6
HOMELESS AND CHILDLESS.
**l am homeless and childless," I lieard a
man say
AJI I sought my own fireside at close of the
day,
'"But of gold I have plenty and friends by
the score,
And what, my good sir, can a man want
more?"
Acd he laughed as he turned on his way
to the club.
Js«cause he knew not of dire poverty'? rub;
jtad because the world flattered and petted
and feared
Hlmtelf for the fortune his hands had up
reared.
But, alas! how empty and hollow the sound,
And how sad seemed the life so imperfectly
crowned!
And 1 wept, as 112 flew to the arms of my
own.
For the sadness and sorrow of living alone.
For, alone in the darkness of life without
Ood,
Or alone in tVie paths which our Saviour
has trod,
Or alone in suffering, sorrow or shame,
Or alone In weak purpose, alone In high
aim,
Th«re Hveth no sorrow, 'mid sorrows so
rife,
lAkr a lonely and loveless fragment of life.
"1 am homeless and childless." It rang in
my ears
EJk e the wail of a wanderer lost on the
years.
No wife to befriend thee when friendship
has done,
T» whist i-r s:. Mvn t:> : "Dc*ar heart, there
is on-e
Who lovi sand bell vis and trusts In thee
still;"
To rejoice in thy joy when thou passest
the ill?
No wife to inspire, advise and uplift?
fjnloved and alone, unclaimed and adrift?
"I am homeless and childless." It beat on
my brain
With the chill of the sleet In a November
rain.
"Homeless and childless?" No bairns of
thine own,
To be blood of thy blood, and bone of thy
bone?
No little ones running to hide in thine
arms,
Safe harbor of refuge from endless alarms?
No fat, chubbj Irinds to creep o'er thy
cheek,
No sweet, childish prattle of I.atln or
Greek?
But, homeless and childless, unanchored
and tossed,
a bark on the sea when the compass
is lost.
—V. Vincent Jones, in Banner of Gold.
112 Tlic Trouble &
on the Toronto.
i BY FRANCIS LYNDE.
*V_ (Copyright vm. by Francis IQW.) J
CHAPTEII XIII. CONTINUED.
The morning of the last Sunday in
September dawned bright and clear.
A hunting party coming from North
Park had stopped over night at the
settlement, anil one of its members,
a young clergyman from the east,
be Id a religious service in the school
house. As I learned afterward, the
young man had no lack of hearers.
Anything in the way of a religious
meeting was a novelty in the seques
tered valley, and the settlement
turned out almost to a man. Wini
fred went with Mrs. Selter; Angus
was there with his cowboys, and
there- was even a goodly sprinkling of
the workmen from the engineer's
camp.
For reasons of my own which were
not grounded in any cynical preju
dice, I did not go. To tell the truth,
I was growing anxious about Selter.
There was a mystery connected with
bis movements reaching back to a
certain evening when I chanced to see
him coming down from the northern
.gulch beyond the hog-back with a
burden which he carried as one car
ries a sick child. The following
morning I had found a new-made
grave—or at least a place where
eamet.hing had been freshly buried—
12* the embankment of the great
«3tnal; and when my morning stroll
np the gorge beyond the liog-back
<?tided at the door of Wykamp's pow
der magazine. Iliad warned Angus
to be prepared to prove an alibi at
eny hour of the day or night. As a
corollary to all this 1 watched Selter
beagle-wise.
Ou the Sunday morning, therefore,
a small thing kept me from going to
the schoolhou.se with Winifred and
Mrs. Selter. It was a fact brought
out by my field glass. On the higher
slope.s of the hog-back 1 had eliant&d
to descry a moving speck making its
way westward toward the upper can
yon; in the object glass oi the binoc
ular it defined itself as a man zig-
across the ridge with a heavy
burden of some kind on liis back. It
was Selter, and the mystery might
then have pointed to its own solution
if I bad not been so deeply engrossed
tn Muepherson's affair. The time for
thn trial was drawing near, and if I
watched Selter li.Ke a paid sliadower
«£ men, it was chiefly because I
feared he might, disappear before the
•critical moment. This going afield
-with a baek'.oad had the look of it.
Doubtless he was preparing a hiding
place somewhere in the mountains to
which he could retreat at need.
The schoolhouse meeting had be
gnn when 1 lost sight of the moving
• peck and lighted my pipe to weigh
the promisings of an attempt to fol
low Selter. From my chair on the
porvh I could hear the singing <|iiit,e
distinctly above the murmur of the
river in its bed across the road. The
autumn storms were delayed, and the
weather for a fortnight had been
cool. In consequence the water was
low and its thunder was softened un
til the cataract pouring over the
•wajste weir of the completed dam was
cSeariy audible. Up among the west
ern peaks the clouds were gather
ting; and I remember thinking that
Wyk amp must be relieved to know
that the season for cloudbursts was
fairly over for the year.
The thought had scarcely taken
shape when the man himself came
•AMing by. As cuce before, aux.iet.ir
was in his face, *>; it this time his gaze
was not upon the river. It was fixed
upon the cloud wraiths hanging over
the western peaks, and he rode as one
who lets liis horse find out the way.
The hither shoulder of the hog-back
had scarcely hidden him before I
heard a stir in the house and the gen
tle closing of a door. A moment
later 1 saw Nan making her way
across the upper field, and thought
1 divined her purpose. She had seen
the engineer pass the house; had
guessed that he was on his way to
the dam, and had taken this chance,
her last chance it might be, of find
ing him alone to plead once again for
justice.
It seemed a pity that the girl
should have to fight such a hopeless
battle alone. I know not, nor shall
ever know, if she believed that he was
free to marry her. Hut such poor
amends a.s money may make should
at least be hers; and at the apex of
this thought I determined to follow
her, and to do what a man and a law
yer might do to help her.
When 1 came in sight of the high
wall of masonry cutting the upper
canyon across, the thunder was a-roll
in the upper air. 1 could hear the
mutter anil growl of it, and the vivid
sun brightness of the day, and the
clear arch of the sky, with no
other hint of a storm abroad, gave
it a weird effect. The water of the
diminishing torrent was pouring over
the waste weir; and, as on that night
when 1 had crept trembling across
the flume bridge, the engineer was
perched upon his barrier, gazing
down at the flood.
Nan was on the trail below, just
where Macplierson had drawn rein on
the night of the explosion, and when
I came in sight she was calling to
Wykamp. I was too far away to hear
what she was saying, and the thunder
of the waste weir must have made
her words inaudible to the engineer;
but her impassioned gestures were
eloquent. She was pleading with him
or warning him, 1 know not which,
and while I looked Wykamp signed
assent and turned to retrace his
steps to the nearest abutment.
I thought it might be as well to
hold aloof until the time for inter
ference should be fully ripe, and
climbed to a perch on the steep slope
where 1 should be out of their sight
when they met. None the less, I
watched the engineer narrowly, and
when he stopped midway of the dam
in the attitude of one listening in
tently, I listened, too. Above the
thunder of the waste a hoarser roar
filled the air, coming suddenly but
persisting like the sustained jar of a
distant explosion. Like the lion's
roar, the sound once, heard is unmis
takable. It was a cloudburst, and the
test i.f the great wall of masonry
was fairly upon it.
Wykamp hesitated but tin instant,
and in that instant a man darted out
of the mouth of the outlet tunnel on
the opposite side of the canyon and
began to climb the mountain side as
one who flies danger. It was Jacob
Selter. and 1 took it he had been try
ing to ambush the engineer. He, too,
had heard the ominous roar of the
oncoming flood, and whatever his ob
ject had been he had apparently
abandoned it to seek safety. It is
doubtful if Wykamp saw him. The
man in the engineer—there is a man
hidden in whatsoever outward husk
of depravity poor humanity walks
abroad —was alive at last, and he was
racing down in great leaps and
bounds toward the girl standing in
the very shadow of the towering wall.
While 1 looked, he reached her, gath
ered her in his arms and carried her
swiftly aside and up the hither slope,
and when he finally stumbled and fell
with her there was a margin of safety
behind them.
1 held my breath and my heart
skipped a beat when I beheld the
dark wall of water, brown and debris
laden, rushing down the upper can
yon upon the great stone barrier.
It seemed incredible that any work of
man could withstand the impact of
such a terrible battering ram; and 1
climbed still higher, though my perch
was well above the level of the reser
voir. The engineer had more cour
age. or a better confidence in his own
work. He had risen and lifted Nan
to her feet, and together they stood
and watched the huge brown wall of
water leap high in air to fling itself
over the stone coping of the dam.
The masonry stood the shock like a
wall of living rock. The brown cata
ract choked the waste weir and
poured many feet deep over the top
of the dam, filling the channel below
until at its maximum the foaming
torrent was lapping at the feet of
the man and the woman standing on
the half-buried bowlder on the hither
slope, but they did not move.
It was while the flood was roaring
its loudest that I chanced to lift my
eyes to the opposite cliff where Sel
ter had disappeared. To my horror
I saw him plunging recklessly down
the declivity toward the submerged
dam, and his frenzied yells came to
me above the clamor of the waters.
Not until that great day when the
books shall be opened will his motive
be revealed, but the pointing of it
was clear enough. He was making
frantic haste to reach the couple in
the ravine below, and striving to an
ticipate by shriek anil wild gestures
the warning he was bringing.
When he reached the stream's
brink there was but one way to cross,
and he took it without an instant's
pause. The yellow-red arch of the
flood springing clear from the edge
of the dam was subsiding, but it was
at least two feet deep over the ma
sonry when he plunged in and be
gan to waile across. For a dozen pal
pitant heart-beats 1 thought he would
make it; and then the end came.
■\ huge column of mud and water
shot up behind the dam like a mighty
geyser-jet; there was a deep growl
r>f imprisoned thunder; a nauseating
CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1902.
shock that seemed to kill the very
air; and the great wall of masonry
toppled outward and downward,
crumbling like sand in the forefront
of the flood that gathered j t*•* 1 112 for
the onrush to the doomed valley be
low. 1 closed my eyes in the sicken
ing horror of it, and when I opened
them 1 was alone with the clamorous
waters. The bowlder where Wykamp
and Nan had been standing was gone,
and in its bed the angry flood was
cutting a wider and still wider chan
nel in the loose shale of the canyon
slope.
CHAPTER XIV.
"BETTER THE END OF A THING—"
The flood subsided quickly, almost
as quickly as it had risen, and I
made my way down the canyon in
the track of it, nerveless and horror
shaken. The sun was shining as
brightly as before, and the Sabbath
stillness was in the air. It.seemed
inconceivable that, but a few mo
ments before, the great ravine had
been the scene of a tragedy in which
three lives had gone out like match
flares in a tornado. In the basin be
tween the mountain and the hog
back, flumes, ditches and trail had
disappeared, and the very face of
nature was changed. Where Mac
pherson's placer bar had been there
was now a gullying eddy; and a new
bar had formed farther down the
stream.
I was obliged to head the northern
gulch to reach the gap in the hog
back, and when the strath of the set
tlement came in view I scarcely recog
nized it. The tidal wave released by
the crumbling dam had been checked
for an instant by the narrow gap in
the ridge, and its charge upon the
tilled lands beyond had been like the
bursting of a second barrier. I can
compare the devastation to nothing
but the track of a crevasse on the
lower Mississippi. Seller's holding,
and the two farms adjoining, were
swept clean, not only of buildings
and fences, but of the very so., in the
fields. Ditches were gone, boundaries
obliterated, the great barrack below
the engineer's camp was demolished,
and as far as "the eye could reach
down the valley the main canal was
filled and leveled until its course
could scarcely be traced. But for
the gathering at the sehoolhouse on
the knoll, the loss of life must have
been terrible; and as it was, I could
scarcely hope that the tragedy of
which I had been an awe-stricken
witness was the only one.
When I topped the shoulder of the
hog-back the sehoolhouse knoll and
the bit of road beyond the flood level
were black with hurrying figures.
Maepherson was the first to meet me
as I picked my way across what, a
few minutes earlier, had been the
Selter infield. His greeting wis an
incoherent upbubbling of thankful
ness, since he had taKen it for grant
ed that I had been swept away with
the Selter house. There was no time
for explanations, and I made none.
Angus told me where to find his
team and buckboard, and, asking me
to look after the women at the
sehoolhouse, hurried away to organ
ize a rescue party. I found the team,
did what there was to be done, and
when the excitement had a little sub
sided took Winifred in the buckboard
and set out to find shelter for her
and for myself. We found accommo
dation at tiie Byres ranch, whose
house was farthest removed from the
scene of devastation, and there con
tented ourselves as best we might
while the details of the disaster
trickled in by littles. It was soon dis
covered that, only Selter aud his
daughter and the engineer were miss
ing, but it was not until the evening
of the following day that Angus
came to make his report. I saw him
coming and went a few rods down
the road to meet him.
"Two, sure, and a possible third,"
he said, anticipating my query.
"They're all accounted for except
three, and two of the three were
found on the bar below the engi
neer's camp this afternoon."
"Wykamp?" I asked.
"Yes; Wykamp and Nan Selter.
They must have been overtaken to
gether somewhere."
"They were," I said; and T told
him the story of the tragedy in the
canyon so far as it touched these
two.
"You say he tried to save her?
There was a hit of the man in him,
after all, wasn't there?"
Angus had shown no disposition
togo up to the farmhouse, where
Winifred was sitting on the porch,
and we had drawn aside to sit on
the embankment of the dry Byres
ditch.
"He did save her," I rejoined; "she
would have gone down in the first
rush of the wave over the top of the
dam if he hadn't reached her just in
the nick of time and carried her be
yond the sweep of it."
"And after that, they stopped to
look at it, you say. That was the en
gineer in him; betting on his own
game to the very last."
"They were safe enough, so far as
the cloudburst was concerned," I
amended; and then: "Have you
found Selter?"
"No; and that's a bit curious. His
wife says he went hunting on the
north mountain early in the morn
ing."
'You'll never find him—alive."
"What! How do you know?"
"Answer me one question, and
then I'll tell you. Does anyone sus
pect that it.was more than a cloud
burst?"
"Why, of course not. It was a
cloudburst. Kilgore and the llarnes
boys have been up the canyon beyond
the dam, and the track of it can be
traced for two miles."
"True; but if that were all the dam
would be standing at this moment,
Angus. It did stand the cloudburst,
and the pressure on was decreasing
rapidly when it went out."
"The mischief, you say! llovv do
yoti know all this, Jack?"
"As J have told you, J was within
50 yards of the dam when it went
out. And Jacob Seller was trying- to
cross it!"
"Good Lord! Isut what wrecked
it?"
"Seller, I think. There was an ex
plosion as if a 12-inch shell had
struck just above the masonry. He
had fired his infernal machine from
the mouth of the outlet tunnel, and
was scrambling' up to be out of
harm's way when he saw Nan and
Wykamp below the dam. When the
shell exploded he was trying- to
reach them—for Ivan's sake, I sup
pose."
Maepherson smoked his pipe quite
to extinction before he spoke again.
Then he said: "Jack, I'm a little
tangled on the ethics of this thing.
Could it do any possible harm to any
body if we keep this thing- to our
selves?"
"I don't see that it can. Jake has
paid the penalty. He's well out of
reach of any court of ours."
"That's what I was thinking. And
if we publish it, it'll likely make it
harder for a poor, miserable, desti
tute widow woman."
"I'm with you," T agreed. "And
now for your plans. I don't think
the Glenlivat people will trouble you
for a year or two, and the suit
against you will fall to the ground
without Wyknmp's evidence. Will
you go quietly back to your cow
punching and make hay while the
sun shines?"
[To Be Continued.]
ONE ON CONNECTICUT.
Incident Concerning Ancient l.nnaol
That Stntc—l'u n lull men t fur
Hlnnptaeiny,
In Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly
appears an entertaining account of the
ancient laws and law courts of Con
necticut.
George King, a blasphemous sailor,
says the author, Mr. 1!. J. Hendrick,
was excused with what he evidently re
garded as a mild punishment. He was
accused of uttering the words: "By
God," aboard a Dutchman —though
whether the place of the malefaction
increased the severity of the crime is
not clear. This was not King's first of
fense, as many of the good people tes
tified. He was brought before the gov
ernor. who sentenced him somewhat in
this style: "When the son of an
Egyptian blasphemed the name of God
it was not borne. It is the piercing
through the name of God in
passion which is the highest provoca
tion of God. Whereas the rule is let
your words be yea, yea, and nay nay,
and by a man's word he may lose his
life. 1 hope it was only a rash and sin
ful oath; some have been bored in the
tongue; others have (>een in the stocks
and their tongues putin a cloven stick.
But I hope this has not been disrespect
fully done, and so I sentence that you
be whipped, and in the interim be kept
in the marshal's hands." Neither King
nor any of his compatriots reached
that stage of contumely in their at
tacks upon public functionaries that
has immortalized one Capt. John
Stone, of Massachusets, who, in his
blasphemous assault on Mr. Justice
Ludlow, called him to his face Mr.
"Justass" Ludlow, and as a punishment
was fined £IOO and banished from the
colony under pain of death.
AN UP-COUNTRY RISING.
Grral IICIKM «»f lion, .lerem luh Union
Helped to Mnlte II In Word
Heupected.
In spite of the old saying, the law
yer who conducts his own case does
not always have a fool for a client.
Hon. Jeremiah Mason, who was ad
mitted to the New Hampshire bar in
1791, was a man of great height, but
during the early part of his profes
sional career, says the Green Bag,
was so slight and apparently frail in
build that, as the phrase is, "he
looked like a boy."
Traveling once in a sleigh after a
great snowstorm, he met a country
man in a similar conveyance. Mr.
.Mason turned his horse and sleigh
as far to one side as he conveniently
could, and courteously requested the
other person to do the same.
The other man, however, was stur
dy of figure and stubborn of nature,
and taking Mr. Mason's courteous
speech as a sign of a craven spirit,
he refused to budge an inch, and de
manded a free way for his vehicle.
At this Mr. Mason's eyes flashed.
The day was cold and he had sunk
deeply into the robes of his high
backed sleigh; but now he drew him
self up and sat erect on the seat for
a moment; then he began slowly to
divest himself of his wrappings and
to get upon his feet, gradually dis
playing his real proportions to the
astonished countryman, who ex
claimed:
"Say, mister, you needn't rise any
more. I'll turn out!"
Down for a I.ONH.
Jack—Yes, at one time I was deter
mined to marry Miss Golding, but
her father finally discouraged inc.
Tom—lndeed! llow did he do it?
"Well, really, I can't tell you now
whether it was a punt or a drop
kick."—Philadelphia Press.
CeiiNure and CritlrlMni.
Censure and criticism never hurt
anybody. If false they cannot hurt
you unless you are wanting iti manly
character, and if true, they show a
man his weak points and forewarn
him against failure and trouble.—
Gladstone.
The <>ooil-\n(iirf(l Mutt.
What we call a good-natured man
is one who is bald headed and can
stand being guyed about it.—Waiting
ton (la.) Democrat,
- ■ FROM— 1
IrVd^St
;u : VVA3HINCTO]fr
IFFL- /5 HENNETT r. HARRIS
ga% ING out, wild bells,
A joyful paen to tlie sa-
MW>j cred day,
A sort of gleesome, glad
some roundelay.
No dismal knells
Hut gay bob-'veyors of the triplest
kind,
To swell (lie northeast breeze—
On second thoughts, however, never
mind,
Please
King off.
It isn't, necessary, for the youth
Of this broad, grand
And prosperous and free and happy
land
Might flee and scoff.
They know already Feb. the 22d
Is the glad date upon
The which occurred the birth of
Washington
And when school doesn't keep.
. 1 112
And then the rest of us
Might fuss,
For, not compelled to work, we'd like
to sleep
A little late
On this particular eventful date,
Anil bells at such a time are not con
ducive
To anything 1
Hut language that's abusive.
So cut the ring.
Still,
It won't do any harm for us to fill
Our minds with calm and grateful
meditation
On George
The fatherly relation
He stood into his country and his
place
In peace and war and in the cardiac
Interiors of men; to trace
in fancy his career from Valley
Forge,
1
*' y
" V ?
P*
Or farther back,
To turn the fair historic sheet,
To where at last he landed with both
feet.
From him we all should learn
Oppression of taxgatherer to spurn
Or kick at
And most of us plain millionaires are
sick at
The way we have to give up for tax
ation
Our goodly gelt.
Representation
Don't cut much ice, so some of us
have felt.
And sought the happy, tax-free
Washington
For residence.
As evidence
Of patriotic hatred of oppression.
In which respect the brutal tax as
sessor '
Than any Hessian
Is, on the whole, a rather worse
transgressor.
Re like G. W.
Or be like him as you're able to be.
And conscience won't be very apt to
trouble you.
We
Should be dignified,
Courageous, always on our good be
havior.
Magnanimous and great,
Seek the ideal and eschew the snide.
It isn't hard.
This bard
Has tried the game, with some suc
cess for years,
More than he cares to state.
We cannot all be our loved coun
try's savior—
We've found
The offices are too few togo round—
And, it appears
Widows of taste and prosperity aro
rare,
Still one may scare
l'p something even at this latter day
And make it pay.
His country's Father! We own to a
mild
Species of wonder
H ovv
He'd feel if he could only see ifc
now—
What in Thunder
He would think of his Childs!
That's merely, by the way.
We'd hate
With truthfulness to undertake t<*
say
What he would think.
It's probable he never learned to
wink.
But let us celebrate.
Let young America stand up in rows
and wave
The starry flag about
And chant a rousing stave
Or two anent the same.
The little and spout pieces that with
care they've conned,
And thus revive the patriotic flame.
1 )oggoned
If there is not some hope left fot
us yet.
Let
You and I
ltesolve that we will never tell a lie
Except at stern necessity's decree,
Although we own we can.
There is no doubt, in fact, of our
ability
In that line, but as the famed cherry
tree
Fell to Oom George's hatchet, let us
lop
Our faults and get where he did and
then stop.