softly as ho squirmed a little closer, "I can't hear what ye say." "Nina, hush! My honor is with the regiment. I muDt go, child. We'll be back in a few weeks. Indeed 1 fear 'twill all bo over before wo get there. Nina, don't look sot Don'tactso! Think where vou are!" Mr. Chrome—I'm so glad you lil the paintiug, Miss Ethel I But the shriek of the whistle far qp the valley broke up the group that was ao busily chatting and speculating over in the quadrangle, and with shy yet He nodded, called to a subordinate and in five minutes handed her into the frail vehicle. An impatient chirrup and flan of the reins, and the roan shot About 800 people wcro now around there waiting to see what would happen, twd the man with the pounding maghine, for telling how much a blows She—Oh, it's perfectly lov you must let me return the 1 nit mamma does not allow me to accept v uable presents from gentlemen.—Lit. E, t |
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