Bellefonte, Pa., October 4, 1912. 0 FRECKLES By Gene Stratton Porter COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY DOUBLEDAY, PACE & CO. SYNOPSIS. Freckles, a homeless boy, is hired by Boss McLean to guard the expensive ber in the Limberlost from timber thieves. Freckles does his work faithfully, makes friends with the birds and yearns to know more about nature. He lives with Mr. and Mrs. Duncan. He resolves to get books and educate himself. He becomes interested in a huge palr of vultures and calls his bird friends his “chickens.” Some of the trees he is guarding are worth $1,000 each. Freckles’ books arrive. He receives a call from Wessner. Wessner attempts to bribe Freckles to betray his trust, and Freckles whips him. Mclean ovevhears them and witnesses the it. Freckles’ honesty saves a precious tree. He finds the nest of the vultures and is visited by a beautiful young girl. Bhe calls Freckles McLean's son. Freckles calls her “the angel” and helps the Bird Woman in taking photographs. McLean promises to adopt Freckles. angel friendly. Assisted by the Bird Woman, they drive Weasner and Black Jack, tim- ber thieves, from the Limberlost. McLean fears more trouble, but Freckles insists upon being the sole guard of the Hinger. Freckles calls upon the angel's ther. The angel receives him as her equal, and her father is kind. Mrs. Duncan has ex- citing adventures in the Limberlost. The Bird Woman and the angel again visit Freckles, and Freckles falls in love with the angel. The angel kisses him. Freckles is bound and gagged by Black Jack's gang, and the timber thieves start felling a very valuable tree. Wessner is to kill Freckles after the tree is stolen. The angel makes a daring effort to save Freckles and the tree. McLean's men, notified by the angel, rush to save Freckles. All the timber thieves except Black Jack are captured. [Continued from last week.] CHAPTER XVII NURRING A HEARTACHE, ‘LEAN rode down to the Lim- herlost and, stopping In the shade, sat waiting for Freckles. Aiong the north line came Freckles, fairly staggering. When he turned east and reached Sleepy Snake creek. slid- ing through the swale like the long black snake for which it was named, he sat down on the bridge and closed his burning eyes, but they would not stay shut. As if pulied by wires, the beavy lids flew open and the outraged nerves and muscles of his body danced, twitched and tingled. He bent forward and idly watched the limpid little stream flowing be- neat his feet. Stretching back into the swale, it came creeping between an impenetrable wall of magnificent wild flowers, vines and ferns. Milk- weed. goldenrod, fironwort,* fringed gentians, cardinal flowers and turtle head stood on the very edge of the creek, and every flower of them grew a double in the water. Wild clematis erowned with snow the heads of trees scattered here and there along the bank. Freckles sat so still that presently the brim of his hat was covered with snake feeders, rasping their crisp wings and singing as they rested. Some of them settled on the club and one on his shoulder. He was so quiet and feathers, fur and gauze were so accustomed to him that all about the swale they went on with their daily life and forgot he was there. The heron family waded about the mouth of the creek. Freckles idly wondered whether the nerve racking rasps they occasionally emitted indi- cated domestic felicity or a raging quarrel. A sheitpoke, with flaring crest, went stalking across a bare space near the creek's mouth. A stately brown bittern waded out into the clear flowing water, lifting his feet high at every step and setting them down gingerly, as if he dreaded wet- ting them, and, with slightly parted beak, stood eagerly watching about him for worms. - Behind him were some mighty trees of the swamp above, and below the bank glowed a solid wall of goldenrod. No wonder the ancients had chosen yellow as the color to represent vic- tory, for the fierce, conquering hue of the sun was in it. They had done well, too, in choosing purple as the color of royalty. It was a dignified, compelling color, and in its warm tone there was a hint of blood. It was the Limberlost's hour to pro- claim her sovereignty and triumph, Everywhere she flaunted her yellow banner and trailed the purple of her mantle, that was paler in the thistle heads, took on strength in the first opening asters, and glowed and burned in the ironwort. Compellingly beautiful was the Lim- berlost, but cruel withal; far back in there bleached the uncoffined bones of her victims, and she had missed cra- dling him, oh, so narrowly! Below the turtle log, a dripping silver gray head, with shining eyes, was cau- tiously lifted, and Freckles’ hand slid around to his revolver. Higher and of Freckles looked at his shaking and doubted, but he forces, the shot rang out, lay still. He hurried down to lift it. alize the fact that he was well up to the limit of human endurance. He could bear it little, if any, longer. Every hour the face of the angel wav- ered before him, and behind it the awful distorted image of Black Jack. as he swore to the punishment he would mete out to her. Freckles stopped when he came to the first guard, and telling him of his luck, asked him to go for the otter and carry it up to the cabin, as he was anxious to meet McLean. Freckles passed the second guard without seeing him, and hurried up to the boss. He stood silent under the eyes of McLean, The boss was dumfounded. Mrs. Duncan had led him to expect that he tim- | would find Freckles in a bad way, but this was almost deathly. The fact was apparent that the boy scarcely knew what he was doing. His eyes had a glazed, farsighted look in them, that wrung the heart of the man that loved him. Without a thought of pre- liminaries McLean leaned in the sad dle and drew Freckles up to him. “My poor lad!” he sald. “My poor, dear lad; tell me, and we will try to right it!" Freckles had twisted his fingers in Nellie's mane. At the kind words his face dropped on' McLean's thigh and he shook with a nervous chill. McLean gathered him closer and waited. “Freckles,” said McLean at last, “will you tell me, or must I set to work in the dark and try to find the trouble?” “Oh, I want to tell you! I must tell you, sir,” shuddered Freckles. “I can- not be hearing it the day out alone. I was comi.z to yon when IT remim- bered you would be here.” He lifted his face and gazed off across the swale, with his jaws set hard a minute, as if gathering his forces. Then he spoke, “It's the angel, sir,” he said. Instinctively McLean's grip on him tightened. “l tried hard the other day,” said Freckles, “and 1 couldn't seem to make you see. It's only that there hasn't been an hour. waking or sleep- ing, since the day she parted the bushes and looked into me room, that the face of her hasn’t been before me in all the tinderness, beauty and mis- chief of it. She talked to me friendly like. She trusted me entireiy to take right care of her. She helped me with things nbout me hooks. She tralted me like | was born a gintleman, and shared with me like | was of her own blood. She walked the streets of the town with me before her friends with all the pride of a queen. She forgot herself and didn't mind the Bird Woman, and run big risks to help me out that first day, sir. This last time she walked into that gang of murderers, took their leader and twisted him to the will of her. She outdone him and raced the life almost out of her trying to save me. “Since I can remimber, whatever the thing was that happened to me in the beginning has been me curse. I've been bitter, hard and smarting under it hopelessly. She came by and found me voice and put hope of life and suc- cess like other men into me in spite of it Freckles held up his maimed arm. “Look at it, sir!” he said. sand times I've cursed it, hanging there helpless. She took it on street, before all the people, just as she didn’t see that it was hide and shrink again I've had the if I didn’t entirely forget it, that she didn’t see it was gone and I must pull her sleeve and be pointing it her. Her touch on it like, at times since I've your son she couldn't be treating me more as her equal, and she can’t help knowing you ain't truly me father. Nobody can know the ugliness or the ignorance of me better than I do and all me lack of birth, home, relatives and money and what's it all to her?” Freckles stepped back from McLean, The Pennsylvania State College. The : Pennsylvania : State : EDWIN ERLE SPARKS, Ph.D, L.L. D., PRESIDENT Established and maintained by the joint action of the United States Government and the FIVE GREAT SCHOOLS—Agriculture, Science, offi Education—TUITION FREE to both sexes; incidental Mining, and Natural erate. First semester middle of Sep ; second semester the of February; nor Sy mide, of Sepiomber; secoldl seliester tie first of each year. For catalogue, 57-26 bulletins, announcements, etc., address THE REGISTRAR, State College, Pennsylvania, i eww herself past bearing to save me such an easy thing as death! . here’s me, a man, a big, strong and letting her live under that fearful oath. so worse than any death ‘twould be for her, and lifting not a finger to save her. 1 cannot bear fit, sir. It's killing me by inches! If any evil comes to her through Black Jack it comes from her angel like goodness to me, Somewhere he's hiding! Somewhere he is waiting his chance! Somewhere he is reaching out for her! I tell you TI cannot, T dare not be bear- ing it longer!” “Freckles, be quiet!" said McLean, his eyes humid. understand. [I know the angel's father well. I will go to him at once. I have transacted business with him for the last three years. | will make him see! I am only just beginning to realize your agony and the real danger there is for the angel. 1 will see that she is fully protected every hour of the day and night until Jack is located and disposed of. And 1 promise you further that If I fall to move her father or make him understand the danger | will maintain a guard over her until Jack is caught.” McLean slid from Nellie's back, and went to examine the otter. “What do you want to do with It, Freckles?’ asked McLean. “Do yon known that it is very valuable?” “l was for almost praying so, sir,” sald Freckles. “As I saw it coming up the bank 1 thought this: Once some- where in a book there was a picture of a young girl, and she was just a breath like the beautifulness of the angel. Her hands were in a muff as big as her body, and I thought it was so pretty. I think she was some queen, or tho like. Do you suppose I could have this skin tanned and made into such a muff as that—an enormous big one, sir?" “Of course you can,” said McLean. “That's a fine iden and it's easy enough. It would be a mighty fine thing for you to give to the angel as a little reminder of the Limberlost be- fore it is despoiled, and as a souvenir of her trip for you.” Freckles lifted a face with a glow of happy color creeping into it and eyes lighting with a former brightness. Throwing his arms about McLean, he cried “Oh, how I love you! Oh, I wish I could make you know how 1 love you!" ‘ McLean strained him to his breast. “God bless you, Freckles,” he said. “l do know! We're going to have some good old times out of this world together, and we can’t begin too soon. Would you rather sleep first, or get a bite of lunch and have the drive with me, and then rest? | don’t know but sleep will come sooner and deeper to take the ride and bave your mind set at ease before you lie down. Suppose you go." “Suppose ] do,” said Freckles, with a glimmer of the old light in his eyes and newly feund strength to shoulder the otter. Together they turned into the swale. McLean noticed and spoke of the big black chickens. “They've been hanging round out! there for several days past,” said Freckles. “I'll tell you what I think it means. I think the old rattler has killed something too big for him to swallow, and he's keeping guard and won't let me chickens have it. I'm just sure, from the way the birds have acted out there all summer, that it is the rattler's den. You watch them [Continued on page 7, Col. 1.) ——— HE Hardware. Quality Counts. Dockash Stoves always please. You re- duce your coal bills one-third with a Dockash. OLEWINE’S Hardware Store, 57-25tf BELLEFONTE, PA College Engineering, Liberal Arts, thirty-six courses of four years Industrial Art and Physical charges mod- first “Belleve me, I did not | country The Country Mother. Pimples The splendid racial heri . 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