Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
Up in that dark grove dwelt a woman who had been his friend. And he skulked about her home, gripping a gun stealthily as an Indian, a man without place or people or purpose. Above her hovered the shadow of grim, hidden, secret power. No queen could have given more royally out of a bounteous store than Jane Withersteen gave her people, and likewise to those unfortunates whom her people hated.
But let me just once see this clearly wholly; then I can go on dreaming till the thing falls. I've got to tell Jane Withersteen. I've dangerous trips to take. I've work here to make comfort for this girl. She's mine. I'll fight to keep her safe from that old life. I've already seen her forget it. I love her.
He, after disrupting the calm tenor of her peace, after bringing down on her head the implacable hostility of her churchmen, after teaching her a bitter lesson of life he was to be her salvation. And he turned away again, this time shaken to the core of his soul. Jane Withersteen was the incarnation of selflessness. He experienced wonder and terror, exquisite pain and rapture.
Jane Withersteen looked at the radiant Fay and lived again in her happiness. And at last excitement had been communicated to the old gun-man. "Shore we're goin' to live with Fay an' John, an' be near Venters an' Bess, an' see the blacks again, Jane.... An' Venters will tell you, as he did me, how Wrangle run Black Star off his legs!" All connected with that early start was sweet, sad, hopeful.
No doubt, Jane thought, the rider, in his almost superhuman power of foresight, saw behind the horizon the dark, lengthening shadows that were soon to crowd and gloom over him and her and little Fay. Jane Withersteen awaited the long-deferred breaking of the storm with a courage and embittered calm that had come to her in her extremity. Hope had not died.
In due time he would reveal to Fay Larkin that he knew her. How the thought thrilled him! She might deny, might persist in her fear, might fight to keep her secret. But he would learn it hear her story hear what had become of Jane Withersteen and Lassiter and if they were alive, which now he believed he would find them and he would take them and Fay out of the country.
She lost sight of him in the dust, again she thought she saw the black, riderless now, rear and drag himself and fall. Lassiter had been thrown lost! Then he reappeared running out of the dust into the sage. He had escaped, and she breathed again. Spellbound, Jane Withersteen watched this stupendous millwheel of steers. Here was the milling of the herd.
Soon she discovered one of the hanging gun sheaths, and she dragged it up and began tugging at the huge black handle of the gun. Jane Withersteen repressed an exclamation. What significance there was to her in the little girl's efforts to dislodge that heavy weapon!
He had felt the shadow of an unseen hand; he had watched till he saw its dim outline, and then he had traced it to a man's hate, to the rivalry of a Mormon Elder, to the power of a Bishop, to the long, far-reaching arm of a terrible creed. That unseen hand had made its first move against Jane Withersteen.
If he does not make haste I'll go a-courting myself up to Withersteen House." There was laughter and further bantering by the Bishop, and then mild talk of village affairs, after which he took his leave, and Jane was left with her friend, Mary Brandt. "Jane, you're not yourself. Are you sad about the rustling of the cattle? But you have so many, you are so rich."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking