The Desert and The Sown

h manlike brevity, in a strong, provincial hand. They took up much of her time, and

en of the Owyhees were taking council under their winter blankets. The nights were still, the mornings rimy with hoarfrost. Fogs

e sitting-room at an unaccustomed hour, finding the lady at her letters as u

to see about the

om the north. Would you st

weeping, but at sight of Paul's mother she rose and stood pi

olonel stoutly. "Paul was all right at last a

upon a letter which she held at arm's length, feelin

ow. Sit down, madam. Suppose I give you Mr. Winslow's repor

t know," wh

with a few picked men from Lemhi, the Indian Reservation, you know. I couldn't have sent a better man; the thing hasn't got into the local papers even. My object, of course, has been to save unnecessary alarm. Mr. Winslow has just got

mother questioned in a hard,

madam, in charge

ould speak plain!" Moy

man was slow and of course difficult over such a trail. They put together a sort of horse-litter made of pine poles and carried him on that, slung between two mules tandem. A beastly business, winding and twisting over fallen timber, hugging the ca?on wall, near a thousand feet down-'Impassable' the trail is marked, on the government military maps. This first day's march was so discou

announced her appreciatio

olonel paused and gustily cleared his throat. "They were up against it right then and there, and the party s

s. "Was not that a very strange way to divide? Among them all,

ain of the journey. Rather an unusual case," the colonel added dryly. "In my e

gnant pain. "Such a strange division! One man left alone-to nurse, a

our place, madam, that my son was the man who made that choice. But setting conduct aside, for we are n

. Bogardus opened he

too soft to bear. A little later, when the cold has formed a crust, our men can get in on snowshoes. There is nothing for it

stood there a moment turning over his papers. Behind his b

to his father? Did he eve

ed; she cou

a lifetime!" said

mother left the room she rushed upon her father, crying: "Tell me the tru

lonel coolly. "They were in

ted a wounded comrade,

ing-the Lord knows what! Then, add the winter and what they had seen and heard of that. Anyway, you can afford to be ea

atisfied with

and to save his own skin."

se high trails, and scared the mule, and in trying to kick himself free the beast fell off the trail-mule and meat both gone. They got tired of carrying their stuff and made a raft to float it down

I laughed at his way with firearms. Wretched fool and snob that I was! As if I cared! I thought of what other people would say. You remember,-he went shooting up the gulch

s straight in this world-not even orders, you'll find. But we have to take it straight and leave the muddles and the blunders as they are. That's the brave man's courage and the b

adache, her mother dully gave out, with no apparent expectation that any one would accept this excuse for the girl's complete withdrawal. The letter, she told Moya,

New York with Christine, who was plainly unfit to bear a long siege of suspense. There she could leave the girl with friends and learn what particulars could be gathered from the Bowens, who