Part 34 (1/2)
”No, you'll have to do that--I never could--she ht--disbelieve
What's ive the word It won't be long, perhaps a day I want to go free a little while yet, for I've got some work to do”
Burrell rose to his feet and staitated, and his ht to lay hold of this new thing that confronted him
”Why, yes, yes--of course--don't come until you're ready,” heof his words ”To be sure, I'otten I was a jailer, and--and all that” He said it sneeringly, and with a measure of contempt for his office; then he turned suddenly to the trader, and his voice was rich and deep-pitched with feeling
”John Gale,” he said, ”you're the bravest man I ever knew, and the best” He choked a bit ”You sacrificed all that life irl was a baby, and nohen she has coive up your blood for her By God! You are a man! I want your hand!”
In spite of himself he could not restrain the ripped the toil-worn paled and bent beneath the burden of his life-long, fadeless love, who, in turn, was powerfully affected by the youngand his unexpected words of praise The old man looked up a trifle shyly
”Then you don't doubt no part of it?”
”Certainly not”
”Soured nobody would believe azed unseeingly into the flame of his lahter is as great and as holy as your love for the iven, if I had nothing but a memory to live with me” Then he inquired, irrelevantly; ”But what about Bennett, Mr Gale? You say you never found him?”
The trader answered, after a e” At which his companion exclaimed, ”I'd love to meet him in your stead!”
Gale seemed seized with a desire to speak, but, even while he hesitated, out of the silent night there ca briskly, as if the oere in haste and knehither he was bound Up the steps they cahtly; then the roo and echoed with a perenal
Evidently this man rapped on the board door to awaken and alarm, for instead of his knuckles he used soun-butt
”Lieutenant Burrell! Lieutenant Burrell!” a gruff voice cried
”Who's there?” called the young ot work for you to do! Open up, I say! This is Ben Stark!”
CHAPTER XV
AND A KNOT TIGHTENED
A day of shattered hopes is a desolate thing, but the night of such a day is desolate indeed In all his life Poleon Doret had never sunk to such depths of despondency, for his optioodness of life forbade it Therefore, when darkness caht and hope were left to him after Necia's stormy intervieith the Lieutenant
The arrival of the freight steamer afforded hinment for the store, and that was quickly disposed of; so, leaving the other citizens of Flale over their private il, which finally becahts, or at least to drown thehter of Stark's saloon Being but a child by nature, his an to gamble, as usual with hard luck, for the cards had ever been unkind to his, however--he merely craved the occupation; and it was this that induced hih ordinarily he would not have tolerated even tacitly such a truce to his dislikes As it was, he crouched in a corner, his hat pulled down over his brow, his swarthy face a darker hue beneath the shadow, losing steadily, only now and then showing a flash of white teeth as he saw his o What mattered loss to him?
He had no more need of money now than Necia had of his love He would spend the dollars he had eked and scraped and saved for her as she had spent the treasures of his heart, and now that the one had brought him no return he wished to be rid of the other, for he was shortly to go again in search of his ”New Country,” where no old half sojourney, far to the West and North--a journey that none of his kind had ever fared back froo
Runnion annoyed hiood-fortune had fired the a as the one natural recourse of his ilk As the irony of fate would have it, he hat the Canadian lost, together with the stakes of various others who played for a ti softly at the cards
It was shortly after ht that Stark came into the place Poleon was not too absorbed in his own fortunes to fail to notice the extraordinary ferocity and exhilaration of the saloon-keeper, nor that his face was keener, his nostrils thinner, his walkthan usual when he spoke to Runnion
”Come here”