The Strange Case of Cavendish

left her, after placing the flaring lamp on a chair, and went pattering back down the bare hall, sh

ering to the floor was a dingy strip of rag-carpet. The bed was a cot, shapeless, and propped up on one side by the iron leg of some veranda bench, while the open window looked

s, while directly beneath, although out of her view, a quarrel threatened to lead to serious consequences. She pulled down the window to shut out these sounds, but the room became so stuffy and hot without ev

was possible, after turning the flickering flames of the lamp as low as she dared, and then finally blowing it out altogether. The glare from the s

. The misshapen bed brought no comfort to her tired body, for no matter how she

to find time in which to cultivate nerves. Her newspaper training had been somewhat strenuous, and had won her a reputation in New York for unusual fearlessness and d

, listening, but the disturbance ceased almost immediately, and she finally lay down again, her heart still beating wildly. Her thoughts, never still, wandered over

way in which he acted, the whole unobtrusive bearing of the man. Then, as they had walked that long mile together in the darkness, she had learned things about him-little glimpses of his past, and of dawning ho

ing his domicile entirely, struggled with her latch in a vain endeavour to gain entrance. She was upon her feet, when companions arrived and led the invader elsewhere, their loud laughter dyin

ing, following so unexpectedly the dismal racket of the night, seemed to fairly shock her into consciousness. Could this be Haskell? Could this indeed be the inferno into which she had been precipitated from the train in the dark

tely following pay-day at the mines. As Miss Donovan, now thoroughly awake, and obsessed by the memory of those past hours of horror, cautious

lying in the middle of the road, and a dejected pony or two, still at the hitching-rack, waiting a delayed rider. But, except for these mute reminiscences of past frolic, the long street seem

tartled, scarcely comprehending, but the next instant wandered to the marvellous scene revealed beyond that squalid street

behind a clump of willows, only to reappear in broader volume. Beyond, seemingly at no distance at all, yet bordered by miles of turf and desert, the patches of vivid green interspersed with the darker colouring of spruce, and the outcropping of brown rocks, the towering peaks of a great mountain-chain swept up into the clear blue of the

sh waist, and to brighten up the shoes, somewhat soiled by the tramp through the thick dust the evening before. Indeed, it was a very charming young woman, her dress and appearance quite sufficiently Eastern, who finally ventured out into the rough hall, and down the single flight of stairs. The hotel was silent, except for the heavy breathing of a sleeper in one of the

Towser; the lady don't likely want yer nosin' around. Yer a bi

," she answered. "Is it

yer intendin' ter stay yere, ye bet

I do not know yet th

yere on

may require on

er up a bit more comfortable-like. Thar'll be

know what I decide the moment I k

l's head. "Leastwise, he ain't been trained none. I just natu

eds, and more or less ornamented by tin cans, and as she advanced she encountered only two pedestrians-a cowboy, so drunk that he hung desperately to the upper board of a fence in order to let her pass, staring at her as if she was some vision, and a burly fellow i

nd. Evidently from the thinness of the letter, Farriss had but few instructions to give a

upon the floor was open-wide open-its contents disarranged. Some one had